December 10, 2009: Though we have been back on American soil for quite some time now, we are still glowing from the warm reception we received from our dear neighbors to the north.  We catch ourselves humming the stirring national anthem, O Canada!  Okay, we don’t actually know the melody. . . or the words.  So, really we are simply saying “O Canada” repeatedly.  The point being that our October 2009 Home Routes Tour through western Canada was an amazing adventure and grand success!  The curious among you can read more about it further down in this newsletter or, since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, you can simply visit our photo album on Facebook.  

In spite of the fact that we missed both Black Friday and Cyber Monday (did you even know there was such a thing?), we still want to offer a special holiday sale to our faithful fans.  Between now and the end of the year, our 2008 release, Where the Waters Run, and our Leela and Ellie Grace  t-shirt will be on sale for $14!  Our previous self-titled release will stay the same price since it is flirting with collector’s item status as supplies run low.  Our CDs and T-Shirts can be ordered through our website store. Our latest release is also available through indie distributor CDbaby and can be digitally downloaded through iTunes and digstation.com.  We would be honored if you gave our music as a gift this holiday season!   

And now the story of Leela and Ellie’s Excellent Adventure 2009. . . We kicked off the tour in style, performing for a full house at Artichoke Music in Portland, OR.  Leela’s fine banjo and singing students and many other friends and fans came out en force to cheer us on and send us off to Canada!  From our vantage point at the far end of the tour, we know that it was a roaring success and a brilliant adventure, but our initial foray onto Canadian soil got off to a bit of a shaky start.  With all of our instruments, CDs, proper documentation, and grand enthusiasm in tow, we were dismayed to be held at the border for five hours.  Perhaps they had heard one too many banjo jokes and were made highly suspicious by that banjo in the backseat.  After shuffling us around to several different border crossings, they finally realized they had made a mistake (though they did not say as much) and announced that there was no problem with us coming into Canada after all, but there must be a caveat.  And that caveat was that all of our CDs had to be stored in the back room of an IGA grocery store in a tiny town in Washington State in order for them to allow our entry into their country!  With no other option and daylight fading fast, we signed the paperwork (usually for gun storage) and left hundreds of our CDs in a rickety shopping cart.  Five hours behind schedule and with a bit less faith in humanity, we finally crossed onto Canadian soil.  Ah, but the amazing, welcoming, generous people we proceeded to meet along the way more than restored that lost faith!

We got up early the next morning, with only a few hours of sleep under our belts, to try to make up lost time and make it to our first venue, still over a thousand kilometers away.  As we continued to drive north in the early morning hours, there was no doubt in our minds that we were arriving in winter.   In a lifetime of performing, we have never missed a performance.  But as we battled treacherously icy roads and blizzard conditions in high mountain passes, we were heartbroken to have to cancel our concert in Fort St. John, BC.  We were taken in on that cold, winter night by a Home Routes host with a round house in the bush. . . with a llama wondering about, no indoor plumbing, a woodstove for heat, and solar panels for electricity.  Rested up and relieved to be safe, we finally arrived on day three of our adventure at our first show in Grand Prairie, AB!  The crazy things we do to bring a little more music into this world.  The warm, cozy bookstore where we played that night and the wonderful folks who welcomed us to our first of many successful shows made it all worthwhile!

And that was just the beginning. We cannot explain in words the beautiful country that we saw and the amazing communities we were welcomed into each night. The full house in the majestic Canadian Rockies in Hinton. . .the sparkling fireside concert at a church in Spruce Grove. . .the raucous, laughing crowd in Evansburg. . .the sweet evening of music on the sheep farm in St. Paul. . .the enthusiastic, packed room in St. Albert. . .the homey Singing Waitress Café in Lloydminster. . .the Canadian cowboys in Ponoka. . .the animated music lovers in Edmonton. . .the incredible community in Rocky Mountain House. . . the final grand show in Calgary. 

We had the realization that our tour was amusingly similar to a blind date.  For over two weeks, we were driving through the Canadian countryside, following directions provided by Home Routes to the houses of people whom we had never met.  The hosts were opening their homes to a pair of sisters whose music they had likely never heard prior to our concert.  And it worked spectacularly!   Canada, we would consider going steady with you. 

We came home with many new friends and fans, memories of amazing conversations about politics and culture and music, a true appreciation for all of our house concert hosts, a deepened love for the Canadian landscape and society, and a healthy respect for icy roads and border guards.   Though the U.S. may not have a wonderful centralized organization like Home Routes to create house concert circuits, there are still house concerts happening all across the country.   For those of you who have never had the opportunity to attend a show in one of these venues, we highly recommend it.  Perhaps you even have the perfect living room to host a concert for a touring musician. . . move some furniture, borrow some chairs, and create a night you will never forget!

