natalie nowytski :: news

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AM Supper Club and the new Mila (updates to previous post)

November 2009: For those of you who have been following the Natalie and Reid saga, as pertaining to our name, we finally selected a winner with the help of friends and family who know us and have heard us. Call us AM Supper Club! You can find us all over the place: Facebook, iLike, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube (videos coming soon), and tcMusic.net. And soon (but not yet) on our own home-base of a site. This fall, we started rehearsing with drummer Reid Kennedy to experiment with our live sound experience. You can hear the three of us rock out at Club Underground December 7th. Stay tuned for an early 2010 live date as well.

I'm amazed the new singers in Mila don't have whiplash yet! It's been a whirlwind half-year for the new line-up, and they've been meeting the challenge head-on with energy and grace by hunkering down in the rehearsal room and learning to sing in unusual and cool ways while analyzing how cultures differ in their pronunciation of the letter A. On Mila's invitation, we put our heads together for a couple of guest lectures on Eastern European folk singing this fall, one for a course Jen is teaching at Macalester, one for the Thursdays at Four series at the University of Minnesota, arranged by former EDT (pre-Mila) singer, Susannah Smith. You can catch the U of M lecture online, which was part-performance and part-discussion. (Check out the spiffy map Jen whipped up!) The ladies did a lot of fast-forward work to make this a success, and they did great! I'm really proud of how far the new ensemble has come in such a short amount of time. Rumor has it that Jen and I will be working on a related post-lecture Q and A for Bat of Minerva. I'll let you know more as we get there.

CD projects, line-up changes, and workshops, oh my!

June 2009: OK, so the headline doesn't quite feel as good to say as the Wizard of Oz line, but hey, it sums up my musical life beautifully.

1. CD projects: Although Reid Kruger and I are still facing the strangely difficult task of naming our somewhat unclassifiable duo (Supple Puppy was short-lived, unfortunately), we've decided to release an EP of the songs we've written and performed to date. We've been in the studio for some time now, re-writing, recording, tweaking, perfecting. No deadline yet for a release, but our fans are giving us good reason to create one (thanks, guys!). It's nice when one-half of the duo is a professional sound engineer—studio time is cheap.
2. Line-up changes: We at Orkestar Bez Ime (OBI) sadly lost our kitchensink-ist, Tim Wahl, to other musical and familial pursuits this winter. Those of you who have seen Tim perform know that the guy can play a blade of grass and make it sound like a kaval, if he put his mind to it. We'll certainly miss His Plinkiness and the trouble he got us girls into, but we're also thrilled that two talented (and equally trouble-making) gents have joined our ranks to help fill the void: Composer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Keever is picking up guitar and mando needs, while bassist extraordinaire Matt Miller is rounding out the sound nicely while regaling us with the Japanese "flair" he recently added to his bass scroll. We had a great time working with them in Ethnic Dance Theatre's 35th anniversary show this past spring, so we already know they can do anything. We've had several gigs now with the new line-up, and it's sounding pretty spectacular!
3. Workshops: I've been spending a good deal of time the last few months with Mila Vocal Ensemble as a voice and performance coach, training in a new line-up of bold and beautiful women after the departure of the veterans I once sang with. They have a great advantage in their ranks right now, because two of the members, Marie Rule and Jen Blecha, are ethnomusicologists and have had a ton of experience with the cultures Mila represents. They hired me to work on building the sound—pronunciation, voice production, timbre, ornamentation, etc.—as about 80 percent of the group is new as of this last year. It's been such a rewarding experience to work with these women; they're talented, motivated, open-minded, quick studies, and most importantly, incredibly enthusiastic about not only learning these amazing traditional forms of singing, but also about representing the cultures accurately through song. I'm so proud of everyone's progress, and I'm thankful that I get a chance to sing some of my favorite songs again (it just doesn't sound the same when you're trying to sing six different harmonies at once; my voice doesn't do that). By the sounds of it, I may be working with Mila on a fairly regular basis, with a focus on getting them good and Balkanized.

NATALIE AND REID'S FIRST SHOW!

