This story is featured in the July issue of 519 Magazine, which can be picked up at more than 200 locations in Windsor-Essex, Chatham, Leamington, Sarnia and London.
Windsor is a city blessed with great musical talent. From pop, rock and jazz to country, classical and everything in between, music fans can enjoy a vast array of entertainment on almost any night of the week.
Every once in a while, a new voice emerges from the crowd – St. John Vianney Catholic Elementary School 7th grade student Krisalyn Bellavance is one such voice.
Krisalyn, a fun, caring and optimistic French-Canadian girl who is also known by her stage name Krisalyn Bell, is no stranger to performing. She’s currently a member of the group Girl Pow-R, a pop-rock group of girls aged 11 to 16, who debuted their first original single KRISI on November 24th last year. Since May 2017, the group has performed more than 60 shows, gaining fans of all ages.
“Girl Pow-R has given me a lot of stage experience,” Krisalyn told 519 Magazine. “We’ve done over 60 shows and now I’m never scared to go on stage anymore. I used to be a shy person and I’m not so shy anymore. I’ve met so many people and you can’t really be shy when being a singer, so I’ve definitely come out of my shell. I always love singing to people on stage.”
Like every member of Girl Pow-R, Krisalyn has adopted a special social cause to raise awareness for. She decided to be an advocate for Youth Homelessness and hidden poverty.
“Each girl in Girl Pow-R has a social cause, my social cause is advocating for Youth Homelessness and hidden poverty,” she said. “You may not see it a lot in Windsor like you do in big cities like Toronto but there is a term called Couch Surfing which is when you stay at friends’ homes or family members’ homes, but you don’t have a place of your own and many people don’t realize this is also homelessness. I work with Angela Yakonich to help bring awareness and my mom also helped in the count this year to help bring ‘real’ numbers locally to the government to provide more homes and provide more services.”
Being in Girl Pow-R has really brought the young singer a new sense of confidence and an even greater sense of responsibility.
“Girl Pow-R to me means self-confidence, strength, empowerment, making a difference and unity,” she explained. “We are out to inspire the world that you can do anything that you put your mind to. All of our songs are inspiring songs, so when you listen to them we hope that you get the positive message. Girl Pow-R isn’t just for girls, boys can enjoy it too.”
The group will be performing throughout Ontario this year and they’re scheduled to record more songs in the coming months. As she waits for Girl Pow-R to resume, she continues to audition for competitions and is planning on recording her own original music with Brad Shank of Windsor’s Hip Hop Community.
Krisalyn was recently selected as an official competitor in an online competition for The Voice. She was chosen from thousands of Instagram Knockout entries in the Chicago market to duel it out in an Insta Story on The Voice Casting Instagram page in early June. She then went to Chicago for an audition on June 9 and received a red card and callback for a second audition. The judges loved her on stage skills and encouraged her to return in the future.
Krisalyn is experienced in talent competitions and has been competing in them since she was 10-years-old. She has won a few, including Rise 2 Fame’s Junior Grand Champion at the London Western Fair and received the Broadway Star in Troy Michigan’s Access Broadway Competition for Best Vocalist.
She found her voice when she was only 8-years-old:
“I was at Cast Away Bay near Cedar Point and there was a kid’s karaoke night, so I sang “Let it Go” from Frozen. When I finished singing, tons of people were coming up to me saying that I had a beautiful voice. That gave me the confidence to enter a couple local competitions and it’s just grown from there.”
Krisalyn has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles under the name Krisalyn Bell (@krisalyn_singing on Instagram) and a YouTube page with more than 30 different videos.
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