By: Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Burlington Local-News.ca
On February 1, the Burlington Performing Arts Centre (BPAC) will host 2026’s first installment in its Live and Local series, a recurring concert event that features Burlington artists performing at the venue.
February’s concert in the Community Studio Theatre will feature two performers: Melissa Bel, a singer-songwriter who penned a track for fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne and has opened for Kylie Minogue; and Stardust Duo, an acoustic duo that also performs as part of the three-piece band The Redhill Valleys.
Bel emigrated to England in 2016 but recently moved back to Burlington. She said that this BPAC performance is a homecoming of sorts.
“We’re so lucky to have a beautiful venue, and the fact that they endeavour to get local artists in and performing for the BPAC audience [is great],” Bel said. “It’s a pretty great, almost built-in audience, [made up of] members who want to know what’s going on in the community and want to hear new music. That’s the tough thing as a songwriter and an artist, finding the audiences who want to listen to original music that maybe they haven’t heard before.”
Bel said that she wanted to be a musician from a very young age.
“I think that attention-craving personality was innate,” Bel said. “I was just really encouraged by my parents when I showed interest in singing and performing, and so I was really lucky to get to have music lessons.
Bel’s interest in songwriting started at seven, and she picked up the guitar when she was 13.
“It was that time in the early 2000s when everyone was picking up the guitar,” Bel said. “And I wanted to be able to accompany myself and write songs, and I guess I just got really lucky with doors opening for me in the right kind of ways.”
Bel has taken a break from releasing music over the past few years to raise her daughter and is currently pregnant with her second child. She says that the BPAC gig will be her “last for a little while.”
She said she still needs to find “the right people” in Burlington to produce her next project, but that due to the nature of Zoom and the internet, “anything’s possible.”
“I recorded a lot of my last EP from my house in England and just did it remotely with the producer over Zoom,” Bel said.
Chelsea McWilliams, half of Stardust Duo, along with Tim Allard, previously performed at BPAC with The Redhill Valleys, and said that their local roots run deep.
“We grew up in Burlington, we went to high school in Burlington, and I still teach music lessons at Capstone Music in Burlington,” McWilliams said. “So we’re very much still connected with the Burlington music scene, and I actually have a lot of students who are going to be able to come to the show, which I’m really excited about because I don’t usually play places that are appropriate for a younger audience.”
McWilliams commented on the importance of local music artists and venues.
“It’s more important now than ever,” McWilliams said. “Because there’s such a big struggle for the arts in general, when it comes to funding, and event spaces closing their doors. So a way to connect the community to what’s in their backyard, on that community level, is huge, and it benefits everybody.”
McWilliams said that her work with Stardust Duo is more stripped-down and acoustic than that of The Redhill Valleys.
“It’s nice to have this avenue to showcase a different side of what we do,” she said.
The Redhill Valleys are currently working on a new album and will be releasing a single in the spring.
McWilliams said that she has been writing a few new songs with Bel and hopes to perform them together at the show.
To purchase tickets for 2026’s first Live and Local event, click here.
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