After spending much of this year on the road, we are both ready to stay a little closer to home this winter. Leela is gathering a growing army of banjo and harmony singing students who may soon take over the world (in the most peaceful possible way, of course). She will continue doing solo performances around Portland and working with other musicians from the Northwest. Ellie is busily preparing her Cape Breton step dancing group for upcoming performances in Asheville. You may also find her performing regionally this winter with her fabulous old-time trio, Blue Eyed Girl. We look forward to seeing what mysterious adventures will come our way in the spring of 2010.

We wish you all warmth and peace this winter. 

Ellie and Leela  

October 5, 2009: We are feeling the beginnings of that certain chill in the air. . . loving the crisp, cool mornings. . . watching the first leaves give up the fight and float down to the ground.  And what are we doing to celebrate the arrival of fall and the coming of the cold air?  What any foolhardy folk musicians would do, of course, we are driving over a thousand miles north of Portland, Oregon and going on tour in Canada! 

After a wild summer of traveling, performing, or teaching in over thirty states and with thousands of miles and many cross-country flights under our belts, perhaps we should sit back and rest on our laurels.  Or maybe just sit back and rest.  But conquering the continental United States just isn’t enough!  And so we are about to behold nearly 3,000 miles of spectacular Canadian countryside and share our music and dance along the way!   

We are going to be on tour for two weeks in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan through a wonderful Canadian non-profit organization called Home Routes.  Home Routes, according to their website (www.homeroutes.ca), is dedicated to “the love of music, to making music more accessible to a greater number of people and to supporting the artists that make the music.”  The organization teaches people in towns all across Canada how to host house concerts and then hires world-class roots musicians to perform on circuits through these communities.  We will be welcomed into a new community every day and will play a show every night for two weeks. 

To kick off this tour, we are meeting in Leela’s adopted hometown of Portland, OR to perform a special show at Artichoke Music.  This will be our first full evening concert in Portland since Leela moved there over two years ago!  Spread the word to your Oregonian friends!   

We hope you can get out and enjoy this beautiful fall. And with the winter holidays fast approaching, don’t forget that our 2008 CD, Where the Waters Run, along with our debut CD and our limited edition  t-shirt, can still be ordered from our website. Our latest release is also available through indie distributor CDBaby (http://cdbaby.com/cd/leelaelliegrace) and can be digitally downloaded through iTunes and digstation.com.  For tour details, click on Tour. We hope to see you down the road!

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

August 25, 2009:  This will be a brief update to let you know about some exciting upcoming performances. We hope you are having a beautiful August wherever this finds you. Leela and Ellie have had a wonderfully busy and successful summer of performing and teaching from Portland, Oregon to Asheville, North Carolina to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Currently, Leela is in Missouri visiting family on her way to meet Ellie in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Ellie is currently near Boston, MA, teaching at Pinewoods Camper’s Week. This coming weekend, we are very excited to bring our new music back to the Great River Folk Festival in La Crosse, WI. It is really a wonderful little festival with an always-stellar lineup of music. Come see us there, or tell your Wisconsin friends about the festival! We have also just added the sweet Turtle Hill Folk Festival near Rochester, NY September 12-13! Go to our online calendar to find out more about these festivals.

Back home in Portland, Leela will be continuing to teach her clawhammer banjo students and will be offering her By-Ear Harmony Singing Class and a Beginning Clawhammer Banjo Class at Artichoke Music. In Asheville, Ellie will be performing regionally with her wonderful three-woman band, Blue-Eyed Girl. In October, Leela and Ellie will meet again in the Northwest and commence a 2-week house concert tour of British Columbia and Alberta! We are so excited to venture into Canada again! Check our website for details as they emerge.

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

April 9, 2009: We can hardly believe that it is already April! We hope you are basking in a beautiful spring wherever you are. We also hope, for your sake, that you have already dutifully filed those pesky tax returns, unlike your favorite self-employed, procrastinator duo of musical sisters whose respective complex forms still lie blank next to piles of receipts. We know a band in Lawrence, Kansas who goes to the post office every April 15^th and performs the William Tell Overture (a.k.a. the Lone Ranger theme) as last-minute filers rush to make the midnight postmark deadline. That tune may be serenading us in the near future, if we don’t put pencil to form 1040 very soon! 

