Paula Cole, Moira Smiley & The Rhizome Quartet, and more on Mountain Stage

We are excited to return to the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center in Morgantown, WV as part of the .

Since 1983, Mountain Stage has been one of the most beloved programs in public radio history. Eclectic, authentic and unpredictable, the show’s varied guests have included iconic artists from John Prine and Townes Van Zandt to Wilco and Phish. Under the leadership of Grammy Award-winning country and bluegrass star Kathy Mattea since 2021, Mountain Stage continues to bring surefire energy and music discovery to parts known and unknown.

Produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and distributed by NPR Music, each two-hour episode is recorded in front of a live audience and can be heard every week on nearly 300 stations across America, and around the world via NPR Music and mountainstage.org

“Lo”

Paula Cole’s eleventh studio album, “Lo” is devastatingly personal and utterly gorgeous.

Her first album of original compositions in five years, “Lo”’s eleven songs, written entirely by Cole, navigate her opening to trust again after indelible blows of life. As the first woman to ever be nominated for the Best Producer Grammy in her own right, Paula Cole returns to the helm of recording as sole producer. On “Lo”, her loyal bandmates of many years (musicians that are stars unto themselves) join Cole in the studio. “Lo” was recorded entirely live, featuring full band performances from Jay Bellerose (drums), Chris Bruce (guitars), Ross Gallagher (upright and electric bass, backing vocals) and Rich Hinman (pedal steel, guitars). It was recorded and mixed by nine-time-Grammy-award-winning-engineer, Mike Piersante, whose unique sound is the canvas for “Lo.”

The autobiographies that are the songs of “Lo”, are the newest Polaroid snapshots of Cole’s life. The focus is her most recent period of years, saying goodbye to her friend and early collaborator, Mark Hutchins, on “The Replacements & Dinosaur Jr.”, reflecting on her childhood’s psychological influence in “Follow The Moon”, her primary relationship, in which she wrestles inner demons in “Green Eyes Crying”, lays down her “Invisible Armor” to find hope, rebirth, acceptance in “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” and physical intimacy in “take it take it take it”. Cole faces her identity in the spine-chilling, redemptive “Wildflower”. “Lo” is a window to Paula Cole’s psyche. Continuing her social-justice writing through music, Cole’s “Lo” reveals songs “Calling All Saviors” (a catchy pop gem), and “Letter From A Quarry Miner” (written from a North American quarryman, to his European family during The Great Depression in 1932.) Cole weaves in the words of W. B. Yeats in “Golden Apples of the Sun '' while honoring Ray Bradbury in “Fahrenheit 451”. The song is a poem, touching on the concept of the anthropocene and the frightening prospect of erasing history. With her eleventh studio album, “Lo”, Cole eloquently weaves the personal with the universal, the shy with the provocative. She concludes with the uplifting “Flying Home”, an homage to Max Erhmann’s “Desiderata”.

From whispering poetry in a low alto range, to opening her throat in primal scream, Paula Cole’s voice is more commanding than ever, revealing battle scars, deep wisdom, the soulfulness of gospel, the urgency of rock, and the sensitivity of folk. Cole plays piano, Rhodes, acoustic guitar, clarinet and sings her artfully arranged background-vocals. She is a poet with a funky groove.

Cole has been a truth-teller, a provocateur, a feminist, a rebel, and a brilliant autobiographical writer who has pushed for personal honesty and social change. An artful weaver of genre, she is difficult to categorize - she is simply Paula Cole. From her debut “Harbinger”, in her androgynous combat boots and sensitive songs, to the everlasting hits of “This Fire”, to her genre-busting “Amen” (a neo-soul-touched tour de force) to a vibrant line of independent recordings on her own 675 Records label, she has released music for over three decades, recorded and performed with greats such as Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton, Missy Elliot, Meshell N’Degeocello, Melissa Etheridge, Herbie Hancock, Sarah McLachlan, Terri Lyne Carrington, Emmylou Harris, Nona Hendrix, Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile, to John Paul White and Jason Isbell.

She was an instrumental force behind the historic Lilith Fair. Her songs have been covered by artists from Herbie Hancock and Annie Lennox, to Lissie, to HAIM, sampled by hip hop artists, and performed by choirs. Paula Cole has pushed buttons and boundaries, declared truths and followed her own path of iconic vision.

Composer

An active composer and performer, Moira has written commissions for the LA Master Chorale, Conspirare, Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, Mirabai, Stile Antico, American Choral Directors Association, Voces Novae, VocalEssence, Pacific Chorale, NOTUS, Ad Astra Festival and countless others. Her arrangements and original compositions for choir – especially those with her signature body percussion – are performed by millions of singers around the world. The European premiere of Time In Our Voices was performed by the voices and mobile phones of Ars Nova Copenhagen under the direction of Paul Hillier. In 2018-2019 Moira released the album and choral songbook, Unzip The Horizon as companion to her The Voice Is A Traveler solo show. She continues composing and improvising in collaboration with artists in film, video game production, theater and dance, and her work can be heard on feature film soundtracks, BBC & PBS television programs, NPR, and on more than 70 commercial albums. Her most recent premieres include her secular liturgy, The Song Among Us for Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble and Keep On for VocalEssence. Her current projects include Utopias for voices and strings, and a re-telling of Ovid’s tale of Narcissus for mobile phones and voices. A new album of folksongs with string quartet, ‘The Rhizome Project’ will be released in 2024.

“Moira Smiley is a brilliant musician – an innovative composer and arranger, and a heartbreakingly beautiful singer. Her music transcends (and expands) boundaries.”

