Last set of sunset sessions for the new album – here are Ted Looby and Gus Ziesing, the main players from to finish!

It’s “July, so high, so lush and alone.” The abundance and deep heat –  real summer, sister summer! – in Vermont. I love it. It’s wildly beautiful, green, enfolding, sparkling.

Album recording at Low Tech Studios with Gus Ziesing picked up again in late April. Crossed the finish line for base track recording, with 15 songs! Nearing the finish line for overdubs. Ted Looby, Patricia Julien, Dan Strauss, Amy Larimer, Nick Leichter have all been adding magical threads to the songs. I feel so lucky. Getting close to the mixing stage.

Upcoming live events – on July 14th Ted, Gus and I will be playing as Clare Byrne: Song & Dance – including new songs from the album –  at Whammy Bar. Always love that magical spot in Calais… Clare Byrne: Song & Dance at Whammy Bar

In August Dan Strauss will be in Vermont in August and we’ll be doing some gigs together – on August 11th at 7:30pm at the  The Rose Street Coop Gallery , on August 13 at at The Light Club Lamp Shop, on August 15 at Bar Antidote in Vergennes.

Hope you can come to one or more events!

For “The Poetry of Death” Dragon’s Egg event – here I am doing my harmonica song & dance, “My Beloved Nothing” at New London’s amazing Hygienic Gallery with some beautiful art behind me

I’ve loved connecting with the UVM Recital Hall with this version of Appalachian Spring. The dance happens in the whole space.

I’ve loved connecting with a strange bedfellow, a hard working ladder, for my new solo piece, Cocoon, in that space.

I’ve loved connecting and unconnecting and reconnecting, remembering and moving with all the people who have been involved in Appalachian Spring, eight years apart: dancers in 2010 Autumn Barnett, John Bennett, Patrick Ferrari, Ellen Smith, Julie Peoples-Clark, Dave Clark, and Ella Clark. Paul Besaw, Dancers in 2018 Winnie Looby, Chong Ho Kim, Marc Wennberg, Nicholas Leichter, Avi Waring; conductor Mike Hopkins in 2010 and Yutaka Kono in 2010. All the tremendous musicians in the Burlington Chamber Orchestra including Steve Klimowski, playing clarinet with me on Yvonne Desportes’ Birth of a Butterfly.

next week!

Eight years ago, I created new choreography for Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. I am doing it again, along with a group of Vermont and NYC dancers – Paul Besaw, Chong Ho Kim, Nicholas Leichter, Winnie Looby, Avi Waring, Marc Wennberg. We gather at the Dragon’s Egg in Ledyard CT for a residency this weekend.

A free showing, this Sunday January 21st, 2018, at 1:30PM

We premiere it March 3-4 with Yutaka Kono conducting the Burlington Chamber Orchestra at the UVM Recital Hall in Burlington, VT.

The work on Celestials, the double album, continues. Recently, Rodrigo Alonzo, Nicholas Leichter, and Amy Larimer came to Burlington and we had two magical days working at Low Tech Studios with Gus Ziesing. We recorded Rodrigo’s beautiful song “Cincinnati Lover” – complete with finger snaps.

Seven tracks in, we are on our way with the new double album. When it’s all said and done there will be many talented folks guesting as part of this album –  but so far, lovely to focus in with wonderful talents of Gus Ziesing and Ted Looby, and settle in at Low Tech Studios in Burlington. It’s an amazing place. Very comfortably low-key. Three rooms nestled into the northwest corner of the old Burlington train station, huge windows that pour out over Lake Champlain. There have been stunning sunset afternoons solo sitting at the piano, getting down the piano songs, and lovely sessions with Ted on electric guitar and me on vocals and acoustic, looking through the glass door between the two recording rooms – while Gus, capturing it all from the loosely organized control room, reigns over it all with a decidedly relaxed vibe. It’s pretty much heaven.