Spotlight: Peterborough Singer-Songwriter Andrea Gauster

Singer-songwriter Andrea Gauster, who attended St. Peter's Secondary School in Peterborough, is now recording her first full length album—it's due out early August—and an Eastern Canada tour will follow in August, along with a CD Release Party at Supermarket in Toronto on August 26th.

Gauster, who is also in med school at Queen's University, explains to PtboCanada how her music career got started:

"I always played guitar and sang but rarely did so publicly (major stage fright)... until my sister asked me to sing at her wedding, for which I wrote my first song, 'I Knew', in 2008. The recording studio Euphonic Sound in Toronto was offering free studio time... I went in to record 'I Knew' so my sister could have a tangible copy of the song.

I met James Pew (my producer) at the studio and he liked what he heard, asked for more, and encouraged me to do an EP with him. My first album Reverie was born! The rest is history."

Gauster, who's back in Peterborough for the summer (when not recording or touring), says it's tricky juggling her music career with school but plans to continue to pursue both. In September, she returns to Kingston to begin her second year of med school but hopes to continue playing live shows within Ontario until next summer when she can tour again.

Here's a promo video that looks at the making of the new album:

And here's this cute song, "Follow Me", Gauster wrote about Twitter that we're totally digging:

[Andrea Gauster back in the studio; Follow Me - Andrea Gauster's Twitter Tune; Andrea Gauster on Twitter; Andrea Gauster on Facebook; Andrea Gauster on MySpace; Andrea Gauster - CBC Radio 3; YouTube - andreagauster's Channel]

[Related: Peterborough's Music & Arts Scene Rocks (Exhibit A: Bear Trees)]