ANGELA ELIA
Rising New York singer-songwriter Angela Elia has been compared to Adele meets Tracey Chapman, but two generations after Duke Ellington declared her great grandfather Paul Whiteman the “King Of Jazz”. This soulful folk artist is carving out her own space in the landscape of contemporary music with honest poetic lyrics, evocative melodies and a powerful angelic voice.
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SIOBAHN HOTALING
Siobahn Hotaling is a poet and singer-songwriter. After receiving her B.A. in Creative Writing and Poetry, she then focused on music and performance for many years, releasing 2 albums of honest, heartfelt, and vulnerable original songs and playing for audiences across the northeast. More recently she has returned to focusing on poetry, performing at such venues as Bowery Poetry and Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and is working on her first book of collected poems.
Siobahn’s passion for expression, vulnerability, and collaboration, along with over 20 years of experience as a writer and performer, inspired her to become one of the founders of the New York Artists Collective.
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STEPHANIE MANNS
Hailing originally from Edinburgh, this americana/country songstress now calls New York her home. Following her recent albums going from strength to strength and gaining fans in the UK and beyond, she is in the big apple writing, performing, and has recently been recording her new EP in Nashville at Zac Brown’s studio, Southern Ground.
Steph met Siobahn and then Angela and wanted to put together a songwriters circle to give an audience a chance to get closer to the creative process and create a space for artists to come together in a community. They performed together at Dixon Place in New York and thus the Artist Collective was born!
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MINDY RAF
Mindy Raf is a comedian, actress, writer and musician based in Brooklyn, New York who has contributed to MTV’s GIRL CODE, COLLEGEHUMOR, TNT, VH1, The Daily Comedy Network, and the MY PARENTS WERE AWESOME anthology.
Her comedy and writing have received accolades from BUST MAGAZINE (“we walked out holding on to our ribs from laughing so hard”), PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (“refreshing”), and BCCB (“pitch-perfect”), among others.
Her debut young adult novel The Symptoms of My Insanity (Penguin) is out now, and her critically acclaimed solo comedy show KEEPING MY KIDNEYS will be making its international debut at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival at the Gilded Balloon’s Rose Theatre.
KEEPING MY KIDNEYS was named “LBGT Best Bet” -Time Out New York, “hilariously quirky” – Theatre Is Easy, “relatable and witty” – GO Magazine, and “a whole new level of comedy greatness” – HyReviews. You can catch the next show run at 59e59 Theater in July 19, 22, 23. For more info: KeepingMyKidneys.com
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TIIDES – CHRISTIANA CHAVEZ
Tiides is more than just a musical endeavor; it’s a lifestyle choice. The metaphor beyond the band name highlights the fact that life is full of tides, things that ebb and flow. The music crafted by Christiana Chavez seeks to honor such. Tiides, circa 2015, began as an acoustic escape for Chavez, moving from one metropolis (Las Vegas) to another (NYC). Performing as a single entity is an identity Tiides embodies, yet space is held for other artists to step in and take presence. In 2017, Tiides as a live production is a charismatic coupling of guitar and percussion, with recordings boasting well-rounded cello parts that complement the magic created.
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JOHN RUSH
Glasgow based singer-songwriter John Rush, with his ‘folk tinged pop songs’ has played some of Glasgow greatest venues including King Tuts, The o2 Academy, Barrowlands and the Royal Concert Hall.
Through the years he’s racked up some highly acclaimed support slots with Ocean Colour Scene, Mark Morris and Paul Weller.
John is no stranger to New York having showcased “The Anna E.P” here in 2014 and we are delighted to have him as part of the NYAC family.
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RYAN LEDDICK
Having shared the stage with many people in numerous settings Ryan has taken his own road, from theatre to live sound, and infused many genres – echoing tasteful reggae beats with soulful melodic passages. Starting out as a solo artist and continuing today he continues to make audiences want more, showcasing his playful and humble spirit. Ryan has shared the stage with a few great artists. Most notably Damien Rice, Patti Larkin, and some great names from Broadway.
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MATT BUTLER
Matt Butler is a folk artist, a rock’n roller, and a storyteller. Weaving personal experience with a timeless style, Butler brings honesty and openness to his classic approach to songwriting.
Butler’s debut album Reckless Son was released to critical acclaim on Sept. 9th, 2016. Immediately following the release, Butler wrote and performed ‘Just One’, the original song for the feature length and nationally distributed documentary Generation Found.
Butler has spent the past year on the road supporting both the film and the album, performing everywhere from The Paramount Theater in Los Angeles to the steps of numerous State Capital buildings. Butler’s also credits recently expanded to include his first ever ‘Behind The Walls’ Tour, where he performed in State Prisons all across Ohio.
