“AV & the Inner City” is a group that formed during the course of the COVID19 pandemic and opioid crisis pandemic in the inner city of Edmonton, Canada. The group is made up of 6 singers: band leader and multi award-winning singer-songwriter AV (Ann Vriend), Debbie Houle (co-founder of the Juno-nominated international touring Indigenous a cappella group “Asani”), jazz radio host, jazz singer, and professional pickle company owner Johanna Alleyne (company: Mojojojo Pickles and Preserves); Crystal Eyo, lead singer and songwriter of Edmonton pop/RnB band “Mercy Funk”, Alenka Lundell, who fronted and songwrote for bands in her home country of Czech (formerly Czechoslovakia); and experienced marching band and choral singer, Jenn Dahlen.

From April 2020 to October 2021, every Sunday that the pandemic restrictions and weather would allow multi-award winning international touring artist AV hosted and performed nearly 60 free concerts on her front porch in the inner city neighborhood of McCauley, often with guests, and also the concerts often also featured other acts and bands, from all parts of Edmonton, and also from the immediate neighborhood. The concerts were informal in nature, but were a much needed life-line of music and social interaction for both performers and audience members alike, especially during some of the most restrictive pandemic periods, and in a neighborhood where there is a high population of people already quite cut off from a lot of opportunities and acceptance from the rest of society.

In the early summer of 2021, as small, outdoor concerts were allowed AV asked the group of singers that had been singing so often alongside her if they would be interested in forming an actual official, rehearsed act, the repertoire of which are her own songs, with a cover song or 2 thrown in for good measure, and 3 part harmony soul/gospel style arrangements based around her voice and keyboard playing. All the singers responded with an emphatic “Yes!”, and thus “AV & the Inner City” was born.

Since then “AV & the Inner City” has been invited to perform at the Calgary International Blues Festival, the Toronto Blues Summit, the pandemic versions of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival and Jubilee Auditorium Outdoor Concert Series’, the Taste of Edmonton Festival, the Sasquatch Gathering Festival, and many other concerts around Alberta — and they are just getting started!