Anna van Riel is Byron's newest emerging singer/songwriter. After making the decision to flap her wings and prove that Kiwi's can actually fly, van Riel moved to Byron Bay in February this year to pursue her budding music career. Her recent endeavors include two successful New Zealand tours and a solo performance at The Confluence Music Festival in the Himalayas. She has taken her beloved guitar (Livingston) and ukulele (Sausage) far and wide and has performed twice for Prince Albert of Monaco. Anna's sound has been likened to a combination of Joni Mitchell, Evanescence and Ani Difranco. Be sure to …

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Latest Blog Entry

Howdy Folks,

So, in this latest update I'm pleased to announce, that after all that hard work writing and creating songs, recording and mastering, applying and failing, all my hard work is finally starting to shows some fatter fruits. Woohoo!

On August 11th after recieving six nominations in folk, jazz, protest, children's, urban/funk, country song in the NCEIA Dolphin Awards, I was awarded with a shiny glass Dolphin trophy (that is NOT shaped like a Dolphin) for the Children's song of the year.

I have to tell you a little bit about how my winning song 'Mr H20' came to be.

I wrote the song late last year after I journied over the Himalayas on the back of an Enfiled motorbike with my guitar and ukulele. I was headed to the highest music festival in the world, The Confluence, to perform as an artist. The setting was amazing. I was immediately very humbled to be part of such an incredible event. While up there I met a fellow 'Enfielder' from San Diego named Donovan Bailey. We became great buddies straight away and he went on to tell me about his incredible journey. Donovan had been treking high in the Indian mountains, and on his descent an overwhelming epiphany hit him, causing him to fall to his knees and cry. Before this moment he'd felt as if he hadn't found his full purpose in this life, but during his trip to India he's come across so many remote villages full of beautiful families and children and a shocking shortage of one real necessity. WATER!

From that moment on Donovan vowed to spend his life commited to bringing water to those who needed it most, and ceated the non-for-profit organisation 'Global Clean Water' (http://www.globalcleanwater.org).

His objective was to educate our younger …

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