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TANIS
Tanis is a singer, songwriter and producer originally from Paris, France. As a young girl, music was her only way to find clarity through difficult times. It was self-expression when no words were enough. Sound was, and is her absolute guide when nothing else seemed to resonate. Starting her journey with piano, Tanis eventually taught herself to play two more instruments before earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition, with a concentration in film scoring, at New York University’s Steinhardt College.
Tanis’ songwriting style combines classically beautiful melodies with hybrid acoustic and electronic arrangements. She incorporates subtle touches of her
eclectic background and multicultural upbringing in her music, a sound from the questions and hopes of her journey in life. She will stop at nothing to share her guiding expression wherever there may be someone without. Her work ethic is unparalleled and her drive is absolute. She records, composes, and produces every aspect of her sound herself, pouring her deepest feelings into this art each and every day.
Look out for Tanis and her upcoming Album, “Love Stories” in 2018.
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JESSICA CARVO
Jessica Carvo began her career singing for the Blue Note/Manhattan label on PBS Television with a group called “Bell’Aria.” She was a featured soloist on NBC’s “The Sing-Off” and has been fortunate enough to sing with and for some of her favorite artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Carrie Underwood and Stevie Nicks.
She released her debut solo EP in 2014 and since 2015 she has been releasing music with her alternative indie band, Satellite Mode.
Most recently, Jessica worked with Helmut VonLichten to record the trailer music for the 2017 NCAA championship game on CBS television.
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ATARAH VALENTINE
Inspired by the raw expression of 90’s grunge, the melancholic beauty of The Beach Boys, and infectious millennial pop melodies, Atarah Valentine is delivering a new brand of anthemic alternative rock.
Valentine’s songs are as much about upbeat empowerment as they are about internal exploration with themes of unity, self-acceptance, and resiliency. Each song is a personal exploration of the struggles and stumbles of growing up and the process of ultimately overcoming the challenges put in front of us.
In 2015, at the beginning of his writing process, Atarah took the stage at Lollapalooza. Possessing raw talent and natural showmanship, his performance drew comparisons to the late Freddie Mercury, Marc Bolan, and Bowie for his high-energy, dynamic stage show.
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ELIZABETH WYLD
Elizabeth Wyld is a New York City-based singer and songwriter from rural Northern Virgina.
A year and a half ago, she found herself completely unable to speak for several months, finally being diagnosed with unilateral vocal fold paralysis. She was told she may never sing again. Many of her intimate, indie-folk tunes originated out of that period of silence, dealing with themes of power, loss, love, and frustration. Struggling to make ends meet as her livelihood was taken away, she found solace in the melodies that would eventually guide her into the music scene. “I grew up doing theater, so I was always playing a role. Songwriting has allowed me to begin to discover who I am. I think I’ve been neglecting to figure that out for years. When I write music, I feel like I’m finding home.” Said Wyld.
Fortunately, Wyld was able to recover after a minor surgery and months of recovery. She has since played her music for audiences around New York City at venues such as Mercury Lounge, Pete’s Candy Store, Rockwood Music Hall and others. Her very first single “Strange Love” produced by Oscar Rodriguez and Zach Jones of A Gret Big World, will be released at the end of March.
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JULIA WELDON
On the verge of starting her next album, Brooklyn indie-folk-pop artist Julia Weldon instead found herself awaking from a coma after a gender affirming surgery. One year later after a fortunate recovery and songs to tell the story, the self-taught, nationally recognized musician went across the pond to England to record her new material with Drew Morgan (producer of Perfume Genius).
As a follow-up to her critically acclaimed album, Light Is A Ghost, Weldon describes her new work as a contemplation of polarities: heartbreak and new love, connection and loss, life and death. Her reflections on mortality and feelings of being both “Cursed and Blessed,” as one of her songs is titled, are especially present and poignant in her work post-coma. “Making this album was the most intense and formative creative experience I’ve ever had. Since Drew Morgan and I live an ocean apart, we made the most out of every hour we had while I was in England for two weeks. We approached each song as a new and unique soundworld, capturing the heartbeat and essence of that world and then arranging and building other musical parts from there. It was unprecedented and special, and I think that vulnerability will be heard on the final album,” said Weldon.
Weldon’s music has been featured in The Village Voice, Buzz Feed, Bitch Magazine, Autostraddle, AfterEllen, SheWired, The Advocate, Deli Magazine, and The Washington Post.
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TALAY
Talay has been playing iconic New York City venues since she was 16, winning over fans with her clever lyrics and infectious on-stage persona. Often drawing comparisons to 90’s favorites like Weezer, No Doubt, and Alanis Morisette, Talay’s punchy power-pop tunes tell the painfully relatable stories of friends, family, lovers, and losers. She released her self-titled EP in the spring of 2017 and has since been playing shows across the Northeast including sets at Brooklyn’s Northside Fest, and the Pleasantville Music Festival.
