Highlights of 2003:
The Spirites Consort were featured artists on Renradio with a correlating interview by Lady Em from Renfriends and a CD contest to promote the radio station.
Lise Winne and Jeff Belding started the band, “Saratoga Faire”, with Frank Orsini and Jim Lestrange.
The group’s first concerts were held at The Fish House
Community Concert Series, the Kingsbury Coffeehouse, Krib-stock and
Lise began the art work for her solo art exhibit slated
for November 2004 at The Small Gallery in
The Spirites Consort performed for “First Night
Saratoga” to packed houses at the
At Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY was an event called The All Girl Revue hosted and run by Corley Roberts. Featured performers included Corley, Karen Jacobsen, Jennifer Greer, Melanie Krahmer (with her band, Sirsy), and Lise (with Jim Lestrange on hammered dulcimer and Rick Eckberg on bass).
Lise’s web-diary for the year follows:
September 20, 2003
The summer is slowly winding down and the tops of the trees are finally starting to turn red. We (The Spirites Consort) just got through playing in a quaint Adirondack town called Inlet which we enjoyed very much. Many folks in the audience stopped us on our break. Some came over to tell us that they enjoyed us because we didn’t play a usual brand of music. And then the offers came: one man handed me a paper and wrote a contact number for his church hoping I would sing there and another man asked if we might be interested in putting on a concert at his boathouse.
The man who hired us said that he had received hundreds of CDs and tapes for the event. We were chosen not only for our music, but for our hats. Just when we were ready to dump this attire! One venue that we applied to said they had rejected us because of the hats (we look ridiculous), but apparently there are some people who like a jesterly attitude with their music.
It was a beautiful ride up there. There were a lot of hairpin turns, small rustic towns by quiet lakes with canoes. We saw some people portaging on the road and hikers carrying heavy backpacks into the woods. During one long stretch of road I practically ran into a sizeable tree that had fallen over. Fortunately my car just skimmed underneath it. When I saw that it was hanging by a few splinters, I considered myself very lucky.
Besides finishing up another CD project, I have a show in an art gallery in November of 2004 and I am just starting to make pieces for it (that’s my real job, you know, and I’m sure you always believe me). I often have big plans for solo exhibits, a lot of ideas, lists and preliminary drawings, but usually only some of what I’ve planned can be fully implemented because my work tends to be very detailed and time consuming. My visual art, like my CDs, tends to be theme-oriented. Although I keep the theme to myself until the opening, it does become apparent what I’ve been obsessing about for a year or more.
Right now a soft rain is on my tin roof. It is late at night. I hope to dream of more songs.