Eva Avila

19 year-old Eva Avila was raised in Gatineau, Quebec by her Quebecois mother and Peruvian father. As a child, her father had a recording studio in the basement of the home and it wasn’t long before Eva was knocking on the door to put her voice on tape for the first time. By the time she was seven, she had progressed to recording covers of pop and show tunes in the basement studio.

Eva continued to hone her stage skills as she entered her teens by performing at countless community events including high-school assemblies, Latin festivals and regional TV shows. At 16, she decided to enter her first high-profile singing competition and ended up taking the title in the prestigious, province-wide Jeune Diva du Quebec. Despite all of her local success, Eva was surprisingly hesitant to enter when the Canadian Idol auditions rolled into Ottawa in the summer of 2006. During the course of the Canadian Idol competition, Eva had a chance to interact with many elite members of the record industry. Some of those individuals contributed to Eva’s debut album Somewhere Else including Chantal Kreviazuk and Cyndi Lauper.

Chantal penned Eva's driving first single, "Meant to Fly," which quickly reached #1 on the single sales charts after being released following Eva's Idol triumph. The song was a perfect match for Eva’s soaring vocals and the words of the song resonated perfectly with her Idol experience.