Victoria Canal: 2025

With the release of her debut album, Slowly, It Dawns, in January, Victoria Canal would be the first to call it the culmination of a dream that's been over a decade in the making. She's been winning music awards since she was a teenager, named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts by President Barack Obama in 2015. As a young adult, she won two prestigious back-to-back UK songwriting awards via The Ivors: in 2023 as a "Rising Star," and in 2024 for "Black Swan," which she co-wrote with Eg White and Johnny Latimer, for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

Canal's mutability and craft as a songwriter is evident on the road of self-awareness and strength that she undertakes on Slowly, It Dawns, which arcs from the sparkling, sexy pop of "June Baby," to rueful, wistful  ballads such as "Hollow" or "Barely." The Spanish-American guitarist and pianist — born in Germany, raised in multiple countries, and now based in the States — has an intuitive, preternatural understanding of where the heart belongs in the body of a song.

In concert, she's generous and gregarious with a quick wit; I've seen Canal play solo, as a trio, and with a full band in Austin, New York, and London over the past year. She connects with her audience with tenderness and empathy and she is fearless when it comes to taking a stand (she donated all of the proceeds to a Kennedy Center concert on February 15 to Advocates for Trans Equality). This FUV Live session was her first as a solo performer (Canal visited years ago as part of Michael Franti's band), and joined by bassist and guitarist Justin Goldner, she played a four-song set, flipping between her trusty Valencia guitar and FUV's studio piano on "June Baby," "Vauxhall," "Hollow," and "Black Swan."

Canal is a thoughtful, forthright conversationalist, and she covered a lot of territory in our chat, touching on the songs on Slowly, It Dawns (and why a tour with Hozier inspired her to lean into her pop instincts), her activism, and why songwriting is an essential tool to tackle tough topics, such as grief or isolation.

[Recorded: February 14, 2025; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with James Higgins and Sophia Derrig-Palumbo and produced by Meghan Suma. Videographers: Olivia Wahlert, Alena Godas, Anna Fahy, Gina Slavin and Cate Dalton.]