fusion (maeve & quinn)

maris maeve's 2012 CD release for piano, guitar, and vocals. Her 3rd studio album.

watermark

maris maeve cover of lady gaga's million reasons.
recorded autumn 2017 in chicago.

million reasons - lady gaga (maris maeve cover)

maris maeve original for piano and vocals from september 2012 release "inflection point."

off the tracks

maris maeve original for piano and vocals, in collaboration with her twin, violinist bryce quinn. From her september 2012 CD release "inflection point".

made of stars

maris maeve original for piano and vocals from her september 2012 CD release "inflection point".

the deep end

maris maeve original for guitar and vocals from her september 2012 CD release "inflection point".

we were children

line in the sand

honey & oak

maris maeve original for piano from her september 2012 CD release "inflection point".

shoring up

maris maeve (Maris Maeve O’Tierney; marismaeve.com) is an Alaskan-born singer-songwriter and classically trained musician (vocals, guitar, piano) with 3 albums in her discography: 'flowing still' 2010, 'room to build' 2011, and 'inflection point' 2012. She launched her music career in Chicago and has a performance circuit that spans from Alaska to Ireland.

Maris is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and received a 2015 Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Award for Music Composition. She bridges genres for a distinct sound that threads from classical, singer-songwriter, folk-pop, and Irish traditional music (hear "traction" https://youtu.be/I_fVquMUtk0). Maris collaborates with her twin sister, violinist/poet Bryce Quinn, as duo maeve & quinn (hear "fusion" https://youtu.be/1S17HkFKr4o). maeve & quinn are currently developing their debut collaborative album, soundings in fathoms. Album preview: "heart’s divide" https://youtu.be/4XWEABHuhyc.

Maris is an interdisciplinary artist. As a musician and architectural historian, she curates soundscape experiences in museum and performance settings that connect music and architecture as parallel forms of design. She has explored her music and design interests through roles at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington, D.C., the Block Museum of Art, Chicago, and the Anchorage Museum, Alaska.

Of her musical process, Maris shares:

Songwriting is a way of thinking for me. Setting words to music, I find ways to connect in notes the thoughts and emotions of autobiographical and fictional narratives that navigate the push and pull of the human heart. I write music to understand the complex, intimate relationships—personal, cultural, spiritual—of my own life experiences, the communities in which I dwell, and the change over time in place and people. Each song I write is both a map and compass, tracing the memory of relationships, love, and travels across place and time to orient a path forward. I perform music to respond to a community. The measured structure and tradition of classical music fulfills a part of my personality and perspective. My songwriting bridges the gaps, blending influences from classical, folk, and contemporary music genres. A landscape of love, loss, and reconciliation in the course of womanhood directs me towards a palette of sounds, words, and textures.

My goal in songwriting is to capture in the songs themselves the feeling of live performance. Performing demands vulnerability and a willingness to tap into a core; for me as a singer-songwriter, this is often an intimate story, and as a classical musician, a history (the legacy of a composer’s repertoire). To connect with an audience is the purpose of performing for me—sharing the story is not enough. Feeling the story of the music invites listeners into that vulnerable space, opening the song for a mutual moment of recognition and fulfillment.