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“What’s interesting about me?” Nancy Hynes says at the start of our interview.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
Eventually, she gets around to describing a typical scenario in her home life: “At one in the morning in my bathrobe, I’m learning a song and singing a harmony for a demo.”
Hynes and Ian Foster have been life partners for almost 15 years, and Hynes has been contributing her vocals to his work for nearly as long. Hynes says her musical partnership with Foster caught her by surprise.
“I wasn’t like a young child going, ‘I’m going to grow up and I’m going to be a harmony singer and I’m going to tour the world.'”
This year marked their first opportunity since 2019 to tour A Week in December, the Christmas album which she co-created and recorded with Foster. The tour kicked off Nov. 30 in Bay Roberts, wrapping up earlier this month.
A match made on MSN Messenger
For audience members who don’t know about their off-stage relationship, Foster’s natural storytelling performance style usually makes it clear. Hynes explains, “The stories we’re telling are involving travel that we’ve done — or something about our cat. It’s better than it sounds, trust me.”
Occasionally she gets the question from audience members after a show. “They’re a little secretive about it, like, ‘Should I be asking this?'”
How did they meet? “It’s not some crazy meet-cute,” she says, “not like I ran into him on the street and dropped my groceries and he helped me pick up my apples as they were rolling down the hill.”
They met through mutual social circles and started chatting on the now-obsolete MSN Messenger before connecting to hang out in person. “After a couple of weeks, I said, ‘I think we’re dating.'”
An unexpected singing career
Hynes says she likes to “not have to take everything too seriously all the time”: the self-described “recreational singer” brings a strong work ethic and a sense of humour to the stage.
“We plan our tours and shows, and we rehearse,” she says. “But once we get on stage it’s just me and Ian having fun, telling stories.”
Hynes’s singing partnership with Foster developed in a similar way to their romantic relationship, a natural progression that she hadn’t anticipated.
“I certainly didn’t sing professionally. In choirs and in church, and around the house my mom sang, so I just grew up singing.”
Early in their relationship, Foster would occasionally ask her to provide simple vocals on a demo.
“It’s handy for someone who records at home to have a harmony singer in-house,” she says.
Those at-home sessions turned into occasional public performances, as Foster would spontaneously call her to the stage to sing harmony on a song or two, which led to a few more, until “one day after a show I went, ‘Do you know that I was on stage for most of your show today?'”
A harmony singer at heart
Although her recording and performing career now includes singing lead vocals, Hynes considers harmony her natural vocal habitat.
“In my heart of hearts, I’m a harmony singer. The melody is great, we need it. But I much prefer to sing harmony; it’s kind of the first thing I hear in a song.”
Foster describes her ability to harmonize as something supernatural.
“It’s sort of like a magic trick,” he says. “I understand the theory of harmonies and can explain it to you, but the skill that Nancy has… it’s a natural thing for her, and I think it’s quite beautiful that she’s able to do it.”
A Christmas music expert
With her work on A Week in December, Hynes can add East Coast Music Association and MusicNL awards to her list of accomplishments.
“From that curational standpoint of what songs we we’re going to play, right through to conversations about the instrument choice, all the usual elements you would expect an artist to go through, she was there for,” says Foster. “It really is a duo record in that sense.”
Foster describes Hynes as “an expert in Christmas music” and credits her as the inspiration for creating the Christmas album.
“She made a master list, and we discussed it. And from that moment forward, I started working up tracks in the studio, but she was involved in each step as well.”
Hynes remembers the process of selecting the songs for the album.
“It was really fun! We pulled out every vinyl Christmas album I own.”
Although she claims not to have had childhood dreams of becoming a performer, Hynes does confess, “There may have been 16-year-old Nancy, listening to Dolly and Kenny, thinking, ‘This’d be cool.'”
From tech support to touring
Who is Nancy Hynes when she’s not touring the world and performing on stage with Ian Foster? During those periods of the year when she’s not touring or performing, Hynes works for an online tech company. In her early career, she was a primary and elementary substitute teacher.
“I mostly use my teaching career to make teenagers quiet in a theatre these days, because I give a good look.”
Reflecting on the years of spontaneous stage appearances and late-night recording sessions, Hynes says she feels fortunate.
“I get to not only travel with Ian, but I get to be a part of it. And I’m grateful that he’s not precious about his performance, that he was willing to share some of that with me.”
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