PRE-ORDER
ALBUM + CHORAL SONGBOOK
Dear friends,
I’m so excited to share with you that my album and choral songbook are getting HELP in their release! This means a couple of things for you, dear readers. ‘Unzip The Horizon’ will now be officially released March 30, 2018.
So, this is what I will do: These next 3 months I’ll leak bits of Album and Songbook to you, but not the general public. The music is ready NOW. I’ve set up an album + songbook PRE-ORDER, which helps me to cover some of the upfront release costs [including that I’m pressing LPs!!!], gets YOU some music NOW, and gets you the album 10 days before official release. When you pre-order the album, you’ll get ‘Sing About It‘, the track – and the sheet-music too!! You will ALSO automatically get my single ‘Refugee’!!!
Immediately Upcoming Shows/Workshops: December 2-3 I’ll be in Philadelphia to lead an afternoon Song Workshop, then I’m thrilled that the wonderful Anna Crusis Women’s Choir will feature my songs for womens choir in 2 Philadelphia concerts. I will also perform sings between their sets, and in collaboration with them. I’ll do a very similar thing in Middlebury, VT Dec. 9th with the delicious, barbershop women of Maiden Vermont.
My January starts in Berkeley, CA via an exciting new collaboration with the brilliant Scandinavian band, SVER! It rolls right into NYC shows- including at the phenomenal Jenkins House Concert Series on Jan. 13th. It’s a storm of touring across the U.S. all Spring, so I HOPE HOPE HOPE I might see you! Please be in touch!
Warmly, Moira
p.s. Composing & Choral News Below!!
A LITTLE ABOUT ‘UNZIP THE HORIZON’
I left my life in Los Angeles, and became nomadic for more than 2 years to tour with 3 bands: tUnE-yArDs, SOLAS and Jayme Stone’s Lomax/Folklife Project (and my own VOCO). The lonesome freedom of this time was the midwife to this album and songbook. ‘Unzip The Horizon’ is about seeing down to the origins of anxiety, and up into the freedoms we ignore. As I’ve written in other posts, the album title comes from a trip I took to Ukraine (w/KITKA), where I learned from older traditional singers that some songs were powerful enough to communicate with the ancestors. Singing these songs meant keeping ‘good relations’ with the mysterious and uncontrollable.
That singing to ‘keep good relations’ with the unknown is the heart of this collection of songs.
With 14 songs, and guests that include Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, Leah & Chloe Smith of Rising Appalachia, Darrell Scott, Seamus Egan, Jayme Stone, Anna & Elizabeth and Sam Lee, there are duets that thrill me, beautiful percussion and bass, I play piano (!) and quite often I leave room for YOU to find the harmonies!
The 10 songs in the ‘Unzip The Horizon’ Songbook are for mixed (SATB) choir, body percussion. These arrangements can also be done with a treble choir with bass and percussion.
TOURS/OTHER RELEASES
Dec. 2-3 Philadelphia, PA [Anna Crusis Choir]
Dec. 9 Middlebury, VT [Maiden Vermont]
MOIRA + SVER (amazing quartet from Sweden)
Jan. 11 Berkeley, CA [Freight & Salvage]
CHORAL & COMPOSING NEWS
I would love to share my two most recent song cycles with choir directors who are interested!
They are my 5-movement [15’] ‘Time In Our Voices’ for LAMC, and the 4-movement [18’] ‘Loud, My Soul’ for Ad Astra Music Festival.
I’m delighted to give the music to an ensemble who feels moved to perform either, and make the first-ever video premiere of either piece!
I’ll leave you with a live performance morsel . . .
Here, I’m singing Leonard Cohen’s ‘Who By Fire’ with the extraordinary Piers Faccini last month.
