Category Archives: Classical Music

The Question

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Post 2 of 8 :: Mixing Metaphors: One Artist’s Passage from Humming Child to Singer-Songwriter Recording Artist

Michèle Sharik

Michèle Sharik is an insanely talented handbell soloist, which is pretty much just as amazing as it sounds. I once played (and recorded!) with her a piece that was commissioned for her called Relentless, which in the classical music world we affectionately call a “pan-banger.” In this piece, she plays two full 8-foot tables of instruments (handbells, chimes, percussion), while I simply play … my cello, but in highly unusual ways. You can find a recording of it … done playing together in one full take … here. You can also hear another recording I did with Michèle that I love love love, Gounoud’s Ave Maria, here. And just one more little gem I did with her on that album … La Paix by Handel here.

Playing Gounoud’s Ave Maria in concert with Michèle Sharik, 2007

I remember the first time she asked me to play with her in a concert … and offered to pay me. It reminded me of New Years 1984, when a highly attractive Canadian chatted me up in a bar in Brussels, Belgium. He was so good looking I was sure he was talking to someone behind me. In my defense, it *was* dark ….

That’s how it felt when Michèle asked me to be her cellist. I had never considered myself good enough at any type of music to be paid, much less featured. I remember the first time we performed Relentless together in concert … I laughed after the last note because I was so delighted that we had ended exactly together (it’s a tricky ending). I *think* she found that endearing since she asked me to play another concert with her shortly thereafter …

Michèle and I played several concerts together, and I was the featured cellist on the three tracks of her Chimera CD I mention above. My work with her opened the door to playing with Bev Barnett & Greg Newlon (the subject of my next blog post) and recording on their CD Any Doorway Will Do as well as other cello recording projects.

It may have gone no where with the handsome Canadian, but if it were not for Michèle’s surprising and life-altering question, I would not be where I am today. I am intensely grateful to her for asking.

To learn more about Michèle and her work, please visit her website thegoldendance.com.

To listen to and purchase Martha’s new album THESE HANDS, please visit her page on Bandcamp.com or click the button below. Thank you for visiting and reading!

Buy THESE HANDS

The Call

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Post 1 of 8 :: Mixing Metaphors: One Artist’s Passage from Humming Child to Singer-Songwriter Recording Artist

Classical Origins

I asked my then 10-year-old daughter what she thought after seeing me perform as a lead singer in an over-the-top costume cover band (the subject of another blog post). She was old enough to be able to process her mother’s doing something that outlandish, but fortunately not yet old enough to be mortified by it. She answered with the direct, clear-eyed honesty of her age: “You were doing exactly what I think you are supposed to be doing.”

Just like every girl growing up in the 70s (or so I imagine), I wanted to be a folk singer. My parents listened mostly to classical music, but also to Simon & Garfunkel and the Kingston Trio, and I knew every song in detail – melodies, harmonies, and lyrics. I also grew up around campfires where angsty college students with guitars – almost all of them young men – poured out Neil Young, Eagles, and America like water, and every girl in the fire’s glow lapped it up. That felt like the closest thing to real life.

Ballard High School Orchestra Rehearsal, Louisville, KY, 1981

At my house, however, music lessons were classical, and they started with the neighborhood piano teacher. By high school, I was playing piano concerti by Mozart and Beethoven. I also took up the cello in the sixth grade, and I was always the kid in choir that got the solos, so I started classical voice lessons in high school, with plenty of Caro Mio Ben and Sebben Crudele to feed the agony in my pubescent psyche.

My classical training was not what I had in mind back when I was singing wistfully around the campfire, but I am grateful for it because my it allows me to understand music and musicianship in ways that I would not otherwise. I even considered auditioning for music conservatory instead of applying to college, and for many years, I regretted not trying. Now that I am writing, recording, and performing my own music, however, I realize that this is where my heart was all along, and I wonder if conservatory might have steered me so far from this path that I may never have found it.

My daughter’s vision into my heart, even though my performance that day was far from perfect, reminds me that I am on the right track. Thank God I asked.

To listen to and purchase my new album THESE HANDS, please visit my page on Bandcamp.com or click the button below. Thank you for visiting and reading!

Buy THESE HANDS