Since you last heard from us, we have been busy in our respective locales (Leela in Portland, OR and Ellie in Asheville, NC), teaching and performing. Between a sprinkling of solo performances, Leela has a roster of students being tutored in the mysteries of clawhammer banjo at Artichoke Music, taught a clogging workshop at the Portland Old Time Gathering in January, and will be offering classes in beginning banjo and by-ear harmony singing starting in June. Ellie has kept several groups of percussive dancers jumping (literally) with her Cape Breton Step Dancing and Appalachian Clogging classes, while also performing regionally with her wonderful three-woman band, Blue-Eyed Girl.  

In the last week, Leela has enjoyed a lovely beginning to April in Oregon with a string of sunny, warm days. For Ellie in North Carolina, April was ushered in by week of dreary, rainy weather, usually the norm for the Pacific Northwest this time of year. Leela tried not to gloat too much, especially since she will be joining Ellie in the southeastern states in less than a week! 

That’s right, folks. In whirlwind bit of last minute plotting, we have planned a little sister reunion that is coming right up! We’ll be offering several performances, including our first ever house concert in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, April 23, organized by dance caller extraordinaire, Seth Tepfer. Find out more on our online calendar and tell anyone you know in the Atlanta area! 

We are continuing to add dates to our summer performance calendar, including the wonderful Family Week at Ogontz (near Lyman, NH) and the amazing Great River Folk Festival in La Crosse, Wisconsin, both in August. Keep an eye on our website for potential duo dates in the Midwest in June, in the Northwest in July, and more! 

Don’t forget that our CD, Where the Waters Run, along with our debut CD and our limited edition  t-shirt, (which says “We will join together one by one until a drop becomes a flood” – yes we DID!) can still be ordered from our web store. Our latest release is also available through indie distributor CDBaby and can be digitally downloaded through iTunes and digstation.com.  

We hope to see you (and/or someone you know – in Atlanta, GA, for example) at one of our upcoming concerts. For more tour details, click on Tour.

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

December 3, 2008: What a year it has been!  We began 2008 with the release of our second duo CD, a moment we surely thought would never come. What started as a fleeting and unassuming morning in the studio in celebration of Leela’s birthday ended in a powerful musical collaboration and a now-celebrated recording project.  And we are ending 2008 by rejoicing the momentous occasion that we have worked for and dreamed of for so long: the election of Barack Obama as President.  We spent 2008 touring the country in support of our new CD and encouraging people to join together, to speak out, to reclaim hope. . . “We will join together one by one until a drop becomes a flood!”   This is the story of 2008--a drop has truly become a flood, in our own lives and for our country.

Now we know just what you are thinking as you read this. . . “Boy, I wish I could have that quote from Leela and Ellie’s song plastered across my chest on a stylish and attractive black and white t-shirt.”  Did we read your mind or what?  Now, we may not be Santa Claus or even his little elves, but we can grant you this one wish.  As we have hinted in newsletters past, we do, in fact, have a limited edition Leela and Ellie Grace t-shirt that, hitherto, has only been available at our live performances.  To honor this year of change and, nearly as importantly, to help you with your holiday shopping, our t-shirt is now available for purchase on our website!  We encourage you to go check out the shirts soon--there are a limited number and once they are gone, they are gone.  While you are visiting our online store, take note of the special sale we are offering on our CDs for this holiday season (The Leela and Ellie Grace Economic Stimulus Package). To help make your gift giving more affordable this year, we have reduced the price of our CDs to only $14 apiece (the lowest price ever) from now until December 31^st!  We would be honored if you shared our music with your friends and family.

Now that you have your holiday shopping all taken care of, you have a little extra time on your hands to do some light reading.  We were thrilled to be featured in an article in the October/November issue of Dirty Linen, a national folk and world music magazine.  This article and the accompanying review of Where the Waters Run are now available for you to read on our Articles page.

After a wonderful year of touring (our busiest to date), we are excited to stay closer to our respective homes for the winter and spread music and dance in our local communities.  Leela will have some solo appearances in Portland and will be teaching banjo through Artichoke Music.   Also keep an eye on the “Teaching” page on our website as she will also be offering dance and harmony singing classes. All the way across the country in Western North Carolina, Ellie is teaching a Cape Breton dance troupe (Twistycuffs) and preparing them for an upcoming major performance.  She will also be appearing regionally with her all-female, old-time trio (Blue Eyed Girl), singing with a small world music choir, and offering percussive dance classes.   We hope you will stay in touch with us as we nestle in for the winter. Keep an eye on our online calendar to find out where and when we are each performing and teaching. You can find us all over the world wide web. . . on our website, MySpace, Facebook, CDBaby, iTunes, YouTube, and anywhere else that Google finds our names and faces. 

We wish you a peaceful and joyful winter season.  After a year like 2008, we are excited to find out what 2009 has in store. . .

