Crimson Cabaret, International Women's Day Celebration presented by the North Shore Women's Centre Centennial Theatre, Saturday, March 10, Doors/Silent Auction 6 p.m. Showtime 7 p.m. Tickets $35/$15.
AFTER years of classical piano training, Erica Mah had to break away to find her way.
Just after high school, the singer-songwriter took time off from her classical studies to study other things. She went to school, traveled, lived abroad and enjoyed different music experiences along the way.
It was a journey she says she had to take to find her voice as a composer.
"I think that's a really important thing for anyone who wants to become creative as a composer to do is to step away from the regimented classical training and give yourself room to see the instrument in a totally different light."
When Mah finally returned to the piano years later, it was to take lessons with a jazz pianist.
"It felt like learning to write with your left hand," she says of the style change.
Mah stuck with the new genre and soon added jazz piano to her skills repertoire, which includes playing the guitar and the ukelele. She also tried to keep up with her classical piano training but eventually let it go. Instead, she pushed herself to improvise and listen to different genres of music, and picked up different instruments for which she didn't have any training or experience.
The result is a multi-talented musician-singer-songwriter who has released two albums (available on iTunes and other social media), and will be working on her third in the coming year.
Lately, Mah has been focusing on Western folk music, and has incorporated a guzheng, a classical Chinese zither (string instrument) into her compositions. The unique instrument will take centre stage tomorrow night as Mah performs at Crimson Cabaret, a showcase of nine different artists, at Centennial Theatre.
"My newest project, and what I'll be performing at the Crimson Cabaret, is studying the guzheng, which is this beautiful classical Chinese instrument that lends itself remarkably well to Western folk music, and so I've been really playing around with that instrument and composing songs in more of a Western folk tradition."
Not surprisingly, Mah lists the guzheng as her favourite of all the instruments she can play.
"Because I'm still in this honeymoon phase of discovering all the possibilities and it's just a very beautiful-sounding instrument, and it's also something I can take with me and play acoustically," she says.
During the past year, Mah has been working with her brother Alex on shadow puppetry to narrate a music video accompanying the guzheng songs. The themes for those songs are about transoceanic journeys.
"They're intricate pieces that enrich the experience of listening because it just plays with this really poetic imagery," explains Mah of the puppetry, adding these aren't simplistic child-friendly puppets like bunnies and dogs.
"It's definitely multi-disciplinary performance art, so it's a little bit not just girl-with-guitar format, but something more," says Mah of her planned performance.
It was a bit of chance that brought Mah to the guzheng. One day, while rehearsing with her cellist at his house, she noticed an "interesting looking" instrument in the corner of a room. The instrument belonged to her friend's roommate, and she soon found herself borrowing the house keys at least once a week to gain access to the house and the guzheng. It didn't take too long before she decided to buy her own guzheng and started taking lessons.
Mah has been working on composing, and says she is trying to push the boundaries of traditional folk songwriting. Her music is driven by lyrics, but she says she never writes lyrics by themselves. She always writes lyrics for specific instruments. She calls it a form of improvisation. Adding a layer of performance art is, she suggests, something a lot of Canadian artists are doing.
"I think that the world is inundated with aspiring musicians who haven't really done anything different or better than Joni Mitchell or Neil Young, so they push the boundaries of music with other elements to the performance by working with projection artists or doing lots of interesting visuals or collaborating with dancers or other parts of the arts," says Mah. "We live in a time where there is such a rapid proliferation of different art forms, and being very conventional just isn't as much the norm anymore. And so it adds variety, it gives you a different creative outlet, and for me, I love the visual arts, and I draw and I paint, and being able to bring that together with music can create some really magical moments on stage."
Mah is excited to participate in the Crimson Cabaret, an event she calls a "really cool coming together of talent." And in an industry she says still seems dominated by men, she is looking forward to not being the only female artist on the night's roster.
"I love the concept of the cabaret that is multidisciplinary and showcases women's talent in all of these different fields. I think it's going to be a great show and I'm excited to be a part of it."
All proceeds from the show will go to support the North Shore Women's Centre.
Crimson Cabaret is at Centennial Theatre Saturday, March 10, at 7 p.m., with a silent auction at 6 p.m. Tickets are available through the theatre box office by calling 604-984-4484, or through the North Shore Women's Centre, 604-984-6009, or info@ northshorewomen.ca. For more information visit the website at www.centennialtheatre.com.
