Laura Sandage: News

This fall has been rich -- a bumper crop of pomegranates and Fuyu persimmons (two of my favorite fruits!) and a surprise harvest of opportunities to connect with people musically and spiritually, as I venture into churches to sing for services, to be a guest speaker, to lead workshops and provide beautiful music for memorials... It is rewarding work that leaves me feeling that many of my facets have had a moment to shine.

The choral music in my life also continues to satisfy-- the Vocal Art Ensemble develops more nuances with every season.  Our camaraderie and our repertoire grow, as we prepare for a musical tour of Ireland in Fall 2010. The Woodland Chamber Singers introduced me this fall to the Britten Ceremony of Carols, a haunting masterwork made even more exquisite by its harp accompaniment.  

My electronic community is also taking root, as I venture into the blogosphere with my new Wordpress blog on everyday creativity and spirituality, called Unspooling.  I recently created my first YouTube video, to a politically charged song from the MudLark Nest album called "Guantanamo."  I am at work now on a video for "Comfort," the first track on In Equal Measure, and have ideas about a "Crushed" video to come...  Stay tuned!

This afternoon twenty-one boxes of CDs were deposited in my garage by a nice UPS man. The CD looks beautiful and three-dimensional! After two years-plus work on this project, from grant writing to studio sessions to graphics finessing, I am glad to hold it in my hand.

I will haul one thousand copies of the CD over to the Yolo Hospice offices on Monday. Staff and volunteers there will begin to become acquainted with the music and find their way toward using the CD in therapeutic, outreach, and education settings.

The support for this project has come from so many directions-- now the disc can go out and do good in the world in just as many directions!

I can't believe it is over a year since I last posted a news update.

My creative life has been continuing along in the grooves mentioned last year-- the Hospice CD has a title: In Equal Measure: Songs for the Tender Witness. Sonically, it is just about finished-- the last mixing and mastering are happening this month. Then the graphics and manufacturing need to be completed, and launch events planned...

Meanwhile, MudLark continues to bring the music of Nest to new listeners, recently on a two-show mini-tour to the Bay Area and South Coast.

I am still creating new choral music-- the Davis UU Church just premiered one of my pieces-- and now I am singing in a wonderful small a cappella choir that is new in Davis, called the Vocal Arts Ensemble.

And the book I wanted to write-- it is a novel, in its third draft. I am researching agents and writing query letters now, getting ready to see if it belongs out in the world.

No wonder I don't find a lot of time for tinkering with my website!!!

Another choral milestone to report: my SATB arrangement of Stay Close, a choral setting of a Hafiz poem had its debut at the Unity Church of the Valley in Livermore, performed by the Davis-based OK Chorale. You might recognize the refrain from the song: "Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive" from the back of the Bloom CD booklet.

What else happened this summer? LOTS! The music for the new MudLark CD got wrapped up (the actual wrappings for the CD are still in progress).

Shakespeare comedy Love's Labours Lost (set in 1933) was performed by Winters Shakespeare Workshop with a live 7-piece band under my direction playing jazz/swing standards and original music I wrote for the play. My daughter had a leading role, too!

I spent two weeks at Camp Winnarainbow with my kids, where I staged a mini-version of Midsummer Night's Dream that included Harry Potter as one of the Fairies and a gaggle of ten-year-old clowns as the Mechanicals.

A whirlwind family vacation tour of the midwest in August culminated in quality time spent with my 90-year-old grandmother in Ames, Iowa. She grows the best tomatoes in the world and can tell upon inspection exactly when roadside sweet corn was picked (if it was more than 12 hours ago, forget it!).

What's next? I'm digging deeper into the very collaborative and still untitled hospice CD project, hoping to get the tracking done this fall. MudLark is planning the spectacular release of our Nest CD. And I am directing the choir and coordinating music for the Unity Church of the Valley until December. In my free time, I want to write a book. I have wanted to write a book my whole life. So what am I waiting for?

A big thank you to my friend Woody Fridae for taking photos and to pals Mary Lou Linville and Al Pederson for lettings us shoot pictures in their historic backyard.

Let me know if you like the new colors!

Back in the studio again! This time with MudLark to create a CD of our most quintessential songs as a trio. The big adventure here for me is being the bass player on the album. On Bloom I mostly just sang, and added a few tracks of percussion here and there. We are ploughing through the project, trying to get the bulk of it done before Katie's master's program is back in session.

Meanwhile, funding from the City of Davis has come through for the Yolo Hospice CD project. Local recording engineer and electric bassist John Rose will donate his home studio and lots of his spare time to the project, helping to make it financially feasible. Craig Farris has donated a chunk of his work as graphic artist, too. It promises to be a rich process with a rewarding outcome-- music that will serve the lovely community of hospice staff, volunteers, and families in transition. Work will begin within the next month or so.

This weekend's assortment of musical experiences reflects exactly what matters most to me in my artistic life: bringing people together through music, and helping people connect to what they hold most dear (myself included!).

On Friday I started a new one-day-a-week job in the Winters schools teaching music to kindergartners and preschoolers. Eight classes, half an hour each. The youthful joy of the children is an immediate and delicious reward.

Friday night was a music night with Freedom From War. Bringing songs of peace to people who are working so hard for peace-- what could be better? The standout moment of the evening for me was not sharing with them the theme song I wrote for their group, as I expected, but instead was the old song everybody knew and could sing along with us: Study War No More. We were rocking the building with all those voices!!!

Saturday afternoon I read a poem as part of a ritual performance piece by my friend Sonja Brodt-- a dance in celebration of water, performed in and around Cache Creek at the Hoes Down festival in Guinda. Art as ritual, environmental art in situ-- these things are very close to my heart. Next time we want to do it at moonrise, perhaps for an audience of fish, trees, and stars.