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KERRY CULLEN
Kerry Cullen’s fiction has been published in The Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, One Teen Story, Monkeybicycle, and more.
She is an editorial assistant at Henry Holt, she earned her MFA at Columbia University, and she lives in New York. She is currently working on a novel about queer teenagers and Christian youth culture.
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LAURA VALK OF SKOUT
Laura Valk is known for her work in Skout, a Brooklyn-based duo that plays indie-folk with restless edge.
Skout supports rich harmonies with a mesmerizing combination of rhythmic and fingerstyle guitar, proving that you can, in fact, shred on acoustic.
The title track from Skout’s most recent release, “Just Words,” peaked at #8 on Spotify’s viral chart and “Old Friend” from the same EP was recently featured on MTV’s Catfish. Skout will be releasing two new singles in March and touring throughout the country in 2018.
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MICAH T WOODS
Micah Woods is a singer-songwriter originally from Murrieta, CA. Growing up, he was the effeminate, black kid at a mostly white Christian School leading to him feeling constantly left out and different. Through listening to artists like Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson he learned to embrace his “differences” and found an escape through writing and performing. After graduating from the Boston Conservatory, he moved to Brooklyn and started performing and making a name for himself. Named “Brooklyn’s New Star” by the New York Post, Micah has gained much success performing and writing throughout NYC
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KEVIN DANIEL
Americana singer-songwriter Kevin Daniel recently finished his second EP, ‘Myself Through You’, recorded at Degraw Sound in Brooklyn, NY, and produced, engineered, and mixed by Ben Rice.
Daniel gathered together a host of talented, professional musicians from all backgrounds for the project, resulting in a richly recorded blend of genres and instruments. Daniel and his band are currently touring the new EP and other original songs around the country, from California to the Carolinas.
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STEPHEN BABCOCK
Born and raised in New Hartford, New York and now residing in New York City Stephen began playing guitar at the age of 15 after stealing records from his older brother’s bedroom and falling in love with music. Since then, he has continued to craft his skills as a singer-songwriter, recording and performing a catalog of original music. Inspired by his time in the Southeastern U.S. and his North Carolina roots, Stephen’s latest release “Fiction” was released in April 2018 and was accompanied with a nation-wide tour. With the new release already gaining traction with both Spotify and Critics alike, there is much more on the horizon for this Americana talent
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AKIE BERMISS
Akie Bermiss with his affable disposition, glasses, and healthy do of cascading dreads that drape down to his shoulders, is unabashedly a self-professed nerd to the nth degree. Since early childhood Akie has been an obsessed science fiction aficionado. Yet he does have an artist-friendly façade and has managed to cultivate and live a double-life as a thriving music protégé, pianist, singer/songwriter, composer, arranger and emerging solo artist. Akie kicked off his 2017 touring schedule playing keyboards and providing backing vocals for veteran indie multi-genre band Lake Street Dive’s national concert tour in support of their latest CD, “Side Pony.” The tour was very exciting and included an opening spot in Aspen for Hall & Oates!
Akie is a Brooklyn native raised in a musical household full of jazz and politics fueled by his former- activist mom and dad. He began singing in church, moved it to school for a while, enroute becoming somewhat of a musical chameleon. His raucous, guttural and soulful vocals are a delectable fusion of Donny Hathaway and Tom Waits. He’s equally adept singing neo-soul, funk, contemporary jazz, alternative rock, and hip hop. Over the past half a dozen years, he has become a visible contributor to the fertile Brooklyn music scene as a musician, songwriter or featured vocalist with a collective of upstart groups such as; FutureSoul band Aabaraki, the Screaming Headless Torsos, Miri Ben-Ari (the Hip Hop Violinist) and Rap sensation Soul Khan. He also birthed the Akie Bermiss Trio, independently released his first self-titled solo EP (via Rockwood Records in 2014) and continues to mine a loyal fan base performing frequently at cutting edge venues like Rockwood Music Hall, The Falcon, BAM Cafe and The Apollo Cafe, among others.
Akie cut his teeth in music the old-fashioned way; he went to college and earned a degree in music composition at Bard College, a reputable liberal arts college located in the Annandale-on-Hudson hamlet in upstate New York. While there he also studied American Music (read: Tin Pan Alley, Broadway musicals and jazz) and writing (read: wrote some bad poetry and called it good). To his friends, he is considered a musical snob of the highest order; to his enemies — a musical charlatan of the basest variety. Among other things he is also the author of a children’s book (“I Hate to Be Sick” — out on Scholastic), a lover of science fiction and fantasy novels, a huge fan of cigars, and he takes his bourbon: neat.
