Since I began my professional career, I've been finding ways to bring stories of the past alive for audiences through musical performances. I've taken audiences back in time to the 1920's, The Gilded Age, and early America, singing jazz, cabaret, and opera. I've directed operatic masterpieces on stages across the country. I have always been passionate about music and history...and my hometown. I have traveled far and wide for my career, but as a fifth generation Pittsburgher that has always maintained her accent and blue collar roots, I will be a Steel Town girl always. I've made Pittsburgh my "forever home" with my growing family, becoming involved and invested in our local music and historical communities.
In 2024, I happened upon some fascinating music in the archives at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh---songs written during Pittsburgh's Industrial heyday. I became enamored with these songs. I came across a sentimental ballad of yearning written and self-published by a team of siblings ("In the Valley Where the Allegheny Flows"). A song of remembrance for fallen and lost miners ("My Youghiogheny Girl") tugged at my heart strings and intrigued me when I learned a Catholic priest wrote the song. I couldn't help but get a song called "Pittsburgh, You're a Grand Old Town," stuck in my head on repeat.
I've been uncovering the incredible history of these songs and the stories they tell ever since. I deliver lectures locally and write free blog posts about these songs. They've been buried for 100+ years, but they need to be remembered. They need to be heard. That is why I am fundraising to record an album of these songs in a professional studio with local sound engineers and local pianists. I want every Pittsburgher to be able to experience the tunes that once spilled out of apartment windows, parlors, and onto street corners.
I plan to sell the album at local history centers, events, and have it available for download. Your donation gets us closer to our goal to have a tangible album that allows the songs that have never been recorded, to earn a sense of permanency in our Pittsburgh historical canon. Supporters are eligible for free downloads, special private events, and the like.