My CDs: Wingd With Hopes, The Goldenrod and Saratoga Romance

I haven't written much about my CDs in this blog, so I thought I'd mention some of them. Afterall, it has taken up a large part of my time and life.

My CDs are all available on-line through:

My Artfire on-line shop (scroll down past the featured products)

or through CD Baby:
(a Renaissance CD and an original song CD) 
or:
(Celtic music CD)

You can also listen to clips on MYSPACE to our
Renaissance band's music (Lise Winne and the Spirites Consort)
or our predominantly Celtic/acoustic/folk band's CD (Saratoga Faire band)
or my own Myspace site which has a smattering of the two bands, my own original songs and some demo songs that were never put out for sale  
  
Here are some of my CDs:

Wing'd With Hopes with The Spirites Consort was released in 2001:

Wing'd With Hopes is my best-selling CD to date. It is an album of Renaissance songs using modern instruments, an innovative approach and a produced sound. It was recorded, mixed, mastered and co-produced with Scott Petito (who also records big names like James Taylor, the Band, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Dave Brubeck and Aine Minogue, so it is a quality recording). The instruments are primarily acoustic instruments with world percussion, so it is a kind of hybrid sound somewhere between folk, classical and world music.

Before this recording, I was performing the works of Thomas Campion and John Dowland as a solo artist tackling both the lute part and singing, but it was challanging to do both, to say the least. My father who is a trained classical and jazz pianist suggested I try a new age, creative approach to the music instead, using a band. And that is how Wing'd With Hopes came to be.

After recording Wing'd With Hopes, I won a grant from The New York Foundation for the Arts to make another CD. This resulted in The Goldenrod, which was released in 2004:

The Goldenrod is an original song CD. Three of the originals were written with Jason Kessler, who I worked with from 1998 - 2000 in various capacities from Renaissance and light classical concerts, holiday concerts and jazz/new age style originals. The three compositions, Seaflight I, Where Did You Go and Perhaps Butterflies were songs in which Jason wrote the music and I wrote the lyrics.

There is one song on the CD which did not have my lyrics or music: Dreaming You Back to Me. This one was written by my music partner, Jeff Belding (music) and a lyricist he worked with for awhile, Rene Balsam.

As with Wing'd With Hopes, the CD is also recorded, mixed, mastered and co-produced with Scott Petito.

The inspiration for writing the CD came from the break-up of a relationship and the healing and spiritual journey afterward. Musically, the influences range from Renaissance music, jazz, folk and new age.

In the midst of finishing The Goldenrod CD project, Jeff Belding and I formed a band with Frank Orsini (violin, viola and mandolin) with Jim Lestrange (hammered dulcimer, bass and guitar). We called ourselves Saratoga Faire.

Our debut album, released in 2009 is called Saratoga Romance:

The title track is a waltz written by Jeff Belding about the place where we all met. He also contributes songwriting to The Fountain and Living to Eternity.

But a predominance of the album is Celtic and traditional songs.

We covered two songs on the album: Wind in the Willows written by Alan Bell and made popular by Blackmore's Night and Far Away, an instrumental by Peter Jung that has a Celtic style to it.

I produced the cover art for the CD.


Saratoga Faire is on a bit of a performance hiatus (medical for one of our members -- should be better soon), but we've performed at some great venues.

Our two favorite performances took place at Troy Music Hall (one a concert of our usual repertoire and one a Christmas concert). It is an ornate Victorian era music hall with two upper balconies in upstate NY.

This is a snippet of a photo of the inside of the hall with two upper balconies just above the stage area (from the Troy Music Hall website):

Finally I leave you with a photo of our band at Troy Music Hall after the audience went home (photo by Tania Susi, a Julliard grad violinist):

The Frog and the Princess video

The Frog and the Princess Video by Karen Anne Brady
~her work-in-progress video featuring a painting she did~
~the background music is from our band, Saratoga Faire, from our "Saratoga Romance CD"~

(the song is a lesser known Turlough  O'carolan piece called "Miss Noble")

Karen Anne Brady (known as Ireland Brady on Etsy) is a talented artist from the Portland, Oregon area. Her own blog post about the video is HERE.

