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Have Harp, Will Travel – The Global Musical Adventures of CHIARA CAPOBIANCO

Born and raised in Milan, Italy, Chiara Capobianco’s earliest musical memory finds her at ages 3-5 attending the Puccini Festival in the charming hamlet of Torre del Lago in Tuscany, where the famed composer wrote classic operas like “Tosca” and “Madama Butterfly.” Her early passion for classical music, her natural wanderlust – and her later love, as a child of the 80s, for the pop magic of American icons like Michael Jackson and Madonna – laid the foundation for her emergence as a true musical citizen of the world.

chiara capobianco harpistIn the 20-plus years since she performed her first professional gigs as last minute fill-in harpist in orchestras everywhere from her home country to Switzerland, Poland and England, the multi-talented musician has performed for thousands of people across the globe – in settings ranging from cruise ships, hotels and weddings to clubs and concert halls. Since 1990, she has gigged as a solo harpist (with both classic and Irish harp), in duos with fellow harp players and also with violin, flute, cello, piano, voice and full ensembles.

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Los Angeles Pop-R&B Singer-Songwriter, Malynda Hale, Announces Show at GiGhive’s 616 in Kenosha

 

Singer Songwriter Malynda HaleThis July 2nd, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter, Malynda Hale, will be bringing her sweet soulful sound to the 616. She’ll be in Kenosha promoting her most recent album, Pieces of Me.

Earlier this year, Hale’s single Falling, written as a tribute to Leelah Acorn, landed her a top-10 finalist position in GRAMMY Amplifier—a competition sponsored by The Recording Academy and Hyundai, and curated by the likes of GRAMMY winners and nominees such as Big Sean, Lzzy Hale, and Sam Hunt.

The newest record, Pieces of Me, is Hale’s 4th studio album; produced by Kevin Porter of Flashgrove Music and Darren “BabyDeeBeats” Smith, it has been described in reviews as her most personal one yet. In a chat with Gighive, Hale opened up about what she’s learned on her musical journey so far, and dropped us a few hints on what to expect for her upcoming stop at the 616.

“When I made my first album, I had no knowledge of actual music business,” she told us. “I knew nothing about promotion and getting reviewed; instead, I simply wanted to put out music to start getting my name out there. With the first album I didn’t take time to really make it as good as it could’ve been. I was over eager.”

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Singer Songwriter Melanie Edwards Announces New Album, Lorelei, for 2016

It’s been two years since my last GiGhive Buzz chat with Melanie Edwards, who had then just finished recording her eighth album, ‘The Circle’, in Barcelona, Spain. A lot can happen in two years, and in Melanie’s case, a lot did. After a broken engagement ended her six-year relationship, Edwards used the experience to write her ninth album, which she named Lorelei after her engagement ring.

Melanie EdwardsIn Germanic mythology, Lorelei is a feminine water spirit who lures sailors with her singing. According to the folklore, Lorelei was betrayed by her love and accused of bewitching men. Narrowly escaping a death sentence, she was sent to the nunnery by the bishop. On her way there, she climbed a rock to get a last peak at the Rhine, and, believing she’d seen her love in the river, fell to her death. Legend has it that her spirit still sits on that rock, beckoning sailors with the sound of her voice, causing them to steer their ships into the cliffs.

No, Melanie Edwards didn’t throw herself into a river when her engagement ended, nor did she vow to spend her days perched on a rock, luring men to their doom; she did, however, write a record in 12 days, which in itself is no small feat in normal times, let alone after such an experience.
“My last eight records are extremely esoteric and lyrically vague, but not this one,” she says about Lorelei.
“I used the period following the end of my engagement to channel the hurt, rawness and confusion of that disconnect into sonic prose because I didn’t want to externalize the journey. Instead, I wanted to honor the experience.

“Six years of my life and a huge chapter just ended so I wanted to put it in an audible time capsule. I’ve had breakups before and went through my parents’ divorce, but nothing of this magnitude. The usual go-to for me was to throw myself into vice, distraction and anything but actually dealing with emotional pain. I knew as the healing process began that I wanted to utilize those primal feelings of loss, separation, solitude and chaos into song work because I knew I would write from a place of truth.”

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Melanie Edwards Finding a New Normal in Barcelona

Awarded an International Residency, Musical Scientist Melanie Edwards Travels to Spain to Put Finishing Touches on Her Children’s Book

melanie edwardsLast time we caught up with musical scientist Melanie Edwards, she had just come back home to New York from Costa Rica, where she had taken her traveling lab to make her sixth album, “Las Rosas”. Melanie has the habit of trying out new locations with more or less every project, so it wasn’t necessarily a surprise to hear that Melanie had spent the last few weeks in Barcelona working on something new. Edwards, who’s fluent in Spanish and even lived in Spain twelve years ago, was trying out something completely different this time around—she was there to create a children’s book with music to accompany it. Offered an international residency at Can Serrat in El Bruc, Barcelona, Edwards decided to open up her artistic vault and finish something she had started in grad school.