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KAYLYN MARIE
Kaylyn Marie is a multi-genre music maker and performer. Her artistry as a singer/songwriter, bandleader, and actress has led to a range of opportunities that include becoming an alumna of Joe’s Pub’s Working Group, an Amish Witch on Lifetime TV, and a Hollywood week finalist on American Idol XV. Her new band project “The Wildlings” possess a vintage pop feel with bits of blues and snippets of swing while her solo work retains her acoustic folk origins. Currently, she is recording material for “The Wildlings” with an anticipated 2019 release.
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ALI CARTER
Sydney jazz/soul/folk singer and songwriter, Ali Carter weaves her stories through music that allows the magic and grace of both the pure joy, and the deep struggle to evolve, taking the listener through a musical kaleidoscope with passion and humility.
With grandparents treading the boards in the Australian vaudeville theatre, singing harmonies in the kitchen with her mother, and being exposed to an eclectic record collection at a young age, music was clearly in the blood, and the great love and feeling for it, ingrained early on.
Ali spent her formative years performing with various ensembles in a range of styles, including the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of W.A, lead singer for Sydney funk band, Blue Inc, and her own jazz group, The Alicats.
She was reunited with the humble ukulele – with which she sang songs as a young girl with her grandfather – and having penned poetry and lyrics for many years, the marriage of word and music began, and the stories and experiences began morphing into songs.
Ali considers herself a global citizen, and was fortunate to tour in Croatia and the United Kingdom before landing in New York in 2012. And as many before her can say, her heart was brazenly taken, and she now calls Brooklyn home.
Ali spent the better part of 2015 working on her debut album, Songs of Longing with New York based, English producer, Harvey Jones (Donna Lewis, Robbie Dupree, Chris Botti) The album was released in February 2016 and she is currently working on new material for an EP to be released in the spring of 2019.
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Janita
Critical acclaim fused with commercial success may be rare in the music world. For Janita, this coveted combination is simply the norm. Already established as an iconic recording artist and music figure in her native Finland, Janita (pronounced YA-nee-tuh) moved to New York City early in her career, building on those initial successes by launching her American recording career with two Top-40 Billboard hits. Her albums that followed, Haunted (2010 ECR Music Group), and Didn’t You, My Dear? (2015 ECR Music Group), have cemented her reputation as a powerful multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and arranger—while garnering her further recognition for her electrifying and unique talent as a singer.
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- Saturday January 26th 2019: NYAC Presents: Janita, Jessie Standafer, Mishti
MISHTI
A singer-songwriter-guitarist with the lyricism of Jeff Buckley and the badassness of Slash demands the ear of any listener with her fresh take on post-pop rock music. While finishing touches of her debut EP (produced by Cyndi Lauper’s guitarist Alex Nolan) are fine-tuned, Mishti continues to write songs for the unrequited and fantasize the next performance: “I want to create music that transforms people’s moods the same way music I love transforms mine… and changes my life in those 4 minutes… and then ‘replay’.”
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- Saturday January 26th 2019: NYAC Presents: Janita, Jessie Standafer, Mishti
JESSIE STANDAFER
With a insatiable passion for LGBTQ representation in music, Jessie does not wait for permission to make art happen, and lives by the radical belief that artists have the power to direct culture. She has returned to the socially conscious roots of pop music to produce & amplify revolutionary content. With a voice like honey & lightning, Jessie makes music that defies easy categorization; she is a musical activist, writing music and creating visual content that advocates for lesbian representation, racial equity, and cannabis legalization. Jessie is a living, breathing rainbow…the future is femme.
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- Saturday January 26th 2019: NYAC Presents: Janita, Jessie Standafer, Mishti
TREYA LAM
Treya Lam is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter whose cinematic songs and compositions are built on dynamic piano, ethereal vocals, meditative guitar and lush chamber-folk arrangements. Her debut album Good News was created entirely by womxn – headed by Kaki King who produced and released the record on her label. Treya is a part of Joe’s Pub Working Group residency for 2019 and a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus.
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ELI LEV
Global citizen and neo-folk singer Eli Lev is making the world a smaller place, one song at a time. Eli pens hymns for everyday enlightenment—songs that resonate because they’re heartfelt, earthy, and offer wisdom culled from self-discovery. His latest album, Way Out West, has been featured on CBS Radio, Buzz Feed, and Paste Magazine for its blend of country, folk, Americana, soul, and pop, while being free from any specific tradition. In performance, his infectious musicality, commitment to deep grooves, and playful charisma foster an immersive experience for the audience that moves bodies and opens hearts.
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PHIL PICKENS
There’s a push-pull in everything Phil Pickens says and doesn’t say, in what he sings and doesn’t sing. “The words I do not say speak louder than I want them to,” he sings in “Fool’s Gold.” Born and raised in Georgia, his crooked smile and royal blue eyes perfectly embody the double edge of kindness and menace in southern hospitality.
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