/ Dream Weaver

by Anokhi Admin

Dream Weaver

May 15, 2013

Singer-songwriter, Roveena is ready to tackle today’s pop music world — one instrument at a time.

If you haven’t heard of this Canadian songstress yet, trust us, you will want to. With such an amazing voice, Roveena knows how to make best of her music.

This Toronto musician has been wowing her hometown audience in various public forums. She performed at two Toronto Blue Jay games at the Rogers Centre in 2011. She was also invited to perform at City TV’s Breakfast Television, the city’s popular morning show.

Roveena’s strong passion and commitment in music has her duly recognized from mainstream radio to the arena. She now has been garnering fans even beyond Toronto and Canada, buoyed by being one of the top 10 finalists of the singing competition show TVI’s Superstar, not to mention her savvy self-marketing prowess with social media. This songstress surmises, “Social media gives me a chance to connect with my fans one-on-one and they love that I can reach out to them, hear what they have to say and answer any questions they might have.”

Roveena and her family emigrated from Sri Lanka to Canada in 1983. They settled in Montreal upon their arrival, and moved to Toronto after 10 years. This family girl looks up to her parents as role models in her life. “My parents literally sacrificed everything they had to come to Canada, to give my brother and I opportunities we might not have had if we stayed in Sri Lanka.”

Her parents are the roots of her success. Her father worked hard in helping Roveena perfect her voice from the age of six. There weren’t any singing lessons, just her and her father sharing their love for music and it was under his tutelage in which she honed her singing voice. She would listen to vocally challenging songs by Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey as homework. By the age of eight, she learned to play guitar and started piano at 11. When most kids were playing outside, Roveena was inside learning to sing the latest Whitney song.

Roveena has been working extra hard this year to wrap up her EP (extended play) entitled Perfect World, which is set to be released this August and will be found on iTunes, Amazon.com and on her website. The five songs found on the EP are original material from Sony Music Publishing and local writers, and also includes a tune that she co-wrote with her producer. For Roveena, the EP holds unique elements of both the Eastern and Western musical influence.

In the meantime, she has been skillfully using YouTube as an outlet to reach her broad spectrum of fans with her covers of recent hits including Katy Perry’s “Part of Me” and The Civil War’s “Safe and Sound,” which features Taylor Swift. We have high hopes for this artist who is fearless in her ambitions. And she understands that with all ambitions it’s the journey that holds the most meaning, “I find that the path that I have travelled thus far has inspired me in so many ways. That it has really helped shape who I am as an artist, Roveena.

For more info visit www.roveena.ca

BY: GAYATHIRI THEVARAJAH / PUBLISHED IN THE HEALTH & WELLNESS ISSUE, SUMMER 2012
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF ROVEENA