Sometimes the energy is just right for collaboration. That was definitely the case in a magical 2-day recording session with musician Ludi Hinrichs and engineer Al Owens at a private home with an extraordinary Grotrian piano.
That positive vibe has been an essential part of this regional media project all the way along: from the creation of the idea, waist-deep in the Yuba River, to finding the perfect project partners, to hiring dedicated interns for our Storybooth recordings up and down the Sierra, to the people who shared the stories that made it into the doc, to the many folks who helped shape the final program, to the music recording and final mix.
Ya-we, ya-we ya-we thank you, thank you thank you (in kashaya Pomo).
When I imagined the music for Saving The Sierra, I heard my neighbor's lyrical and soulful piano playing. When I approached Ludi with the idea, he asked to hear the stories. And soon after I gave him a CD with the voices of Saving The Sierra, he said he was in!
On the recording day, jesikah and I heard just how "in" he was. He'd written music for snowshoeing, music for paddling a canoe, music for rustling cattle, music for lamenting the lost environments of the Sierra, and music for water to flow from the Sierra down to Los Angeles. What you hear in the documentary is just a small part of the music that was recorded on that amazing day.
I asked Ludi to write a bit about our work together:
"This has been a very inspiring project for me from the get-go. A sympathetic and very accomplished producer who happens to like my music, Catherine Stifter, approached me last year about doing the music for a documentary. And when I read through the first drafts, I felt not only the people, but the land calling to me. And when I heard the voices of the folks who are living at these places talk, it was hard to hold back the tears. The sense of loss of the natural environment here in the Sierra can be hard to take, yet some of the voices I have heard on this documentary remind me of our power, and the way nature can speak through our minds and bodies.
I really enjoy collaborations with like minded people, and this project was refreshing for me in that Catherine and crew were also passionate on the subject matter, relaxed, professional and experienced.
One of the real spiritual qualities that comes through is the people being interviewed: articulate, you can feel their deep resonance with the lands they live on...this just made the music flow on the recording date!"
You can hear Ludi's Kairos/Kronos album at his CD Baby site .
In the not too distant future, in collaboration with our wonderful mix engineer Robin Wise of Sound Imagery (who deftly wove Ludi's music into the storyline of Saving The Sierra documentary ), we plan to release a CD of the music Ludi composed and performed for Saving The Sierra. Contact us if you are interested in knowing when it's available.
