By Michèle De Meglio
Armed with a fiddle and an angelic voice, Lissa Schneckenburger is bringing her delightful folk tunes to Brooklyn. The Vermont-based singer will play Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg on January 28. “It’s going to be cool. I’m looking forward to it,” she said via phone from Boston where she was making another stop on her tour. The trip to Brooklyn will be a welcome return for Schneckenburger – she lived in the borough for two years before moving to Vermont last fall. “I had a nice time living there for a while,” she said of her stay in Prospect Heights. “Growing up in Maine, I had a very New England identity. I felt like I wanted to experience some other types of things. Brooklyn is a really great city to move to if you are a musician because there is a lot of stuff going on in the arts.” Although she loved the borough’s thriving music scene, Schneckenburger had to pick up and go for financial reasons. “It’s very expensive to live there and I tour quite a lot – last year I toured 200 dates. I just didn’t feel like I was experiencing enough of the city” to stay, she explained. But its her nonstop touring that’s giving her a chance to visit the borough she loves. When she comes to town for the Williamsburg show, “we will stick around and hang out with some friends,” she said. Pete’s Candy Store will likely be filled with Schneckenburger’s pals – and fans. Packing the audience at shows throughout the country has been her blend of traditional and modern folk music but insistence on remaining true to the genre’s roots. While several of the songs on her latest album, which is self-titled, are original compositions, some of the cuts mix a traditional instrumental piece with Schneckenburger’s lyrics or vice versa. Looking through songbooks “inspired me to come up with some melodies of my own,” she said. Adding to old songs is in the tradition of folk music and serves as a way of passing the tunes down from one generation to another. “Each generation takes this folk repertoire and changes it a little to suit the times and the performer,” Schneckenburger explained. “You can learn a piece and add your own interpretation of it.” On “Coleman’s March Reprise,” she sings her own words over an old song. “It’s a really old, sweet, traditional melody,” she said. “I thought this would be a beautiful song, why hasn’t anyone written words to it?” She later learned that the original instrumental did have lyrics. Also in keeping with the folk tradition, the album’s liner notes contain several song dedications. “I’ve always done that since I was little. I’ve always written songs for people as little presents,” Schneckenburger said. One of the songs is dedicated to her grandmother, Mona. “We are very close and she was going through a really difficult time after my grandfather passed away a few years ago and that’s why I wrote the tune,” she said. Schneckenburger’s love of music, specifically folk music, began when she was just six years old. “My family always had music around when I was growing up,” she said. “My mom had a lot of musician friends and they were always coming over. One of her friends from college played the violin and one summer she was visiting us and she gave me my first lesson.” She immediately fell for the warm folk tunes. “My dream as a little girl was to be a performer and to be out on stage and sing and play music for people,” she said. “When I was five years old, my career goal was to be a special guest on the Muppets.” After enough violin lessons, Schneckenburger was good enough to play with other musicians. “There’s a whole social scene that’s sort of intertwined with the music. It’s about the music,” she explained, “but it’s also about going out to jam sessions and playing with your friends. That opened up a whole new world for me.” Since her first lesson, she’s spent 22 years playing and recording albums – solo projects as well as CDs with other bands. “I’m in a Scottish fiddle band called Halali. It’s all Scottish tunes and lots and lots of fiddle,” Schneckenburger said. “I’m also in a folk band called Phantom Power. We play for folk dancing and we try to play really traditional versions of the tunes.” As for solo work, “it’s my own style,” she said. Playing various types of music “helps me explore,” she said. “I guess that’s one of the reasons I like having a lot of projects – it lets everything stay fresh.” It’s that sentiment that’s pushing Schneckenburger back into the studio and out to the stage to keep on playing. “I really do love what I do,” she said. “I can only hope that I can keep getting out there and playing for more people.” Check her out at Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer Street. The show will start at 8:30 p.m. To download songs from Schneckenburger’s albums, visit www.lissafiddle.com.