 Peace,
Leela and Ellie

August 27, 2008: As the summer is drawing nearly to a close, we are nearing the end of our busiest touring season. We have had amazing travels on the east coast, on the west coast, and in many places in between. We are coming back to the Midwest this weekend and hope to see you there!

In June, we had our first-ever Northwest tour. It went splendidly! We did a house concert in Seattle at the stunning house (built of standing dead fir) of the Olsons, and were soundly welcomed by an enthusiastic audience of new fans. We drove to Lake Coeur D’Alene in Idaho to spend a week teaching at Lady of the Lake camp, where, in addition to teaching clogging and harmony singing, banjo, and mandolin, and leading the daily gatherings, we got to spend time with members of the hot dance bands The Horseflies and Notorious. We also had successful concerts in Spokane, WA, Portland, OR, and Hood River, OR. More recently, we spent a week in early August near Plymouth, MA at the beautiful Pinewoods camp, teaching clogging, harmony singing, and Cape Breton Step Dancing to a wonderful group of folks ranging in age from 18-80. We slept in a rustic cabin with a screen porch overlooking the crystal clear Round Pond, had delicious, from-scratch meals in the dining pavilion, and spent each evening singing, dancing, and laughing into the wee hours and then finding our way to our beds by flashlight. We would recommend the experience to anyone!

This coming weekend, we are extremely excited to be returning to our beloved Fox Valley Folk Festival near Chicago. This year, we are offering a special master class in By-Ear Harmony Singing on the Saturday evening before the festival. This is a rare opportunity and it never fails to be an inspiring and FUN class! And, if you have never had a chance to attend the Fox Valley Festival, now is the time. It is an outdoor, family-oriented event filled with great music, a lovely atmosphere, and beautiful arts and crafts. Check out the website to see who else is performing – it is a great line-up (as always) this year. In addition to the main stage concerts, there are smaller “workshops” offered on Sunday and Monday during the day. These are always entertaining – a time to see the musicians up close as they trade songs with each other. If you don’t live in the Chicago area, be sure and tell friends or relatives there about the festival!  We will have our new CD available at the festival, as well as our limited edition T-shirts (which we WILL be putting up for sale on the website very soon).

Speaking of our new CD, “Where the Waters Run,” we are one of the featured artists in the current issue of national folk magazine, Dirty Linen. Keep your eyes out for it! The CD can still be ordered from the website, but you can also order it through indie distributor CDbaby. And you can still find us all over the web, including on iTunes, MySpace, and Facebook!

We hope to see you (and/or someone you know) at one of our upcoming shows. For details, check out our Tour Schedule.

 Peace,
Leela and Ellie

June 17, 2008: It is a chilly, early summer day in the Pacific Northwest, a welcome change for Ellie who arrived late last night from her sunny, southern town. With a two and half week tour of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in store, she will no doubt be basking in the beauty of the Northwest and wondering why she didn’t pack more sweaters.

We are touring far and wide this year in support of our new CD, getting a refresher course in US Geography 101. We spent April being welcomed back home at wonderful venues throughout the Midwest. We were thrilled to play for enthusiastic audiences across Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. Whoever planned our whirlwind tour had us tracing a wild path back and forth across these states, but it was well worth it for the warm response we received and the connections we made with faithful fans and new friends. Now on the heels of a May tour in the Southeast (Ellie’s new home), we are at last bringing our music to Leela’s newly adopted region.

We are excited to be making our first appearances as a duo in Portland, OR, Hood River, OR, and Seattle, WA (too bad we don’t drink coffee!). We are making a return visit to eastern WA (including our first full-length concert in Spokane) and spending a week teaching and performing on the beautiful shores of Lake Coeur D’Alene in Idaho. We would love to see you at one of these venues! If you are not in the Northwest, maybe you have family or friends or colleagues or acquaintances in the area! Please help us spread the word as we bring our music to a new part of the country.

Our CD, Where the Waters Run, is continuing to receive airplay and acclaim around the country. We are receiving media attention, including an upcoming feature on syndicated NPR show, “River City Folk,” and an article in national folk music magazine, Dirty Linen. The CD can still be ordered from the website, but you can also order it through indie distributor CDBaby (http://cdbaby.com/cd/leelaelliegrace). You can even find us on iTunes and Facebook! We’re trying to stay up (or is it “down”?) with all you young people… J

We couldn’t do what we do without you! We would love to see you (and/or someone you know) at one of our upcoming concerts. For details, check out our Tour Schedule.

