Yellow House Salon #1

Thanks for stopping by my weekly blog to read and listen to what’s going on in my studio.

I’m currently working on new programs to add to my concert and residency offerings. Inspired by the engaging little book, Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon. I’m experimenting with a weekly post that does just that: shows my work.

Campfire to Concert Hall, a program in progress, celebrates piano music inspired by the American West. I’m a Montana girl from Choteau, a magical small town on the edge of the Rocky Mountain front. I’ve always been interested in wide open spaces, cowboys, pioneers, frontier towns, saloons, old time music, and folk songs. I love the simple, lyric, and sometimes heartbreaking melodies found in cowboy songs from the old West.

I’m learning a collection of pieces by American composer, Roy Harris (1898-1979), American Ballads. This wonderful collection contains five pieces, each inspired by an American folk songs, the first is Streets of Laredo.

Here is my take on the piece in its early stages, and here is where I recorded it.

#1 Yellow House Recordings

Streets of Laredo by Roy Harris