You could argue she was Vancouver’s in the first place, but the local music community will beg to differ March 14 when prominent indie musician Olenka Krakus plays her final show as a Londoner.

Krakus — who first moved to the Forest City to pursue a PhD at Western in 2005 before forming the critically acclaimed folk group Olenka and the Autumn Lovers — is moving back to Vancouver, the city her family planted roots in after emigrating from Poland when she was only five years old.

The decision was “absolutely bitter-sweet,” Krakus said. It stemmed from news her boyfriend and Autumn Lovers drummer Jeffrey Moon, who has also been studying at Fanshawe College, received an internship offer in Vancouver.

“Plus I have family and friends from childhood there, so it just seemed weird he would be there and I wouldn’t,” Krakus said.

While London will miss easy access to Krakus’s live performances, her activism and staunch support of the local music scene, there is still a lot to look forward to. Krakus said she’s excited to reconnect with musicians on the west coast and plans to record a new album over the next year or two, once she’s resettled.

“Artistically it’s exciting for me, although terrifying financially,” she said with a laugh. “It’s exciting because I have a community of musicians out there who I’ve known since I was fairly young and who are eager to work with me again.

“The next album that I do will be very much influenced by that environment and the people out there,” Krakus continued. “I’m hoping for growth, I’m hoping for inspiration.

“If I were to stay here right now … it would be more of the same and I don’t know that’s what I want both creatively and personally. Sometimes you just need that jolt of difference in order to force you to confront your creative projects and your outlook on life.”

Krakus’s final show is booked at the Aeolian Hall. It will not include a full band, she said, but there are a number of guests lined up to take the stage with her. The Autumn Lovers in London, after all, have been several and including as many different instruments as possible only seems appropriate given Krakus’s fondness for complex arrangements.

The show might also offer a great opportunity to take a look back at the music Krakus created while in London.

That started in earnest in 2008 with the release of the Autumn Lovers’ first full-length self-titled album, although some of that was recorded in Vancouver and you might have heard Krakus open for musicians such as Basia Bulat prior to that. There were also two EPs that year: Warsaw Girl and Papillonette.

While they offered an early glimpse of the Eastern European influence Krakus brought to her folk music, which by then was her main focus, the 2010 album And Now We Sing helped put the band on the indie music map and send them to festivals across Canada.

“There was definitely a lot of momentum around that (record) and a lot of support not just in London, even though we’d been feeling it in London for a little while in … really humbling and gratifying ways,” Krakus said.

The band released their latest album, Hard Times, in 2012, along with the EP It’s Alright, which followed shortly after. A worthy successor to And Now We Sing, Hard Times was as much an exploration of new musical avenues for the band as it was a timely commentary on world affairs — a balance Krakus has skillfully maintained.

“I think that in terms of the refinement of the arrangements I felt that we did a really excellent job on that album,” Krakus said.

Hard Times didn’t generate the same buzz as their 2010 effort — “The fact it did kind of go under the radar only emphasizes the extent the industry is dominated by the machine of publicity,” Krakus said.

But we know for sure her next effort will only be one she feels moves her in new directions artistically. If that means a move away from London, perhaps it’s for the best.

“It will be interesting to head back (to Vancouver),” Krakus said. “I’m a different person, for sure, since I’ve left. I have very specific goals for my time there and also I’m interested in not necessarily being there for too long, but enjoying what it has to offer in that time I am there. So, we’ll see.”

Chris.montanini@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @LondonerChris