Lizzie Marvelly - Show a trip down memory lane

Lizzie Marvelly says she feels privileged to have a musical career spanning 10 years. Photo / Getty Images

Lizzie Marvelly is going back to where it all began for her 10 Year Tour, playing in the same Rotorua theatre she first took the stage in.

The singer and Weekend Herald columnist will play Whakatane, Rotorua and Auckland in September for the retrospective tour featuring songs from all stages of her long and varied career.

Two international signings, two top-10 album tours around the world and collaborations with artists from Paul Potts to P-Money mean Marvelly's back catalogue is diverse.

"It's going to be quite, how do I put it, eclectic in a way," Marvelly told the Herald on Sunday.

"I'm marking 10 years so I'm planning to go back to the beginning and sing some songs from that stage of my career and follow the repertoire all the way up to my new songs," she said.

"It's going to be quite an interesting show and shows really where I've come from and where I am now."

Where Marvelly comes from is the central North Island city of Rotorua, whose people, she said, supported her "before anyone else knew me, really".

"The theatre I'm performing in there is the theatre I first performed in - I think I was about 5 years old, in a ballet show or something like that."

On her decision to play to Rotorua and Whakatane over bigger cities like Wellington or Christchurch, Marvelly said it was all about the audience.

"I just really love going to the smaller centres because they're such amazing warm crowds.

"They don't really get a lot of shows that go there, so I try to make an effort to go there when I can."

Marvelly started her singing career at 17, touring with industry legends Sir Howard Morrison and Dame Malvina Major.

"I look back at that 17-year-old and I think, 'wow you had no idea what was about to unfold'," she said.

"It seems like both a lifetime ago and like yesterday and I feel really lucky and privileged to have had a career that's 10 years long - I never really take it for granted."

Marvelly said choosing the songs for the show had been a trip down memory lane.

"What I find often is when I'm performing songs I haven't sung in a while it propels me back to the first time I performed it - some of these I haven't sung since I was on tour with Sir Howard Morrison or Paul Potts, so what I'm hoping is to share those [original] moments with the audience."