Teenager Jem Cassar-Daley has taken a gap year from university, and instead is getting an insight into the music industry.
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The daughter of country singers Troy Cassar-Daley and Laurel Edwards, Jem is the support act for her father's current tour, which comes to Armidale this week.
While the tour is a celebration of her father's career, as he plays an acoustic set of his greatest hits, each show begins with a performance from the younger Cassar-Daley, who is a singer and pianist.
This time last year, the 18-year-old thought she would be at university by now, but after graduating high school, Troy Cassar-Daley gave his daughter another option.
"I thought I'll get straight into my uni course, and do what a lot of my mates are doing, then Dad said 'you could always come on tour for a little while, take a gap year and come and hang out with your Dad'.
Born into a musical family, Cassar-Daley remembers growing up in a household where everyone sang around the kitchen table, while she also spent plenty of time watching on from backstage at Troy Cassar-Daley concerts.
Then at age six she discovered a passion for playing music herself.
"When I started playing piano, that's when I really started having a passion for playing myself. I started lessons and I haven't been able to stop playing since," Cassar-Daley said.
"From there I started using piano to accompany myself when I sing. I've done that for a few years now."
After deferring her studies last year, she has been playing concerts as a professional artist for the first time and seeing the countryside.
"The first run we did down Victoria, I hadn't seen many of those places at all. I'd only really been to Melbourne, so going to Warrnambool and all these other places, like Port Fairy, it was really interesting."
And she said Armidale was another place she was looking forward to experiencing rather than just passing by.
"We've driven through there, to Tamworth, but we've never stopped off, it's going to be so much fun and I'm looking forward to it."
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With influences that include Missy Higgins and Norah Jones (she says she likes how they incorporate the piano when they sing) she said she could see herself following in her father's footsteps and becoming a recording artist.
"It will always be in my life, whether it's a hobby or a full-time job," she said.
"It's always been a big part of my life, and my family's life. I'm just so happy at the moment to be having a break and doing something something that I really like to do."
Once the tour is over, Jem will look ahead to next year, where the University of Queensland and her first semester studying a Bachelor of Arts awaits.
- Friday night's concert starts at 8pm at Armidale Servies. Tickets cost $40, child (under 15 years) $20 or VIP tickets $75, and are available from Armidale Servies.