Enjoy!

Regretsy hits close to home!

Do you know the feeling when you don't get the joke because it is too close to home? Well, that kind of happened to me yesterday when I went to look at the recent items on Regretsy (which I have visited about 20 times now and always found to be either funny or appalling).

This was the item:

© Vermorlian

you can click on picture to be taken to the listing on Etsy.com

Okay, so this is the kind of attire our band wears (known to play Renaissance Faires and Celtic Festivals). The commentary after the picture was as follows:

you can click on picture to be taken to Regretsy's blog on the item

Ummm, definitely updating their MySpace band page! Please take note!

The listing also has this photoshopped version which very much reminds me of the photoshop artists on the Enchanted Folk social site (where I am a member):

© Vermorlian

you can click on picture to be taken to the listing on Etsy.com

Yup, and the Raven definitely goes with the genre.
And here I am with The Harper and the Minstrel at a Renaissance faire (no, not the same guy as in the pics above):

photo by Jim Lestrange

links:

Our Renaissance band site on MYSPACE

Our Celtic band site on MYSPACE

Vermorlian's Etsy shop

The Harper and the Minstrel's band site on MYSPACE

Regretsy

POSTSCRIPT: I sold a Renaissance album today, so definitely NOT unemployed. So there!

on the drawing table and holiday concert at Troy Music Hall

Work in progress:

one corner of the piece

in sepia ink

still has pencil guides in it

finished piece will have color

I thought I'd post this now since I have no idea when I will be able to finish it. I was hoping to finish it before the holidays to hang it in one of my holiday art shows, but it doesn't appear that I will be able to do that (and I do want to do it justice by thinking out all of the compositional elements).

The reason why? Our band is in rehearsals for holiday concerts, one at Troy Music Hall (which requires the most concentration, since the last time we performed there, it was a packed house-- about 1,000 in the audience) and a small one at a Victorian Streetwalk.

The concerts take precedence.

I was wondering if I should have done any holiday art shows this year since they are all-involving and take me away from my music and practicing for at least two weeks (sometimes more). When I get back to my instruments, the callouses on my fingertips has softened or peeled off (making playing more painful) and my instruments feel foreign. 

But now that I am into the swing of it, I feel much more like a musician than a visual artist. It can and does go the other way around too. Funny how that happens.

The fact that I can be a musician at all (and especially to be able to perform at such a great venue as the Troy Music Hall) is always amazing to me since I had severe asthma until I was 28 years old. Being able to sing was comparable to being able to fly... and not just sing, but professionally sing. How did this happen? I am so blessed!

My Website

MY ART IN ON-LINE STORES:
Artfire
Etsy

MY MUSIC LINKS (hear clips):
Music MYSPACE
My band, Saratoga Faire’s MYSPACE
My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort

MY MUSIC IN ON-LINE STORES:
CD Baby
Amazon
InandOutRecords (Europe)
My band, Saratoga Faire, on CD Baby

Owain Phyfe and The New World Renaissance Band on the stereo while I'm in the kitchen

Two of my favorite CDs are from Owain Phyfe and the New World Renaissance Band: Live the Legend and Where Beauty Moves. I don't get to listen to them much because I'm always practicing my own instruments or doing my art.

But today I got a letter from Frank Orsini, our violinist, about a song we have been performing for about 5 years now called Maid in Bedlam. In the letter he said he had been listening to Owain Phyfe & that we were missing a ♣ magical ♣ chord that Owain had in his version of Maid in Bedlam.

Okay, so now I'll have to try to drum that chord into my head before the next gig (not easy when you can play it in your sleep without the ♣ magical ♣ chord). 

It just so happened that I was inundated with squash and basil today and had to spend the day in the kitchen dealing with it in one way or another, so I listened to both Live the Legend and Where Beauty Moves.

