Queen Street, Toronto-It's always nice to wander down Queen Street during the annual Canadian Music Week. The streets are busy with music appreciators checking out up-and-coming Canadian performers.

This year's festivities featured a line-up of 450 musical acts from across Canada. It's pretty hard to stand out when you're one of 450. Self-promotion is key. Even then, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.

The newly re-opened El Mocambo featured a showcase of the multi-talented Daniel Lanois. I really wanted to attend this event, but it was completely sold-out before we could get our act together.

Saturday, March 1 found the members of Candlelight Opera rehearsing at Cherry Beach. During one of our breaks we heard sweet melodies and harmonic combinations seeping out of one of the rehearsal rooms, so we made a point of talking to the band.

Andrea Klas, from Vancouver BC was preparing for her CMW performance at The Cameron House later that night. We spoke with Andrea and her keyboard player and they invited us out to the show.

From the Spadina streetcar I could see people lined up down the street to get in to see Daniel Lanois. If anyone attended his performance that night, we'd love to hear about it.

When we arrived at the Cameron, the cozy room was comfortably full of listeners.

Andrea's performance was stellar. She exudes a strong and confident presence. The set combined beautiful vocal arrangements with a solid band comprised of her guitar and keyboard player along with a hired bassist and drummer from Toronto.

Klas had excellent promotional pieces too. Invitations to the show were printed on full-colour postcards and an Andrea Klas banner appeared above the stage when she performed. Watch out for Andrea and her CD Orion. She clearly has her act together.

Immediately following, we got to sample the musical styling of Alex Murdoch from Edmonton Alberta. The set featured Alex on acoustic guitar, along side a backing band, which showed off his catchy pop tunes. After his set, he pulled out a box of his CD Polyphonic and gave out free copies to anyone who wanted them. This is a fairly expensive form of self-promotion. The only catch was we had to promise to e-mail him with a critique. Hope this satisfies you Alex.