Tuin opens for Carly Rae Jepsen

Tanya Schoeman aka Tuin and Alouise Peens were the opening act at the Carly Rae Jepsen concert in Cape Town on Wednesday. It has been a long road and lots of dedication to reach this level in their music careers.

Tuin was also the opening act for Carly on Saturday, 24 October at the Voortrekker monument.

Tuin and Peens developed their love for music at an early age.

“I started singing when I was six and started my career four years ago. It started quite slow, actually, playing at empty venues or for just a few people,” Tuin said.

Tuin is glad she did not listen to people criticising her when starting out. “People actually criticised me a lot about my voice. I never made it through auditions. Even for the school choir. One time someone told me they should put my voice on the radio so that they can turn it off,” she said.

People’s negative criticism never affected Tuin as she continued to sing. The 28-year-old music student at the SA Music Institute (SAMI) continued to pursue her dream until she started getting recognition.

Tuin and Alouise (30) started performing together about three months ago. Their genre is Indie pop. The two were performing in Sun City when they received the news that they would be the opening act for Carly Rae Jepsen.

“Tuin and Alouise were actually performing when I received the news. They were so happy and Alouise kept walking around in shock,” their manager Melissa Lewis said.

She said it is really wonderful working with the two women.

Peens is a music teacher at SAMI and also has her own music school.

“I am originally from the Free State in Bethlehem. I grew up under my mom’s piano so I developed a love for music,” she said.

She said performing at the Carly concert was a bit scary because when they walked out to perform people did not seem impressed until they started singing.

Tuin and Peens always perform bare foot and they surprised people when they did that in Cape Town.

“Performing bare foot makes me feel like I am at home. It is comfortable,” said Tuin.

Their biggest crowd has been the one in Cape Town and the second biggest was at Oppikoppi.

Tuin launched her CD last year November and is working on new singles. They will be performing some of her songs this weekend too.

A message from Tuin and Peens to aspiring young artists was that they needed to realise the music industry was hard work and they needed a lot of passion for music. They said it was hard to get to the top, but with passion you can find success.