Music.
Songwriter. Composer. Performer.
An Inch on Either Side, now streaming.
I’ve been singing as long as I’ve been speaking. After years of choir rehearsals, musical theater workshops, and roots music jams through the Country Dance and Song Society, I released my first album of original folk-pop music, Cathexis, in 2018. Named for the Freudian concept of attachment driven by emotional investment, this first LP compiled the thirteen songs my teenage self would have carried out if my house were on fire. It was recognized with an hour-length feature on Takoma Radio WOWD-LP 94.3 FM.
On December 2, 2022, Cathexis was followed by An Inch on Either Side, an album heralded by singles “Open to You” and “Not Right Now.” Picking up from where its precursor left off, AIOES explores the joys, struggles, and limitations of independence, pairing unabashedly personal lyrics with the supportive ensemble spirit of a jam circle. The third track off the album, “The Rest and the Rush,” debuted at the 2020 Harvard Composers Festival, an event which I co-produced in my capacity as co-founder of the university’s Undergraduate Songwriters Collective (HUSC).
In advance of the AIOES release, I put out a two-track single, Cascade Sessions, Vol. I. These songs — “Met You First” and “Between Like and Love” — were written on the heels of COVID lockdown. They were recorded live by Brian Lindsay at the 2022 Cascade of Music and Dance, the intergenerational folk community where I grew up and found my sound. Cascade Sessions, Vol. I is available to stream now.
Song and lead vocals: Chloe E.W. Levine. Production, mixing, mastering, and sampled bass guitar: Jared Kirkpatrick. Lead guitar: Max Thoburn. Banjo: Joe Carter. Fiddle: Talya Raitzyk.
Song and lead vocals: Chloe E.W. Levine. Production and mandolin: Max Thoburn. Engineering and mixing: Steven Bluestein. Fiddle: Bizzy Seay. Harmony vocals: Maya Spanabel. Drums: Jacob Glueckert.
Song and lead vocals: Chloe E.W. Levine. Production, mixing, and mastering: Jared Kirkpatrick. Lead guitar: Max Thoburn. Banjo: Joe Carter. Fiddle: Talya Raitzyk.
Song, lead vocals, and lead guitar: Chloe E.W. Levine. Mixing and mastering: Brian Lindsay. Banjo: Joe Carter. Fiddle: Bizzy Seay. Clarinet: Steven Bluestein. Cello: Cecily Mills.
Outside of folk-pop, I’ve been active both as a composer of vocal concert music and as a music director of various student ensembles. My piece “If the Other Do” — co-composed with Ian Chan for two soprani, baritone, SATB choir, and piano — was awarded the Francis Boott Prize in 2021. It was premiered by the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum in November of that year.
As a music director, I led the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones — a contemporary all-gender a cappella group — from November 2019 to February 2022, arranging numerous songs along the way. My arrangement of “Contaminated,” originally performed by BANKS, appears on the EP VISIONS (2023), nominated for Best Pop EP and Best Mixed Collegiate EP by the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards. I also music directed several student theater productions, details for which can be found in my CV (linked on the homepage of this site).
From November 2019 to May 2020, I combined the skills honed in all these creative practices to serve as the song leader for my university’s fossil fuel divestment campaign. I also assumed the mantle for organizing actions and events that harnessed the power of artistic expression and creative community-building to promote climate justice and a sustainable pandemic recovery.