Then I remembered the last time I played the CDs (summer 2009) & had a chuckle. You might too if you read further:

It was a hot summer evening & the windows were open to keep the bedrooms cool. Our neighbors kept us up all night with a loud party, rap and hip hop music, drunken fights and slamming car doors. The party died down at about 4:30 A.M., just as the sun was coming out, some of the neighbors' friends crashing on a lawn. I got up at 7:00, took my stereo outside and blasted Owain Phyfe and The New World Renaissance Band in the direction of the party house (because, as I said before, it was one of my favorites). My house mate ran out to where I was playing the stereo and said, "Hey, you're being waaaayyy too nice blasting Owain Phyfe. Put on Drew Minter! Or even better yet, Tiny Tim!"

(links to these musicians are in grey... just click).

My Website

My band site: Saratoga Faire

Bolton Landing Fabulous Folk Festival

We (Saratoga Faire) performed in Bolton Landing for The Fabulous Folk Festival last Sunday. Above was the poster for the event.

Our setlists included songs and instrumentals from the past and present day including Brian Boru's March, Mulberry Garden/Juice of Barley, Silkie, Crazy Man Michael, The French Report, Come to Me In Dreams, LaRue's Lament, Wind in the Willows, Water is Wide (among many others).

Also performing at this festival was Peggy Lynn, Dan Berggren and Nancy Walker Trio.

Peggy wrote this stunning piece which she has been performing for years called "Lydia". She played it at this festival. The melody is gorgeous and there is a refrain that goes: "Mountain women can be heroes." It stays in my head for a day every time I hear it!

I also tapped my feet to Nancy Walker's version of "Sweet Home Alabama".

After the festival was over, Frank, our violinist was remarking to the show's promoter about how beautiful Lake George was, even surpassing some of the well known gorgeous lakes he has seen in Europe.

We also got a very unusual opportunity by a woman who approached us on the stage after our last set which I won't divulge until/if all band members are informed and are able to perform for it. But it was one of those episodes that is truly unexpected, something you would never even dream about or aspire to (unless you knew about it, which we didn't).

Saratoga Faire band site

Our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

other performers at the festival:

Nancy Walker Trio

Peggy Lynn

Dan Berggren

The Facebook dilemma

I have been told by some of my marketing genius friends, that I should have a public facebook site in addition to this blog, twitter, the myspace, the renspace, my band sites, et al, but I have been so resistant to do that because it is yet another site to keep track of and to post pictures and news. 

I will open up a public profile facebook site if my personal facebook site gets too flooded with requests (I prefer that my private one be fairly small for family, old friends, people I know in some capacity in the music and art world, i.e. not just total randomness-- it is the only way I can enjoy the site and reading the feeds).

Which is to say, I would like to spend more time at my actual work and to put more into this blog instead of spreading out yet again into another social networking site which I may or may not be able to upkeep properly.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE (hear clips)

Saratoga Faire CD featured on Celtic Radio Station

Saratoga Faire update:

Our CD "Saratoga Romance" to be featured on IRFT Celtic Radio on Monday, April 5, 2010. They will play the CD in its entirety. Start time of the show is 4:00 p.m. PDT: http://www.irftradio.comlu.com/

I think this is the first time since the CD was published that you can hear it in its entirety (i.e. no soundclips or selected cuts).

We also did an interview for 101.7 fm in the northeast for Community Cafe Hour (with John Kribs) with half of this CD aired plus cuts from my solo singer/songwriter project, The Goldenrod, as well as 2 cuts from Wing'd With Hopes (my Renaissance band CD with The Spirites Consort).

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

First Night Saratoga and updates on my website

This is a picture of our band, Saratoga Faire, at First Night Saratoga 2010 (© Ray Bedard). We played to a packed crowd all night and sold quite a few CDs. There are more pictures of our band on our facebook here.

This photo and other music photos of 2009 are also on my website here. You’ll notice that this link takes you to a blog page. I do my own website blog every January summarizing the previous year (in this case it is about 2009). I had been doing that for years before starting a blog here on blogspot in September. Note: the blog on my website won't be repeated here, so take a look if you'd like.

The reason I started a blogspot? I started selling on Etsy. I thought it would be a good idea to announce new work I was putting on Etsy (for on-line customers). This wasn't so necessary for my brick and mortar stores: I didn't feel it was necessary to post on my website (& in fact, I didn't think my website was all that important for the art side of my life, which is why all of the music buttons are at the top).

