A new-to-Manitoba artist has quickly claimed the province as home for her and her husband.

Lindsey Minaker grew up in Waterloo, Ontario and moved to Manitoba only six weeks ago, but says they already feel like complete Manitobans.

"We're settling in and we're really loving it here," she shared. 

Minaker also grew up surrounded by music. Her father toured throughout her childhood as a Christian artist, bringing her and her siblings along to different churches for performances. That exposure proved to be instrumental in developing Minaker's love of both God and music.

"Me (sic) and my siblings would travel with him and music was just kind of always in our family and always in our home," says Minaker. From a very young age, she was singing and playing piano. She began writing her own music around the age of 12.

"My songs were always like little love songs to Jesus," the artist smiled. "I always just had songs in my heart."

Minaker considers herself to be a contemporary Christian artist, a label that has allowed her to create music freely centring on her faith, but not focusing exclusively on that alone. Her style ranges from rock to pop to slow ballads, as far as the genre will allow her

"It's basically stories about my life, reflections," says Minaker. "It's all God-related content."

Piano and voice remain her go-to musical vessels, but the ukulele is something she loves as an upbeat addition to her performances.

Though becoming a singer-songwriter wasn't exactly the "practical job" Minaker's parents had maybe hoped for her, her love of music won out, leading her to the University of Waterloo to earn her Bachelor of Arts in Music.

Minaker says she "fell into teaching" soon after that, offering lessons in voice, piano, and now ukulele. The ability to do both the practical version of artistry through teaching as well as the more spontaneous side that comes out in her performances.

"I still always have it in the back of my mind, 'Lindsey, you need to get a real job,'" the artist chuckled.

It's the ability for music to capture the "precious moments" of her life that keeps Minaker so devoted to the craft.

"I find that music can touch people in a way that nothing else can," she explained. "For me, even when I'm writing a song it's a way of expressing a song that kind of goes to the deepest part of your emotions and thoughts."

Minaker enjoys the journey as much as the final product, she says. "I think maybe I tend to be more of an end-goal kind of [person], just really wanting the finished product, but I've kind of learned along the way to enjoy the process because if you don't you're just wasting a whole bunch of time.

"It's so much work, but at the end of the day I look back... [on] good memories."

When it comes to performing, Minaker says she is an introvert but loves the stage. "That's just something God must have put in me because the one place that I feel most alive and just like I'm in the centre of God's will for me is when I'm doing a concert or leading worship."

While the musical aspect is one part of what Minaker loves sharing from the stage, stories are the real message she wants to share; the stories behind the songs.

"I feel like you remember the stories sometimes even more than the music."