“I wrote and illustrated a children’s book called “The Seed That Made It Big/La Semilla Que Hizo Grande” nearly ten years ago,” says Edwards. “I never published it, just developed the story. I’m always searching for new ways to express myself via writing and music, plus a lot of my fans now have children of their own. So, I felt it would be a step in a new direction which would be both stimulating and challenging towards my usual approach and process.”

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Pixies and their influence on the independent music scene

A week or so ago I received an email from Pixies’ mailing list. This was monumental enough in and of itself because I have been on Pixies’ mailing list for approximately a million years, and they send somewhere in the region of 2.2 emails a year, if that. The email was about their first new material in nine years, ‘Bagboy’, which in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, I’ll post here, because it has honestly been traveling through cyberspace faster than TRON (apologies to any sci-fi purists who don’t think this is an adequate or correct use of a TRON metaphor).

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Acoustic Pop Duo Minor Soul Discuss Work with Dave Stewart and Making Music in the Big Apple

minor soul music

The two young brothers in acoustic-pop band Minor Soul have a bit of a complicated background — I’d tell you where they’re from, but I’m still not quite sure. To be honest, I’m not entirely certain that they even know for sure. What I do know is that Jack and Max Wagner were born in England, grew up in Hong Kong, and now live in New York. To spice up their bio even more, the two brothers even made a few pit stops along the way, including one in Los Angeles, where they joined forces with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) at Henson Studios to record some songs. Later that year, Minor Soul released a video for “Beneath my Skin”, a song that came out of these sessions.

These days, Minor Soul is staying extremely present online by releasing videos on YouTube, as well as posting tunes that might one day end up on an official Minor Soul release. But, before they release an album, the guys are keen on making an impression on their latest city of residence — New York, New York. Their latest song/video, “Streets of New York”, was produced and co-written with renown hit maker, Toby Gad; whether you’ve heard Minor Soul play before or not, the catchy number is a good briefing on where the band is in 2012, both literally and figuratively.

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Everybody is a Music Producer – the LA thing

Record ProducerIf you’re familiar with Los Angeles – whether you’ve lived there, traveled there or simply dealt with people from there – you are probably aware that there is an infinite amount of musical resources to be explored over there. There are thousands of musicians, thousands of bands and just as many engineers, singers, conductors, promoters and producers. It can be very confusing when you’re trying to find the one person that can help you with one particular project. There are so many pianists, so many singers, so many studios, so many everything! However, since I’ve had to deal with a lot of people in the LA music bubble lately, I’ve realized one thing: everybody is a “producer”. And I mean everybody. It’s almost an honorary title at this point. But really, what is a producer? And what isn’t?

Just for laughs and giggles, go on the LA Craigslist page and browse the Musicians section. Chances are, within the first 10 postings, one of them will say something like:

“Hey, I’m a producer looking to collaborate with other like-minded individuals. If you’re a talented singer looking for a producer to take you to the next level, hit me up! I have tons of beats and I work with all the best computer gear.”

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Melanie Edwards – Musical Scientist – Gets ‘Back to Basics’ on New Album

Having spent the summer writing and recording in Finland, NYC-based musician Melanie Edwards recently returned home with a brand new album in hand. Her third solo album, entitled “Back to Basics”, was released on October 2nd and offers a classically-inspired sound with an array of dynamic musical arrangement and a quaintly authentic tone. Edwards defines herself as a musical scientist, combining two different worlds to forge something that comes together as a whole. Personally, whenever I hear the words ‘music’ and ‘science’ together in the same sentence, I immediately think either paradox or contradiction; however, the two don’t necessarily have to live apart.

Melanie Edwards - the music scientist

These days, we often dissociate the soulful from the cerebral, but, as Edwards points out, it hasn’t always been this way. “Art relies on intuition and emotion,” she says. “Science toys with data and facts. But they are both inventive and curious. Look at Amelia Earhart: a writer and an aviator. Leonardo Da Vinci was a mathematician, scientist, painter and architect. As a musical scientist, I’m acting as a channel between the binary. I think art and science are best friends, but can get on each other’s nerves. We all wrestle with collective and individual duality, because paradox is a human condition, but there can be a beautiful balance, between the binary; it’s magic.”

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