Peace,

Leela and Ellie

March 29, 2008: As spring is showing her lovely (if moody) face here in the northwest, Ellie and I are making preparations, once again, to meet in the middle of the country! We had quite a time at our last reunion. Our CD release concert on February 16 was a fabulous party – two of the wonderful musicians who played on our CD were able to join us for the packed concert and we folk-rocked out! We debuted our new “Leela and Ellie Grace” T-shirts and the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune’s Go! Magazine featured a cover article about us, which you can see here. After the concert, we drove down to Memphis, TN for the International Folk Alliance Conference – a gathering of folk musicians, radio DJs, venue operators, booking agents, dancers, and other rabble rousers from all over the world. As you can imagine, there wasn’t much sleeping to be had! This year, we had the honor of being selected as official showcase artists. We forged many new musical and professional connections and had a great time in the process!

After that little whirlwind, we went home to our respective sides of the country to get some sleep! The cats spent several days taking turns on my lap to make up for lost time. Now we are ready to return to the road (although the cats and dogs are staring daggers at my suitcase) and are making final plans for our little midwestern tour through Kansas, Missouri and Illinois starting on April 2! We are happy to be returning to the wonderful Big Muddy Folk Festival in Boonville, MO next weekend after a little jaunt to Lawrence, Kansas. Then we head up to Illinois and swing back around to St. Louis. Ellie’s little car should get quite a workout! For details, check out our Tour Schedule.  

We are also still working on booking our summer tours in North Carolina (in May), the Northwestern states (in June), and New England (in August). Please get in contact with us if you can recommend us to any venues in those areas, or if you would like to host a house concert!

 In other news, now, not only can you order the CD at our website, but you can also order it through indie distributor CDbaby! Also, you can now find us on iTunes (!) and you can still download individual songs or the whole album through Digstation.com. It would be wonderful if you have the chance to visit CDBaby or iTunes and write a review of our CD. Also, if your local folk radio show is not playing our new CD, please let us know so we can get “Where the Waters Run” out to your local community or public radio stations!

Thank you for your continued support! We hope to see you soon at a concert near you.

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

February 6, 2008: Can you believe it is February already? It has been raining in Portland (snowing in the higher elevations), but the grass is strangely green all winter here! In Asheville, I hear from Ellie that the weather changes daily. Now, we are excitedly preparing to meet in Columbia, Missouri (where it may be 70 degrees and sunny or it may be icy and snowing – who knows!) to finally properly celebrate the release of the new CD, Where the Waters Run! Since the CD came out at the very end of 2007, we have been getting rave responses from everyone who has heard it! Now, not only can you order the CD at our website, but you can download individual songs or the whole album through Digstation: http://www.digstation.com/LeelaandEllieGrace 

In a few days, I will be braving the airline system with my guitar, banjo, and overstuffed suitcase. It will be the first time that Ellie and I have seen each other since the CD came out and will be the beginning of a very busy year for us. On Saturday, February 16, our Hometown CD Release Concert will take place at Windsor Auditorium in Columbia, MO! It will be quite a grand event – we will be joined by several of the musicians who played on the CD, and we will have our NEW T-Shirts for sale! If you are anywhere near Missouri (or know anyone who is), we hope you can make plans to attend. It should be a perfect Valentine’s/President’s Day weekend excursion! Scroll down or go to our Tour Schedule for more information about the concert! 

After the big Hometown CD Release Concert, we’ll be driving down to Memphis, TN in Ellie’s little car for the International Folk Alliance Conference. We were selected to be Official Showcase Artists this year! The Folk Alliance conference is always an exercise in sleep deprivation, but also a chance to connect with so many amazing musicians and other folks in the business of folk music!

In April, we’ll be returning to the Midwest for the wonderful Big Muddy Folk Festival in Boonville, MO and a tour through Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. In May, we’ll be in North Carolina. In June, we’ll be in the Northwest. Check out Tour Schedule and keep an eye on the website – we are adding dates all the time! We hope to see you out there on the road this year…. This year of change!

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

January 22, 2008: The long-awaited second CD from Leela and Ellie Grace has finally arrived.  On February 16^th, a concert will be held to celebrate the release of their stunning new CD, Where The Waters Run.  These Columbia, MO natives will collectively travel over 2600 miles (from Portland, OR and Asheville, NC) to present this concert—it promises to be a very special night for the Graces and their beloved hometown crowd.  Join Leela and Ellie and several special guests at Windsor Auditorium in beautiful downtown Columbia, MO for an evening of music and celebration. 

More Info: ellie @ gracefamilymusic.com, www.leelaandelliegrace.com, (573) 823-5650
Help us Spread the Word: Print and post concert FLYERS (pdf)!