When Tonia Evans Cianciulli sings there is color, shimmer and truth. The music is a part of her not only on an emotional level, but for much of her repertoire, the very land she was born into. “I was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland. So I’m a Newfy. I’m very, very proud of my Newfoundland roots.” Her family has also shaped her musical training and original compositions. Her local church provided not only a stage but her first teacher as well, however as she got older it became clear her gift was different.
“I sang for my uncle Brian,” the piece she chose was “Wind Beneath My Wings” because Tonia believed her future lay in popular music. But her uncle told her, “I really hear a classical sound in your voice. I really think that you need to be classically trained.” Brian knew well of what he was speaking, as a volunteer on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Opera Company he had heard many great voices. “He said, ‘I’m going to give you a task. I’m having a Christmas party, and I want you to perform ‘Ave Maria’, ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ and ‘White Christmas’.” Tonia was not impressed. “I’m thinking in my mind like, ‘Latin, I have to learn Latin?!’” Her uncle shared an album of Kiri Te Kanawa for inspiration but she was still unconvinced. “I remember thinking, I am not listening to this stuff. You know, I’m in grade seven, or eight. I’m just thinking, this is like, old people stuff. I have no interest in this but my mom said, please just give it a chance. So I did.” Famous last words. A chance was all opera needed, Tonia was besotted. “The nail in the coffin for me was him playing records of Maria Callas and discussing the emotion in her voice and how dedicated to her craft she was. She just blew me away. All of a sudden, I started reading all these books on her and just really diving into opera.”
Tonia continued studying opera at a performing arts high school and then Western University where she took part in various operas. But though the love remained, the focus of her life changed as Tonia tells us, “I really wanted to have a family… I had to build my life around the family.” Because of this she sought creative ways to keep music in her life in a way that “best suited our lifestyle.”
The focus on family brought a surprising project into Tonia’s life. “About five or six years ago now, I really did want to dive deeper into my Newfoundland music roots. My grandfather had gifted me a book on this opera singer (Georgina Stirling).” The book proved limited in its knowledge about the singer but it was enough to lead Tonia to the realization there was a sort of kinship between herself and the famed soprano. “I instantly discovered that a lot of our repertoire lined up, we had a lot of the same repertoire in common. So I just started planning a program of music that outlined her life, and some spoken dialogue in between each piece.”
Tonia performed across Newfoundland with her program. “I wanted to really educate people on Georgina Sterling… she’s a jewel, people need to know her and be proud of what she accomplished.” Her passion project led Tonia to discover a file at the Queen Elizabeth Library that contained a lot of personal scores and letters. “It just blew my mind, I was sitting there with my grandfather, and we looked at each other and said, basically, at the same time, ‘We need to write a new book on her because there’s all this information that we have, that really fills in the gaps on her life.’” The project took two years and led Tonia to the works of another Newfoundland artist, folk singer and writer Ron Hynes. “He wrote the song ‘Marie’ based on what her career would have been like, and I really felt that that song was like a perfect bridge, from when she was born to now to really help people understand what her career would have been like.”
Georgina would have had a lonely journey across the ocean to Paris with only sparse communication with her family back home. Along with her success, Georgina also battled demons. “I’ve always been really interested in what other performers go through in sort of the behind the scenes aspects of being a performer, the psychological issues that we deal with, you know, the imposter syndrome. I know for sure artists, in general, are much more prone to anxiety and depression. But we also are very resilient, because we have our art. So it’s a sort of double edged sword, right? We have this melancholy side so we’re able to really interpret emotions and share it with the world and help them discover why they feel certain ways. But then it also can take us down. So I’ve always been interested in how other artists and singers cope with these sorts of psychological things.”
Tonia’s interest has also led to another passion project, a blog where she speaks to creatives in all areas of art about their struggles and motivations. “I think that writing that book was sort of an extension of that. I know that Georgina Sterling also struggled with depression. She also struggled with alcoholism from time to time. What I discovered, through researching and writing that book, is that people have this perception that in the opera world, there would be no sort of abuse of alcohol or drugs, because it’s such a pure industry or a pure art form. But we’re all human. And opera singers go through just as much stress, maybe even more. We have to learn a language, you know, proper vocal technique, staging, blocking, all that stuff, and you get on stage and you present this perfect image to the audience. And yet they have no idea the struggles that you’re going through in your personal life. They have no idea the inner chatter that’s going on in your mind.”
Tonia reveals she’s faced the same doubts and jokingly says she doesn’t believe any singer who claims they haven’t. “I’m addicted to reading self help books, I’ve gone to therapy most of my life. I think that everyone should have a therapist. I’m now doing my Master’s in Counseling Psychology, because I just find that it’s so important to know who we are, why we are the way we are, what happened in our childhood, so that we can heal it and be the best versions of ourselves, in our relationships in our lives, with our friends, family, and in our career, because obviously, a lot of those bad habits or things that may have happened to us in our childhood can affect us performance wise to, especially vocally. If you’re a high anxiety person, then that’s going to affect your performance because your voice is tight.”