January 2008: Happy new year! After nearly three years of jamming, writing and recording, Reid Kruger and I are finally performing as a duo. Our motto since our first meeting in '05 has been "walk in with nothing, walk out with something." What's resulted has been an amazing and eclectic mix of indie pop, acoustic rock, electronica, and unclassifiable soundscapes (with nods to the world of opera and world music)—all improvized from the get-go. We've kept much of our work true to the original off-the-cuff versions, with a few thoughtful revisions. We'll be debuting some of our original material on February 1 in Linden Hills. I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE FINALLY DOING IT! It seems so strange that, even though I've been a performer all my life, this is that pivotal point I've been looking forward to since I was 12. It's not only a chance for me to perform something I created (and debut on guitar...eek!), but it's a chance to do something I don't know that I've ever done: sing in my own voice. I'm so used to refining a style to its most minute detail, preserving that authenticity of timbre, ornamentation, pronunciation, you name it. But being myself? Nope. Haven't really tried it. This project has been so good for me on so many levels. It's challenged me to become a better instrumentalist, a more disciplined writer, a proactive collaborator. It's also taught me how to sing like me, not like somebody else. That's pretty freaky. The whole experience has been really humbling, and I'm giddy just knowing that this is only the beginning. (Check out numbers 10 and 12 on the samples page or listen to "Coming Home" on MySpace for a preview.)

holiday fuzzies and a world premier

December 2007: I always love the end of December because, at least for the last five years, I've had the delightful and peaceful experience of sharing the stage with one of my favorite people—Peter Ostroushko. We just did his annual Heartland Holiday concert on the 22nd at the Fitzgerald Theater, and as always, it put me in such a great mood...even with the addition of Teddy Bear's Picnic. (Insert emoticon of choice here.) Every year, the previous year's show gets broadcast on National Public Radio. This year I had the extra treat of being interviewed with Peter by Julie Amacher for the 2007 broadcast. If you're listening in Minnesota, tune into The Current on Christmas Eve. One thing you'll hear is the world premier of a carol I wrote. Shcho to za predyvo, sung by my sister, Olenka, and me, appears on our debut album, Zyma (Winter). It's a melody I wrote to existing$#151;very archaic—lyrics. I'm thrilled it made it onto the broadcast this year! And I'm thankful to close out another year with some of the neatest, most talented musicians I've ever had the pleasure to work with.

kalevala, babas and the looper

Fall 2007: I think "variety" is a keyword this season. After a busy summer that included a foray into the Circus (Juventas, to be exact), what had initially looked like a fairly straightforward fall became a mass of exciting and demanding music projects. I had the good fortune to work with my pal, Ruth MacKenzie, and an all-star cast of musicians on the 10-year anniversary of her epic work, "Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden." This enormous undertaking had me kulning, buzzing and making all sorts of noises to kick off the annual Nordic Roots Festival here in Minneapolis. But being done with that only meant diving head-first into the completion of Orkestar Bez Ime's endcap of the popular "Nice Driveway" trilogy. We'll be celebrating the release of our third volume, "Rogarian Baba-que" on October 13 at the Cedar (check out the events page for info. That place is starting to feel like home! Although the fun with OBI never stops, once the Big Day is behind us, I'll be heading straight into prepping for the first-ever "art day" show. My duet buddy, Reid Kruger, and I nearly have our live arrangements figured out for our most recent tunes, and yes, there WILL be looping involved! No word yet on a final name for the band, however. Why does it have to be so easy for some and so hard for others?

new cd out with other "dreaded"

Ever since "The Dreaded Nowytski Sisters" were little, we knew we had to record together. Thanks to some prodding from friends and family (and perhaps good planetary alignment), Olenka and I have just released our first-ever duet album. Winter (Zyma), which was released December 8, features a cappella Christmas and New Years carols from Ukraine...and even one composed carol by me! Check out www.sisters.natalien.com to order online and learn more about this first installment in our larger music preservation project. Needless to say, our parents are very proud...and our supporters are wondering what took us so long.

"art day" project tests improv skills

I've spent the last several months with my friend and engineer, Reid Kruger, cranking out some of the most creative, crazy and fun material either of us have done in a long time, if ever. Every art day begs a new approach to improvising, writing, making, recording and editing music. We've been picking up whatever instruments are around that day and throwing down vocal tracks with lyrics fitting the day's mood. Considering I haven't solidly written in years, this project is as challenging as it is rewarding. The end goal will be a new CD and and eventual tour. Until that time, you can hear snippets from two of our latest off-the-cuff tunes on the sound samples page. Stay tuned for more good, clean fun.

© 2010 Natalie Nowytski