I felt that people who were interested in my art would go see it in the stores and galleries I have listed on my website. But having an on-line store is a whole other venture. My only exposure to selling on-line is through CDs (but unlike etsy, these on-line stores take care of the actual marketing and selling for me)… and also selling some art and just a few CDs via paypal off of my website.

When I was entertaining the thought of starting a blog, I thought I would only focus on my art for my etsy store, but then realized that unlike other visual artists, there would be gaps in my creations as I often get called away to perform, record, write music, rehearse, etc. So it was only fitting that I should blog about music too. Both are important to me, inspire me and define who I am (and a number of people have remarked to me that I can't just let my singing voice go silent in an art studio all day and night).

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Performing for the media (First Night kick-off) and The Victorian Streetwalk

My intention is to join my visual art with telling my tales about being a performing musician, but I can't seem to find the time at this juncture. So the little cropped pic of me with the guitar will have to suffice for now as the visual part of my story.

I was asked to perform for the media by the First Night office in Saratoga Springs, NY. As part of my general performance, I was asked to sing "Starry, Starry Night" as that was the theme for this year's event. This request came in on November 10 and I responded on November 11. This meant I had about 19 days (minus time around Thanksgiving) to "work up" the song. But, I was also practicing for two holiday performances, so I felt pretty stretched as holiday material isn’t something that is part of my regular repertoire. It always takes additional practice and rehearsal.

I found "Starry, Starry Night" vocally challenging (believe it or not!). I sing lots of challenging pieces like "Ave Maria", so I knew I could do it, but I knew I’d be in trouble if I tried to tackle and memorize the accompaniment too, so I asked Jim if he could do that part. This made my task a lot easier when the event finally came and I felt confident that I did a good job. We decided that since we would show up as a duo that we should use the hammered dulcimer in the performance too since there aren’t very musicians in this area who play the instrument.

We often use the hammered dulcimer in our holiday performances. It has a nice bell-like quality which is perfectly suited to holiday music and my vocals. In these performances, I play the classical guitar in addition to my singing.

I have played in front of television cameras before and the lights were fairly blinding. This is all right when I am singing and playing a guitar, but with the addition of the hammered dulcimer, this was of concern to us since Jim has to be able to see the strings in order to play his instrument (he uses handmade little wooden hammers).

We asked the sound guy about the lights and his brusque answer was to wear a hat with a visor and some sunglasses. But he was having a little fun with us because there were no lights, not a single one. Ha!

We played the Saratoga Victorian Streetwalk two days later (the same duo). The event and our venue was packed the whole night. The streets were blocked off and smelled like horses.

Many of our CD customers asked us who the other musicians were on our CD (feeling a little unsure of the musicianship of these "other" players when they weren't hearing them as part of our live performance). We had fun explaining that the whistle guy was across the street at Celtic Treasures and the violinist was down the street about a half a block at the post office and our recording guy was another half block across the street, etc. All the customers looked a little shocked. Most don't understand that many of the musicians in this area are like one big jamming family. In fact, our band formed at one of the biggest jam sessions in the north country, The Dance Flurry Festival.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Practicing and learning new music, new art show and new gig

This is a new picture of Jim and me last summer. The two of us are spending the evenings practicing and learning new material. We are performing New Year’s Eve with the band. I think we are also playing a Christmas venue, though not entirely sure.

I painted/worked a new piece the entire day and rushed downtown late before everything closed and found out I will be at the holiday art show at Lower Adirondack Regional Art Center. Yippee! This year I will have greeting cards and giclee prints (and maybe an original or two). Oh, yes, and CDs.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Our CD, Saratoga Romance is now up on CD Baby

Our new CD (cover design above) is finally up for sale on CD Baby. It will probably be up on Amazon, Borders, and download sites like I-Tunes shortly.

I did the artwork for the CD (while band member Jim Lestrange did the graphics). I also made this into 2 greeting card designs without the writing (one has a color shift). It has done well and I am encouraged to make more designs with Celtic knots and horses.

I am hoping to sell the CD on Etsy as well. While I have done well at CD Baby (and they do have the soundclips!), I am less pleased that they were taken over by Discmakers: more corporate & seemingly more disorganized (though to be fair, they have just started to overhaul the site and things may get better... I hope).