One thing that has proved very useful to Tonia is visualization. “Let’s say I had a concert coming up, anytime I would get anxious about the concert… I would flip to a polaroid image in my mind that I had already crafted: what does it look like, five minutes after the successful completion of that performance? You’re standing there and you’re down on the stage, people are clapping, you have a huge smile on your face, because you’re so proud of the work that you put into it. You delivered a performance successfully and authentically, maybe you have flowers in your hands, maybe you see your family in the front row clapping. Really getting specific on the details of that performance.”
The book entitled, “The Heart’s Obsession” led Tonia to a companion album of the same title with Citadel House records. The collection is lovingly sung and Tonia’s daughter joins for the track “Daddy.” Highlights include ‘Marie’ ‘The Holy City’ ‘Ave Maria’ ‘The Last Chord’ and ‘The Last Rose of Summer.’ Tonia shares that ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ in particular holds special meaning. “When Georgina came back home after her career, the home that she died in, had the most magnificent rose garden on her property. She would tend to the roses and pick roses and bring them to people in the hospital and stuff. I always like to end my concerts with the ‘Last Rose of Summer’. Just a really poignant way to end the program and thinking about how her life ended in service to others, and just being kind and loving to other people and generous.”
Ron Hynes led not only to the inclusion of “Marie” but an entirely separate album of his music called, “Beckon Me Home.” Ron’s “very poignant storytelling” appealed to Tonia. “I selected all of my favorite songs – whatever song gave me goosebumps. I’m like, yep, recording that one and recording that one. Because I know if it gives me goosebumps, it’s gonna give other people goosebumps… I love all the tracks on that album.I still cry when I sing them sometimes, because the lyrics are so simple, but they’re so poignant and meaningful.”
Tonia next released an album of Hymns entitled, “Hymns of the Heart.” Tonia’s grandfather was a minister and she had spent her life performing in various churches. “I love hymns. I just love hymns. There’s something about hymns that just speaks so deeply to me and provides me with such comfort and peace and goosebumps.” The album featured a new composition entitled, “My Voice Belongs to Him,” which she co-wrote with Vaughn Harbin. “I said to him, ‘Let’s collaborate on a hymn, I want to write a hymn about singing hymns, and how powerful they are.’” The project was completed during the pandemic. “It was more for myself at the time. I always wanted to record an album of hymns and this sort of gave me the time to do it.” One of her goals with the recording was to make the music intimate. “I want people to listen to it almost in a meditative way and let it wash over them, and heal them and bring them comfort and peace as well.”
Songwriting has become important to Tonia who took on the tremendous task of homeschooling her children. “I was like, my family comes first but I still need that creative outlet. So I started writing music. I always sort of had it in the back of my head where I just wanted to try and fool around with that and see if I was any good at it. But it was also a therapeutic release for me just like journaling could be or keeping a diary or whatever.” Creating her own material provided a sense of freedom Tonia had not yet experienced. “Writing music for me was, I think, a way of busting out of the operatic straitjacket. In the opera industry, a lot of it’s changed and is still evolving, but there is definitely that purist attitude of, ‘If you’re going to be an opera singer you can only sing opera’. Well you know what, people need to make a living too! And if you have this gift that you’ve been blessed from God with, this beautiful voice, you should sing whatever the heck kind of music you want, as long as you’re being careful and safe with your instrument.” Tonia has tried many different forms of creative expression but this one has truly left its mark. “I’m busting out of this box that I feel that you’ve put me in and sharing my authentic voice and wanting to help people in the process, because I’m writing about real life stuff that people actually go through… It’s an album for when you’re in the trenches, and how you get out of that, and things like that. So it’s been a really powerful experience for me writing music.”
Tonia’s latest musical offering “Thousand Cries” has been with her for a few years and has changed format along the way. “It was, unfortunately, released as a dance song. But the lyrics were definitely of a more melancholy, deeper meaning. During the pandemic, I re-recorded it as more of I guess, ethereal folk, I don’t really even know what sort of genre you’d put it into.”
The single “Thousand Cries” is a song to her inner child. “I guess about waves of anxiety and depression that I had experienced throughout my life through things I went through with my childhood. Knowing that my daughter had gone through some of her own battles I said,’ I think it would be really cool if we did the video and it featured both of us’. So me as a woman who still struggles from time to time, but who is now equipped herself with the tools on how to rebound quicker, and self care and all that sort of thing. Then to also have her in the video to represent not only my daughter and our teenagers that can struggle with this stuff, especially in this day and age with social media that can really mess them up. She also sort of played the role of my inner child. So it was a really impactful experience for us to share together.”
She tells us that when they saw the video for the first time there were tears. “I really feel blessed that we had the opportunity to do that.”
“Thousand Cries” is available to stream everywhere now. Stay tuned for more original music coming from Tonia. We’ll be excited to hear the latest addition to her impressive catalogue.
