Issa in the mail box

I was so pleased to come home today and find three copies of Issa's new CD in my mail box. I popped it in my stereo and found I was hearing entirely new work in a language I knew—but didn't know it could say these particular things, in this particular way.

I am fortunate to know Issa, and to have worked with her on this project, and others. Time with Issa surprises with joy!

"May the first word on our lips in
thankfulness be ...

YES"

The Divine Issa

Last night I completed my part of Issa's new recording project. The songs are moving and spending time around Issa always puts me in a remarkable state of mind.

Watch her web site for the release of the new material.

This picture below is of Issa and me after a performance at Carnegie Hall a couple years ago.

ISSA
Just home from a recording session with the divine Issa (aka Jane Siberry), working on new songs for a new recording. My colleagues are the Kim sisters, Pauline on violin (a friend since Juilliard), and Christine on cello.

The work is exacting in its way. Issa's ears hear subtle details of sound and especially timing. Playing her music well always takes me out of my usual performing mind set. Sitting with her in the studio as we played through passages tonight, often a graceful movement of her hands or a phrase quietly sung, revealed the secret to sounding spontaneous. Her music is in her body and achieving the spiritual uplift in her songs requires physically conforming to her inner rhythms. Giving oneself over to these rhythms allows a special ethereal freedom and flow.

Every musical style has its own own vernacular accent, its own way of filling the space between beats and notes. The process of finding and sharing in a particular musical language is difficult to describe, but it is the stuff that brings a musician's life to life, and fills it with secret pleasures and satisfactions. It fills the spaces between notes and the rest.