2017 Festival ARTISTS
Gracie and rachel
" Pizzicato violin from Rachel Ruggles and Gracie Coates' piano ebb and flow together in a rocking orchestral rhythm, while Gracie’s milky vocals add a delicate layer of gothic pop on top." - WNYC Soundcheck session with John Schaefer
Releasing debut album on June 23!
Orchestral pop piano-violin duo, Gracie and Rachel, crafts intricate tunes combining classical string elements with haunting, fierce vocals, augmented by sparse but powerful percussion. Ivory satin lined with teeth, the duo finds beauty in stark simplicity, pausing to breathe a hint of the abstract into the highly emotive, evolved body they create. Through their music, the two young women use lyric and sound to flip common preconceptions on their heads. With the release of their latest single, "Only A Child," Gracie and Rachel's NYC audience has expanded quickly into markets across the country. "Only A Child" was premiered by NPR Music with Bob Boilen praising, "There's a terrific tension in the sound, an underpinning of mystery set against a baroque, but modern, pop foreground." Gracie and Rachel's forthcoming self-titled debut album is a penetrating record about questioning realities, anxious introspection, and self-exploration, which flows freely between virtuosic violin textures to sylphlike melodies, highlighting uniquely stimulating songwriting.
Video for "Only A Child" (New Release)
"Tiptoe" (Official Video)
Hite
"Watching Hite perform feels like a religious experience - she's both totally in control and completely surrendering to the music. Her soothing voice soars, her body sways, and the audience is under her spell." - Amory Sivertson, WBUR
Debut album released!
Hite is the new project from Julia Easterlin and the follow up to her collaboration with Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Toure on their #1 iTunes world charting album, Touristes. The debut album from Hite entitled Light Of A Strange Day was released March 24th on Six Degrees Records. Described as "rooted in folk yet still using the language of art rock and electronica", the album was produced by Shahzad Ismaily (Lou Reed, Carla Kihlstedt, Marc Ribot, Sam Amidon) and recorded over the course of five days, during a snowstorm. Her earlier work combined looping and layering her voice to create her music. This record, she says, “is a natural progression, away from loops and into more flexible, expressive forms of storytelling." Growing up in Georgia and moving around to Boston and ultimately settling in NYC, Julia cites references for her own songwriting from the southern Appalachian folk music she grew up listening to as well as alternative pioneer Bjork.
Video for "Light" (New Release)
Music Video for "Eliza Jane" (New Release)
jiji
“…talented, sensitive…brilliant" - Calgary Herald
Jiji is an adventurous artist on both acoustic and electric guitar, playing an extensive range of music from traditional and contemporary classical music to free improvisation. She was awarded First Prize at the 2016 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and has performed in a wide array of venues, including: Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Mass MOCA, Subculture NYC, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A recent tour in Hong Kong consisted of performances collaborating with a performance Artist, a traditional Chinese instrument ensemble, and an Erhu player in art galleries, clubs, and even on a moving trolley. She also performs her own compositions, incorporating electronic media and acoustic music. Her music is influenced by her regular activities as a DJ, where she highlights the electronic dance styles of happy hardcore and Berlin experimental electronica.
Jiji will be performing the following works:
Asturias by Isaac Albeniz
Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich
excerpts from Sonata for Guitar by Alberto Ginastera
WATCH Jiji perform Asturias by Isaac Albeniz
www.jijiguitar.com