Bella Frances is a triple threat performer and songwriter from Orillia, ON, who has made an impression on the music scene through her distinct new generation folk-pop sound and lyric-driven songs. Over the summer and fall of 2023 Bella released her first 4 singles and self-directed music video. The twenty-one-year-old singer-songwriter has collaborated with Juno-winning producers Rob Szabo (Peter Katz, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie) and Joel Schwartz (Jadea Kelly, Kelley Smith). Her July 2024 debut EP is a follow-up collaboration with Szabo, generously supported by the OAC.

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Bella offers a fresh perspective as not only a young artist, but a purposely youthful one. She passionately expresses her most intimate stories and feelings about life at the dawn of her twenties, but with an almost childlike lightness. To see Bella perform is to observe someone who has come to understand that “adult” is overrated, and seriousness isn’t necessary to have maturity. Bella leans into this unique facet of her personality, bringing her free-spirited zest for life, sensitivity and expressiveness to her songwriting, the studio, and the stage.

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Audience members and festival-goers who have seen Bella perform at festivals like Springtide, Roots North, Summerfolk Youth Discoveries and Mariposa Folk Festival all tend to highlight the same traits in their praise: her confident storytelling, intimate vocals and poetic lyricism. Bella strives to create songs that paint pictures in the minds of her listeners and engage the heart with compelling narratives that, while deeply personal, also speak to universal feelings.

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"I once heard that Picasso said that in order to draw, one must close her eyes and sing. In order for me to sing and write songs, I need to close my eyes and draw," the self-described pop-poet says of her creative process.