Saturday night MudLark hosted Joe Hickerson, songleader extraordinaire and wise one of folk music. In case I had any doubt about the pleasure and power of sing-alongs, he made that clear. He had us singing, laughing and even making fish lips, happy as the kindergartners on the carpet in Winters!! I especially liked the unexpectedly funny song about disarmament he sang called Ban the Bomb.

And this morning, Ray and I had the privelege of playing some songs at a memorial gathering in honor of Laura Trent, an organic farmer in Vaca Valley who left behind a diverse and devoted community of friends and neighbors and a beautiful farm bursting with sweetness. Our music had a brief but key function, uniting people and catalyzing emotions. Weeping, singing, and eating incredible food-- three of my favorite activities!

After more hours than I would want to count at the computer with my friend Sibelius (a software program), a four part SATB arrangement of Do You Want Peace? is ready to go out to choirs everywhere! The UUs of Davis will be singing it this fall, and the Eugene Peace Chorus will have copies of it, as well as an a cappella group in the Bay Area. At just $2.00 a copy, it can provide your choir or singing group with hours of entertainment and inspiration!!!

Songs from Bloom might be playing over the airwaves in New Zealand this very moment. A DJ in the Hutt Cities requested a copy of the CD after finding out about it from an Oasis promotional sampler CD. It is exciting to have my CD go places where I have never been!

In other Bloom news, Do You Want Peace? was recently featured by Arden Eaton on KPIG-FM as the "Sunday Morning Prayer for Peace."

I'm not sure yet when I will begin recording my next solo CD, but I am thinking hard about it these days, making lists of tracks, developing arrangement ideas. I want some accordion and pump organ this time, and maybe even tuba!

I also have a plan for another album of a different flavor, geared toward hospice patients and their families. I have been working as a hospice volunteer for the past two and a half years, and have quite a bit of material that connects to this experience. This project would be a fundraiser for Yolo Hospice, but it may require some seed money in the form of a grant to get it off the ground.

The Eugene, Oregon Peace Chorus has chosen my song, "Do You Want Peace?" as the first prize winner in their annual peace composition contest. When my choral arrangement of the song is completed and perfected, their chorus will add it to their repertoire and sing it for Oregon audiences! The Unitarian Church choir in Davis has also been asking for an arrangement of the same song. I imagine it will be sung in many places by many people before long. The world can use more of that sort of thing, and I am happy to be doing my part. What is your part?

Last week our local paper, the Davis Enterprise, ran a lovely story by music critic Landon Christianson about my musical life. The title was "Following Her Muse." I liked it!

Then today, KDVS DJ Bill Wagman posted a recommendation of Bloom on a national folk DJ listserv. I have already gotten requests for CDs from DJs in Ohio, North Carolina and New York. Little by little, the love trickles out into the wide world. I am heartened.

Two days from now our first full-length MudLark concert will send another fat love pebble into the pond. Who knows how far the concentric rings of joy will travel?

The MudLark website is up and running, and in a continuous process of refinement and experimentation. We are excited about our new sound clips! We have been processing material from a day of recording last fall at the Hammond Straw Bale House into a demo that showcases the MudLark sound.

In other MudLark news, I learned a new trick on my bass this week, a choppy digga-digga bowing rhythm (inspired by Rashad Eggleston) that is transforming our arrangement of "Reuben."

We made it back from India, tired and confused but rich with stories, silk and wool shawls, and five new songs in various stages of evolution. Here is an excerpt from one called "Red Sun," which tells about our visit to the farmland where Satinder grew up-- from his point of view:

The cotton crop is harvested,
The bees are sleeping tight.
Dry cotton stalks will feed
The cooking fires tonight.

Soft behind the earthen wall
Sprouts the winter wheat.
The mustard leaf is spicy,
The sugar cane is sweet.

Red sun sets
On the homeland I remember.
Red sun, yellow fields,
India in December.

Thanks to all the friends who came from far and near to buy a few last minute Christmas gift CDs on Saturday: Mark, Gerry, Ben and Angeline (all the way from Tennessee), John, Sonja. It was like an unplanned holiday open house. Thanks to many other friends, old and new, who have been generously supporting my music and sending it out to faraway listeners. Without all of you, there would be no point to this whole thing.

Tonight we leave for a family trek to India. A Sikh village wedding, aunts and uncles, farms and bazaars to visit. Maybe a new song or two will show up along the way...

Happy Cozy Snuggly Holidays to all!!!!

Many CDs were happily released into the hands of eager listeners at the gala fiesta whoop-de-doo CD Release Party on Nov. 12. Helpful friends swiped credit cards, arranged cookies on trays, checked sound equipment, sang and played and laughed and cried and wore homemade bras made of CDs. It was a memorable night. See a few photos of the goings-on now posted on the website!

They arrived at 1:14 pm, delivered by a stork in a brown UPS uniform. The stack of boxes is about three feet tall and weighs a heck of a lot more than 7 lbs. 8 oz, which is what my first child weighed.

Katie Henry was here with me when they came, and she ritually decorated the stack of boxes in the middle of my living room floor with feathers, statuettes, cat toys, small children's books, and many of the other useless but attractive items that crowd our house. Someone needs to come and take a picture of it. And buy a few CDs while you're here.

We listened to the whole thing, and our favorite song of the day was February Is Green. Little Hair was sounding good, too. Are people allowed to sing the word "shit" on the radio? I need to know this, and soon...

Will this really work?
Will anyone read this?
So much to do to get ready to launch the CD...