A grand musical event
Published 3:00 am Tuesday, February 6, 2024
- Kinzie
ENTERPRISE — This month’s Tunesmith Night will feature three musicians performing on the grand piano on Saturday, Feb. 10 at the Odd Fellows Hall, 105 NE First St.
The concert features Marika Straw, Amy Fairchild and Seth Kinzie. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with music starting at 7 p.m. Admission is $10. Drink service is provided.
This is the 18th season of Tunesmith Night, a program of the Wallowa Valley Music Alliance that features three songwriters sharing original work in a round-robin format.
Marika Straw
Straw is a queer, Jewish singer-songwriter from Wallowa County. They compose and perform powerfully heartfelt and intimate songs for piano and voice. Their style could be described as indie/jazzy/bluesy/art pop, “the sound of naked emotion,” or avant-pop alternative. Check out their single, “Waiting,” released in 2019.
Amy Fairchild
Fairchild is a composer, pianist, vocalist and music educator. She is an ASCAP recording artist and has released two albums of her piano compositions: “Serendipities” (2021) and “Beneath the Surface” (2022). Her international debut as a composer-performer was at the International Composers Festival in the United Kingdom in 2022. Amy’s catalog of popular works for piano are available on her website, www.amyfairchildmusic.com.
Fairchild has her bachelor’s in Music Theory/Composition from Linfield University. Her background in music is diverse, including classical vocal and piano performance, jazz and chamber choirs, musical theater, teaching general classroom music/ukulele, and private piano lessons. She is also on the board of the Wallowa Valley Music Alliance and directs their youth musical theatre program. Composing musicals for kids and composing solo piano music are her deepest passions.
When not composing, performing, or teaching, you can find her trail running, hiking or backpacking with her husband and their two young sons in the Wallowa Mountains.
Seth Kinzie
Kinzie is a contemporary piano composer from Joseph. Inspired by the surreal impressions of Claude Debussy and the wild, jazzish voicings of modern post-rock, he has developed his own style of instrumental tone poems that he calls “euphoric nature music.”
He currently writes and records with Kinzie Steele Quartet, an acoustic piano, guitar, drums and percussion collective lauded for their dynamic live performances.
He was mentored by renowned choral composer Shawn Kirchner. He also acts as the director for Josephy Fest and recently finished two years of travels through Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and Malawi on a Peacebuilding post-graduate fellowship.