Laurie Israel started playing the piano when she was 5 years old.  She had a musical mother, who also played piano (quite well) and who encouraged her children’s musical interests.  Cello has been Laurie’s primary instrument since she was 9.  These days, Laurie is revisiting her second childhood, and is singing folk songs and old songs from the United States, Appalachia Great Britain, Ireland. She is a devotee of J.J. Niles and Cecil Sharp, early 20th century ethnomusicologists, who collected folk songs of Appalachia and Britain. She has a large repertoire of Yiddish songs, which she newly translated, and which she sings in the original language, accompanying herself on the guitar.

Through another musical endeavor, in 2014, she started playing the accordion, which she finds lots of fun and great for international music of all types. About twenty years ago,  she started studying the violin fairly seriously, and after many years, finds herself quite comfortable in the weird position of holding the violin under her chin. Laurie is an accomplished Baroque music performer, and had given many concerts with her Boston area group, Ensemble Suave.

Nowadays, in the Hilltowns, it’s catch as catch can, with a variety of musical pursuits with lots of fun folks.   Recently, she has been  playing piano in church settings and at memorial services. Her most recent foray is with Jack Swindlehurst (guitar and vocals) and Helen Pollard (reader) presenting “What Songs Were Sung” at the Worthington 250th Celebration concert series. She is enjoying the foray into folk music, and picks the songs that make her heart bleed. They are mostly very sad and serious. She sings them with expressive rubato as she feels the emotions.

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