Laura Cortese believes that when words and communication fail mankind, music is key to revealing what ails us.
“Even as a songwriter, I can go to a concert and sit quietly in a space and listen to what is around me,” Cortese said. “And my mind ends up wandering and I can figure out the things I need to process.”
Cortese has been playing music since she was a child. She loved listening to her grandmother play the violin. Now, Cortese is a master fiddler and music educator who tours the world. Her travels include performances with a music collective called Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards. The group will be performing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 18, at The Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum.
“Laura is a master fiddler, instructor, leader and musical collaborator of remarkable and once-in-a-lifetime talent,” said Kristine Bretall, director of Performing Arts and Lectures for the Sun Valley Museum of Art (SVMoA). “Her sound is captivating, and her persona is pure charm.”
Thursday’s performance is the next in SVMoA’s Winter 2024 Singer-Songwriter Salon Series. Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards will also be performing an in-school concert at Hemingway STEAM School and recording a Hemingway House Session as a part of SVMoA’s Visiting Artists program.
Cortese lives in Belgium, but she flies back to the states several times per year to tour with the Dance Cards. She said the group has played so long together that it doesn’t take much practice to get back into the groove.
Cortese said the style of music is bold—a mix of folk music, Cajun two-stepping and rock ‘n’ roll. The trio includes Cortese, Valerie Thompson (on the cello), and Zoe Guigueno (on the bass).
Originally from the San Francisco area, Cortese grew up playing in the world of fiddle camps. While she started attending camps at age 12, it took a few years to really play well.
“It was such a fun learning experience and wasn’t just sitting in an orchestra-type setting, staring at sheet music—which wasn’t my style,” Cortese said.
While attending college in Boston, she was too young to go into certain event spaces, so she got a job as a busser and hostess to be able to see artists perform.
At a songwriting retreat, she met fellow musician and percussive dancer Kristin Andreassen. Both wanted to create a music camp to elevate and support other artists.
“We both spent a lot of time growing up at music camps, and we were both missing that communal and traditional setting, so we created Miles of Music Camp,” Cortese said.
The duo began their efforts in the summer of 2011 with a week-long camp on an island in Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. The camp has evolved over the years to include concerts and dances.
“We saw incredible things people created when they felt the ability to go outside themselves. Music and dance gives a sense of belonging or connection when we can be so ideologically different. Music can bring us together,” Cortese said.
Cortese also co-founded the Boston Celtic Music Festival, has played the Newport Folk Festival with Pete Seeger, shared the Carnegie Hall stage with Band of Horses, and recorded albums with Aoife O’Donovan, Tao Rodriguez, Seeger and Session Americana.
For more information and to purchase tickets for SVMoA’s Winter 2024 Singer-Songwriter Salon Series, contact Sun Valley Museum of Art at 208-726-9491, or visit svmoa.org.
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