Eliza Rhinelander, joined by family and friends including banjo-wielding singer-songwriter Lia Ashkenas, will return to The Carleton on Thursday, November 13th. Show time is 7:30 pm. Their sets will include Eliza’s original music from her album The Precipice, as well as unreleased original songs, and a healthy dose of her own takes on traditional Celtic and Americana folk tunes. Tickets are $20 +HST
Eliza Rhinelander is a 20 year old singer-songwriter born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The daughter of a fiddler and a sailor, she grew up with one foot in sea and one on shore. Whether aboard a wooden schooner or playing folk music around a bonfire, she was always surrounded by stories. It wasn’t long before she started telling her own.
In high school, she wrote the songs that became her debut EP, Good Old Days, and twice won Best Lyrics in Write the World’s Songwriting Competition. It was in this time that she met her producer, friend, and frequent collaborator Silas Bonnell, who produced and played on Good Old Days, and was featured in Youth Art Connection’s Emerge Halifax, as well as Halifax Urban Folk Festival’s Youth Songwriters’ Circle.
Rhinelander has played around the Maritimes, from Lunenburg Folk Festival to the Ship Pub in St, John’s, Newfoundland, to venues around Halifax from Gus’s Pub, to The Seahorse Tavern, and of course, The Carleton.
Also very active in the Nova Scotia Theatre Scene, Rhinelander received a Merritt nomination for Best Score for her compositions for Shakespeare by the Sea’s Twelfth Night (2023) and also composed for their As You Like It (2024) starring Nova Scotia favourite Ian Sherwood, to rave reviews. A 2023 and 2024 nominee for Best Songwriter in The Coast’s Best of Halifax Readers’ Choice Awards, CBC’s Tom Power says she is “one of the most exciting songwriters coming out of the East Coast right now.”
Her new album, The Precipice, is a coming of age story, consisting of songs she wrote in her final year of high school and her first year of university. While staying true to her folk roots, she explores elements of indie, country, pop, and rock, with her trademark soaring voice and evocative lyricism. The album features collaborations with Halifax musicians Taylor Jensen and Jade Bennett, and is produced by Silas Bonnell. The Precipice was released February 5, 2025.