Budding Musician, Scholarship Recipient, & Former CapU Student
Mayumi Izumi // Contributor
Former Capilano University student,Savannah Read, has accomplished great things during the pandemic. She won a Beedie Luminaries Scholarship, completed her first year at Capilano University, just began the music program at The University of Victoria, and released a single, as well as an EP!
“I don’t want to say [the pandemic] helped me, but it definitely motivated me to record my music and share it properly,” says Read. “It gave me the time to sit with what I had and think, ‘what can I make out of this? What can I put out to the world?’”
Her first single, “Patience” tells the story of being shunned by someone you love or someone you like as a friend and feeling let down. Yet continuing to keep going anyways, telling yourself that everything is going to be okay. She didn’t want the song to be depressing, so she tried to keep an upbeat feel to it.
She accomplishes this with a catchy, modern jazzy vibe that makes you feel everything yet want to sing her poetic lyrics like no one’s there.
“That’s all I did after school ended in March and I still couldn’t see anyone,” she recalls. While most of us were complaining about our online classes and exams, Read was working on her EP, Honey, There’s A Lot of Trouble,“I just spent basically every day recording my songs in my bedroom. Trying to see what I could do with them… but it definitely motivated me to put [the EP] out because I suddenly had time to. And it seemed like people were excited about it and we did it… I think music was a big part of the pandemic. People coming together.”
It took Read about a year to complete the EP, beginning in the summer of 2019 after she graduated high school until 2020—where she spent time collecting songs she had written to create her EP, focusing on themes of complicated situations.
Read comes from a musical family as both her father and sister are musicians. Her father gave her a guitar when she was five years old and she immediately began singing, and soon after, writing songs. At seven, she started to perform in talent competitions and she attended Nootka Elementary in East Vancouver where she was enrolled in the Fine Arts program.
When asked how she balances her musical aspirations and classes at UVic, Read admits she has just begun the music program, so she feels that she hasn’t had to juggle the two yet.
Along with all of the mentioned accomplishments, Read also participated in CBC Searchlight 2021, performed at the Granville Promenade, and was enrolled in a 6-month music masterclass, Cypher, that is partnered with Sarah McLachlan’s School of Music.
Even with all of her success, Read remains humble. She still plans to continue her musical studies at UVic, even if a record producer wanted to sign her because, “there is no guarantee…” She offers advice to aspiring musicians that may be dreaming of a career as a singer, andsays, “DO IT!”.If you would like to listen to Read’s music, visit her YouTube channel @Savannah Read and to find out about her upcoming performances follow her Instagram @readsav.