She walks onto the stage, acknowledges the audience, and gestures toward the piano. There is no one there.

Soprano and pianist Rachel Fenlon has spent the last several years doing something almost unthinkable in classical music — accompanying herself. Singing and playing at once. Not as a gimmick, but as a complete artistic philosophy that has taken her from Vancouver to Berlin to the stages of Europe, and to a debut album — Winterreise — that became the first self-accompanied recording of Schubert's cycle.

It was named Album of the Week by both CBC Canada and BBC Radio 3. Critics called it extraordinary. And it started with grief, isolation, and a very quiet voice she decided to follow.

Now she's coming home — to the Kay Meek Arts Centre in West Vancouver on April 12 — and we sat down with her to talk about solitude, risk, what it costs to hold everything yourself, and what it feels like when it finally disappears.

Rachel Fenlon performs at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, April 12. Tickets here