Maya de Vitry
November 16, 2024
Doors: 6:30pm // Show 8:00pm
Maya de Vitry’s dynamic and vibrant voice seems to rise out of some necessity of bringing songs to life, embracing listeners with what Folk Alley calls a “soulful intimacy”. She grew up in a musical family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, understanding music to be a place of gathering, a way to spend a summer night around a campfire. Maya first traveled and performed as a fiddling street musician, and then in bars, theaters, and on festival stages as a founding member of The Stray Birds. Her recordings and live performances embody both sincerity and playfulness, and a compelling reverence for the power of songs to be a place of gathering - whether played on stage, or around a campfire. In April 2023, Maya felt deeply moved by the musical chemistry, emotional immediacy, and joyful spontaneity of her live band. She reached out to Nashville-based engineer Lawson White to arrange a recording session for this specific ensemble. The resulting EP, Infinite, is performed with astonishing depth and tenderness, shimmering with a loose, human beauty from start to finish.
Folk Alley Review of Maya de Vitry’s 2024 release - The Only Moment
On The Only Moment, her fourth full-length album, Maya de Vitry’s voice illumines the depths of human yearnings, the often restless search for emotional equilibrium, and the gentle flourishing of the human spirit that grows out of introspection. Lush guitar arrangements, accompanied by ringing keyboards that accompany the spiraling vocals of de Vitry and Phoebe Hunt—who co-wrote the song—reverberate through the poignant “Nothing Else Matters.” De Vitry brilliantly alternates the lyrics of the refrain—”I’m living/Nothing else matters” becomes “I’m singing/Nothing else matters” and then turns to “I’m weeping/Nothing else matters”—of this hypnotic ballad as a way of conveying the enduring strength of being present in every moment of life. The gently rocking “Compass”—de Vitry’s vocals here, and indeed the musical composition itself, recalls Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark. The defiant rocker “Odds of Getting Even,” a co-write with Caitlin Canty casts a knowing glance on individuals’ constant desire to catch up, to live life fully, especially in the face of death when, with some irony, “the odds of getting even” will no longer be a burden. De Vitry’s ethereal vocals—recalling Rickie Lee Jones and Mitchell—weave a magical spell over the luxuriant, spacious jazz folk of “I’m Not Going Anywhere,” an avowal of the lasting power of love. “Some Rent” rocks steady with an affirmation of moving forward, even as the singer acknowledges some of the wisdom she’s gained from her past. De Vitry’s radiant vocals on the gently undulating “Watching the Whole Sky Change,” featuring Alec Wilder on Wurlitzer, showcase the virtuosity of her phrasing. The final verse of this mesmerizing song sums up a central theme of the album, living in the moment: “What I need now/Is less letting the darkness haunt me/And more knowing it’s part of belonging/And just watching the whole sky change.”
With The Only Moment, Maya de Vitry takes her place alongside Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell as a songwriter and vocalist whose intuitive understanding of the resonance of lyrics and music captures and conveys the emotional depth of human experience.