Jennifer Truesdale, Marcia Macres
Marcia Macres and her Chick Singer Night co-director Jennifer Truesdale offer a whole different ballgame for this Fall’s Chick Singer Night/Boston presentation. Last spring, CSN presented their selection of notable female singers in a concert format at a local theatre. Their Fall presentation finds Chick Singer Night presenting as the lineup for the Sunday Night Acoustic Series at The Burren in Somerville, this Sunday night coming up, November 16, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
“It’s in the back room at The Burren,” Macres said, “which is part of the back room acoustic music series that Tom Bianchi puts on.” Macres got the idea of using the smaller, more intimate feeling of the Burren’s back room after seeing a show their last June. Macres discussed with Truesdale the idea of doing a smaller scale, unplugged, acoustic show. The Burren’s acoustic unplugged Sunday night host Tom Bianchi went for the idea.
“We’re really excited about this because we wanted to focus more on the songwriters, on the songwriting part of it,” Macres said. CSN has a good friend who will be headlining their Sunday night show, Robin Lane.
Lane heads a benefit organization called Songbirdsings.org that helps female trauma survivors heal through songwriting, getting their words out through writing songs. CSN Boston sets itself apart from the other CSN chapters across the United States by donating their proceeds to charitable organizations pertaining to music. So Macres contacted Robin Lane, who it turned out, was every happy to headline the show and to be the recipient of the funds the CSN show can raise. Songbirdsings.org supports victims of domestic abuse and sex trafficking.
Robin Lane
Macres has worked with Robin Lane in the past, having done workshops and small scale shows with Lane. The other acts lined up for this Sunday night’s CSN show are The Cicada Sessions, Lydia Harrell, Laura Brereton, and Gillian Pasley. Each were selected for their singer-songwriter approach.
The Cicada Sessions were selected after Macres saw them at a previous Sunday night at The Burren. “I loved it,” Macres exclaimed. “They’re going to be back at The Burren for the Chick Singer Night show. It’s folk. They have some originals. They do some covers. They did some Sting. I would call it original acoustic folk.”
Lydia Harrell, known by her band name The Lovely Singer, has been a big name in Boston for some time now. She gigs constantly and readers who do not know her from her Lovely Singer band have probably seen her singing backing vocals for a myriad of greater-Boston singers. She sings every Monday night at the Custom House at The Marriot, and she sings with Steely Dan tribute band No Static.
“She is gigging all the time. She’s very popular. She’s won a lot of awards. She’s placed in one of Sarah Vaughn’s competition,” Macres exclaimed.
Next on the bill is Laura Brereton who has been on the local singer-songwriter for a while. “She has been in the Boston scene for 15 years,” Macres said. “She plays at Club Passim, Johnny D’s, and Lizard Lounge. She’s been in competitions, like the John Lennon Competition. She and her husband, Raleigh Green, are going to perform together. They are a duo called The Lonely Pilgrims.” Brereton and Green own a music school in Medford, Massachusetts called Medford Music Studio.
Opener Gillian Pasley is a 16 year old singer-songwriter. “We wanted to have a young person in to give it diversity and make sure that we help promote young people,” Macres said. “She writes a lot of music on her own. She lives in Concord, Mass. She gigs out the Concord Main Street Café. She plays in Lowell and Club Passim. She goes to the summer programs at Berklee. She is definitely an emerging female singer-songwriter.”
The common denominator between these artists is that they are singer-songwriters who will fit into the unplugged version of Chick Singer Night. “It’s more relaxed,” Macres said. “There’s not going to be a Chick Singer Night band. That’s the big thing that will not be there this time.”
This is an opportunity to see these female singers in an intimate singer-songwriter setting and to meet the Legendary Robin Lane.
http://www.chicksingernightboston.brownpapertickets.com/