Anyway: here are some of the greeting card designs I made from the CD cover (note: the copyright watermark does not appear in actual product):

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Purchasing our Saratoga Faire CD on CD Baby

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog. This blog is being created to keep you abreast of what I am doing and creating on a more consistent level than my once-a-year blog on my website. I plan to post my newest art creations, photos and blogs from the road with the band and any other thing that comes to mind.

For those of you who are not so familiar with me or my work, I’d like to introduce myself. I am a visual artist and a musician.

I got here through many twists and turns.

I began singing and playing a classical guitar and recorder when I was 10, but I never considered music to be a good career choice for me (I had severe asthma). But I still loved to play for family and friends and for a giant contra dance band at a summer camp. I continued despite setbacks.

My other passions were art and writing. I thought these interests might be a more practical career choice for me. I learned to throw pots on the potters wheel when I was 10. I also learned weaving, drawing, painting, sewing and beading. My brother and I made a lot of our own toys which included ships and space ships and other wooden toys in our father’s wood shop in the basement. I made my own doll’s clothes and often embroidered them. I filled composition books with stories and illustrations (modeled after children’s books).

My brother and I also made a lot of our own card games and board games, drawing all of the designs and making the cards. I still have a fascination with composing aesthetically beautiful games together with a mindful and exemplary strategy.

When I went to college, I majored in studio art. I applied for an art scholarship and won it. Then I got a masters degree in art education. Around the time of getting my masters, the schools were cutting back on art teachers which meant that there were a lot of us floating around looking for jobs. Many of my colleagues found work in art galleries, teaching at art centers and substitute teaching, but I decided to be a potter. It worked for awhile (barely). I was subsidizing the pottery business with performing at local venues during weekends.

Then things shifted again: the music business became more and more lucrative and overtook the pottery business to the point where I was hardly making any pottery at all. I was performing 3 – 4 times a week. Audiences were asking for recordings. So, my time went towards tracking all kinds of music, practicing or creating new compositions. I still had an urge to make art, but even a miniscule pottery business wasn’t so compatible with a music career. Pottery takes constant vigilance as the clay is always drying. So I drew and painted instead.

The greeting card business grew very, very slowly and by surprise, starting with one card design in 1998. It started because I needed a wedding card for a friend’s wedding and I didn’t like any of the designs I found, so I made my own. I thought I might try selling the design at a small local shop (at the prodding of the bride). The shop took 50 cards of the same design and they sold out in 2 months. I have been making greeting cards ever since.

During my performances, I was throwing in Renaissance songs here and there. My audiences were asking for a recording of it. So I decided to take a 2 year break from performing and concentrate on getting a Renaissance band together (we called ourselves The Spirites Consort). We recorded “Wing’d With Hopes, New Interpretations of Renaissance Songs”. The album did very well, better than expected (and because of it, I won a grant to record my next CD), but the band’s full potential was not realized because venues in the USA were not so keen to hire a Renaissance band except concert halls that are geared towards the historical perspective like art centers and libraries. By the time we figured that out, one of our members married and moved away, joining some other bands, and it became more difficult to book a consistent tour of concerts. Some of the remaining members thought we should branch out more musically and not pigeon-hole ourselves by being exclusively Renaissance. Eventually we ended up in another band called “Saratoga Faire” (3 of us from The Spirites Consort plus violinist, Frank Orsini). We are just starting to market the band and brand new CD now.

So in bits and starts, making art became more of a focus again while the musical tides of my life were shifting. In order not to drive myself crazy with two careers, most of my present art-making is in the same genres as my music and each contributes to the other and makes for a fulfilling life.

Some other tidbits about me: I love blueberries and eat a lot of them. When I go for walks I am always looking up at the sky and at the birds in the trees. Crows seem to have the best vantage point. Hummingbirds are joy on wings. Robins are a sign that my surroundings are relatively healthy. I don’t like coffee or drink it. Popcorn is my comfort food in winter.

Thank you for reading!

Website

Music MYSPACE

My Etsy on-line store for some of my CDs and some of my art