Alumna Profile: Singer Songwriter Marina Evans Releases New Album (Barnard 2009)

2009 Barnard College Music Alumna & Singer/Songwriter Marina Evans Releases Debut Record Dogtown: The EP

**Marina Evans performs in NYC 9/22,10:30PM, Ella's Lounge (see info below)**

This September, 2009 Barnard College Music alumna Marina Evans is releasing Dogtown: The EP,  an original album written and recorded in her hometown of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Combining Ms. Evans' jazz-influenced vocals with folk forms and rock instrumentation, Dogtown has a unique sound that she proudly calls her own. The first single, "One of Two," is available now for stream or download.

Ms. Evans put together her band (Dave Borge on bass; Jack Tomaiolo on guitar; Pete Lindberg on drums) in the summer of 2011 upon her return to the States from Florence, Italy, where she had been writing and touring. "After years of performing as a solo acoustic act, I was ready to take things to the next level," Evans says. "Playing abroad had given me lots of new ideas, and really lit a fire under me to get things off the ground."

Over the course of the next year, Ms. Evans traveled with her band from Gloucester to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia before wrapping up the record this summer.

Evans' performance career began at age 17, when she gigged around the Massachusetts North Shore as the vocalist in a jazz duo, My Ship. Only after she moved to New York to study at Barnard did she she pick up a guitar and begin writing, recording, and performing her own music. "I decided to teach myself guitar as a vehicle for songwriting after listening to Eva Cassidy," Evans says. "I couldn't explain with words to a guitarist what I was hearing in my head, so I had to figure it out myself. It was definitely an uphill battle, but I found it so liberating!"

As a junior at Barnard, Ms. Evans took a semester abroad in Florence, Italy. There, while playing at an open mic, she met an Italian producer who was interested in recording her songs. "He didn't speak a word of English, and seemed very focused on making things as complicated as possible," Evans relates. "By the time August rolled around, I had an unsigned 80-page contract in legal Italian and two original folk songs that had been transformed into ambient pop music. Needless to say, the contract is unsigned to this day. And when I got back to Barnard in September, I signed up for Terry Pender's "Recorded Sound" class (in the Music Department's Computer Music Center) as a means of self-defense!"  Ms. Evans was also very active as a vocalist in Columbia's Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program.

Despite this rocky start, Evans' relationship with the Florentine music scene has endured: she has returned to Italy to write and perform every year since her 2009 graduation. This past spring, she wrote and began recording an original EP with a team of Italian musicians she has worked with over the years. Set to be released in October 2012, The Tuscan Sessions represents another side of Evans' songwriting style that she is excited to cultivate. "It's been difficult working on arrangements from across the Atlantic, but I welcome the challenge," she says. "I learn from everyone I play with, and from every project I undertake. I think together, The Tuscan Sessions and Dogtown will give a well-rounded perspective on where I am at as an artist today."

Stream or purchase Marina Evan's music here:
http://www.marinaevansmusic.com/music/

Marina Evans will appear in New York on Sept. 22, 2012 9/22. at 10:30, at The Ella Lounge on the lower East side. Tickets are $10 at the door; discounted advanced tickets are available here:
http://www.turnstylemusicgroup.com/event/138303/

BC Music and LAJPP Alumna (2009) Marina Evans, Singer/Songwriter. 

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