Compositions and Music Making

The way I perform and think creatively comes from a love of magic making and looking at the different ways things can converge. One way is my approach to Appalachian ballads, which were some of the first stories of my community told through song. I like to reimagine them with different motifs or sounds we don’t always associate with music. To me, this is the exploration of the “space in between” and the way that we can take the folklore of our ancestors and help people of today still see themselves within the same magic. As storytellers, we have the opportunity to breathe life into the traditions of our past and pave the way for the future with empathy and joy.  My strength lies in the many ideas that influence my performance style and being able to clearly communicate and create interesting musical variations as a way to tell stories: stories of peace, resilience, transformation, protest, convergence, and home. Music informs the way that we communicate in a totally different way than other art forms. Music is for everyone, and we all can make our own noise.