Cellist Emily Kennedy (Pallmer/Elm City String Quartet) and vocalist Tracey Richard (Nebullama) have released the collaborative single, Cherry Tree, created during the NB Women + Co-writing & Professional Development Intensive organized by Music NB.
Matt Carter
Cellist Emily Kennedy (Pallmer/Elm City String Quartet) and vocalist Tracey Richard (Nebullama) have released a new collaborative song created during the NB Women + Co-writing & Professional Development Intensive organized by Music NB. The event took place in May of 2020 and brought together several artists to collaborate on new material through video messaging platforms.
“This program was a really special experience for me,” said Richard. “It was right at the beginning of the pandemic where everything was starting to go online and this shift of not being able to see anyone and not being able to jam or be around live music was really hard.”
Richard said waking up each day to collaborate with Emily and Nova Scotia-based musician Gabrielle Papillon, who was an artist mentor for the project, was an amazing experience.
“It was the best thing,” she said. “We had some awesome advice from artists like Lisa McLaggan from Tomato Tomato. Lisa Leblanc made a special appearance as well. Even though Emily and I had never met before in person, we had similar interests and were really into experimenting with loops and manipulating our recorded tracks on Logic Pro to make it sound weird and cool!”
Cherry Tree succeeds in capturing the strengths of both artists. Kennedy’s cello sings through loop phrases that back and forth between manipulation and purity with lead lines occasionally stepping out to walk above it all. This melodic template presents Richard with the opportunity to step outside the psychedelic funk sounds of her band and explore something more subtle and poetic.
Cherry Tree is a fine example of creativity in the face of adversity. Hopefully it won’t be the only time these two voices work together.