Billy Childs - multi-grammy-winning composer/pianist

“Moira has an innate ability to capture an elemental primal feel in her music”

Thomas Baty - Choral Director

Performer

Singer / Composer Moira Smiley has toured the world and recorded with Indie-pop favorites, Tuneyards, performing with them on all the late-night TV shows (Kimmel, Colbert, Conan O’Brien, UK’s Jools Holland, etc.) and recently to re-open David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC with Chris Thile, Hilary Hahn and Brad Mehldau. She began her singing career in Baroque and Medieval music, collaborating with Paul Hillier, Fretless Consort of Viols, Dufay Collective and Sinfonye, BBC Singers and New World Symphony. As a folksinger, she’s fronted the legendary Irish-American supergroup, Solas as well as the Lomax and Folklife Projects produced by Jayme Stone, and continues to lead her own vocal collaborations as VOCO and The Voice Is A Traveler.

As a composer, she’s premiered works alongside Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen, Shara Nova, Rollo Dilworth, Reena Esmail and many others. Moira has been featured in TED conferences, on BBC Radio and TV, NPR, ABC Australia, and live at countless venues from Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall to Walt Disney Concert Hall and Royal Festival Hall. She brings vivid, embodied singing to stages tiny and grand, atop glaciers or in cozy kitchens from Taiwan to Tasmania.

Moira’s 2018 solo album ‘Unzip The Horizon’ premiered at the prestigious Savannah Music Festival in 2018, and she published its companion choral Songbook in 2019. In February of 2021, she released her vocal album ‘In Our Voices’, featuring international VOCO collaborators. A new album of folksongs with string quartet, ‘The Rhizome Project’ will be released in 2024.

“I’m so thankful I’ve had the privilege of performing and recording with Moira. She embodies the endless creative potential of the voice, and… (has made) a deeply moving body of work.”

Merrill Garbus - Tune-Yards

RHIZOME PROJECT album + book

(Preview: https://moirasmileysubscription.com/the-rhizome-project-album-book)_

An album, a collection, a bundle, a root system, a packet of seeds, a rhizome…

Making a music album — maybe especially in an era when most of us listen to singles, playlists and fragments — can invite a listener into a collection of ideas or feelings that make more sense when gathered together. Curating an album of folk songs that ‘formed me’ helps me make sense of the new sounds I create today. Gathering these songs, these stories and these pictures helps me know why certain songs (and people) keep nurturing and challenging me across decades — allowing me to remain a ‘resonant reed’.

I feel very lucky to have grown up with a sense of songs as shared treasures, like stones, shells, leaves and other tiny things gathered on a walk to share later with others. In the album's accompanying book (The Rhizome Song Stories) are highly subjective, personal stories of one musician’s way of making sense of the world. This book accompanies The Rhizome Project album, but I also believe it can travel solo.

Several of the songs in The Rhizome Project were the first songs to allow me the confidence to sing alone, while others outlined elemental ethics that my little voice could grow into. I remember realizing sometime around age 10 that I belonged to generations of little voices raised bravely and plainly - close to the natural world, and singing in spite of our insignificance. Therefore, songs raising a hand of protest also reminded me to catch wonder and awe in the other hand.

I am a worker bee for music, an introvert and dreamer who travels to make my living. One of the lessons of being in my forties is how deeply shaped I am by the landscape and people I come home to. I look to certain neighbors and friends to remind me of the myriad creative and practical ways to be human - right here, right now, in all the mess, the ordinary, painful and precious.

The Rhizome Project celebrates all the powerful ways we are connected, though, like the rhizome roots, those connections may be hidden or forgotten.

LOVE YOUR MIND

On October 18th, Twisted Pine releases its joyous third LP, Love Your Mind, on Signature Sounds Recordings. The title represents the quartet landing on a more expansive sound than ever, after years of touring, serious introspection, bouts of self-doubt, glorious bursts of creativity, and many after-hour festival jam sessions and pickin’ till dawn.

Co-produced by the band and longtime-collaborator Dan Cardinal at his studio Dimension Sound in Boston, the record is loaded with experimental production, fearless songwriting featuring input from each member, finely crafted collaborative arrangements, playing that’s virtuosic and visceral. It's a reflection of what the band listens to. It’s buoyant pop and delicate folk, raging old-time energy, and old-school r&b grooves.

On vinyl and on stage, the sound of Twisted Pine is unmistakable, exuberant, daring. What started as a (semi-)traditional bluegrass band in the trenches of the storied folk, bluegrass, and Americana scene in Boston a decade ago has bloomed into an ensemble of players who shapeshift across genres. Even the expansive “progressive bluegrass” label doesn’t come close to capturing their musical scope.

Chris Sartori's upright bass anchors everything with an undeniable, articulate groove. Dan Bui's mandolin is thick, crisp, and propulsive. Kathleen Parks' fiddle and Anh Phung's flute are at constant play, often augmented with effects pedals for layered musical textures, psychedelic sounds, and wild solo trading, somewhere in the territory between bluegrass and jazz. Out in front of the ensemble, Parks’ lead vocals are an instrument unto herself: equal parts mystery, power, haunt, and a search for the edges. And she's surrounded on all sides by the voices of her bandmates, who bring on whatever harmonies, unities, whistles, and howls the night requires.

In a world that needs TLC more than ever, Twisted Pine offers a night of exultant travels across genres, across time, to mountains, cities, roadhouses, and back porches where songs bring tenderness, love and relief. All in all, this album and this tour bring the sound of a band that invites you to Love Your Mind

Host or Publisher Mountain Stage