Lucia makes her composing debut!

Lucia makes her composing debut with the score for “Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage & Reckoning”. The 3-part HBO docu-series is directed by Jason Hehir (The Last Dance, Andre the Giant) in association with the Boston Globe and chronicles the complex history of race-based hostilities in the city and how the rush to justice after a 1989 murder brutalized a community. HBO - MURDER IN BOSTON

SAUDADE IS OUT NOW

Lucia Micarelli is an extraordinary violinist, singer and actress who starred in HBO’s Treme, and has performed with Josh Groban, Chris Botti, Barbra Streisand and Jethro Tull. Leo Amuedo is a truly singular, Grammy-nominated guitarist who has worked with Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, Vince Mendoza and legendary Brazilian singers Ivan Lins and Caetano Veloso. Together, they join forces in an exhilarating new collaboration that promises to shatter the boundaries of genre and tradition. Captivating listeners with their unparalleled virtuosity, impeccable musicianship, and a shared passion for musical exploration, Micarelli and Amuedo will take audiences on a mesmerizing journey through a melting pot of genres, fusing elements of classical, jazz, Brazilian, folk, Americana and more. Listen to SAUDADE streaming

North Valley Magazine - Eclectic Harmony: Renowned violinist brings genre-bending sounds to Phoenix - Jordan Houston

Lucia Micarelli is not the average violinist.

The New York native, who has toured with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as a featured violinist and concertmaster, is known to seamlessly blend genres, ranging from bluegrass to Led Zeppelin, all on one stage. A powerhouse performer, Micarelli has captivated audiences by guiding them on a dynamic journey through her vast musical tastes — and she’s bringing those talents to Phoenix.

On Thursday, February 10, she will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. at the Musical Instrument Museum.

“I guess it’s what people call eclectic, but I don’t necessarily love that term,” Micarelli says of her set list. “It’s like if you were to come over to my house for dinner and I had a playlist I made of all of my favorite stuff in the background.”

On top of singing on stage, the violinist says attendees can expect to hear a mix of classical, jazz, Americana, folk, Appalachian and a blend of whatever “(I am) into at the moment and all sorts of music that has inspired me over the years.”

Micarelli, who trained at the Julliard School of Music’s Pre-College Division and the Manhattan School of Music, attributes her unique showcase to the “talented musicians” she has worked with in the past.

“Primarily, I have a classical background and do mostly classical music,” the violinist shares. “But, I have been lucky enough to have a really weird journey where I’ve learned about a lot of other different kinds of music from some incredible teachers and incredible musicians that I was able to work with.”

Those experiences entail working as a featured soloist in two of Josh Groban’s world tours, as well as touring extensively with Chris Botti. In 2009, Micarelli broadened her career by starring as Annie in HBO’s critically acclaimed series “Treme,” which won Peabody and Primetime Emmy awards.

Micarelli notes, “All these years later, it seems only natural that my musical tastes, or what would be the definition of my voice, is a collection of all of those experiences.”

Not only does her set incorporate elements of jazz, American folk, classical, film music and the fiddle, but she also folds in tunes from across the globe, such as traditional Bulgarian gypsy tunes.

“It’s weird. On one hand, most shows are kind of in whatever genre the artist is, but at the same time, I think most people listen to everything these days and everyone has access to all different types of music,” Micarelli explains. “I think listening, as humans, our awareness of genres is pretty blurry; we are all kind of exposed to everything. I think, in a way, it’s a very natural way to consume music.”

Music has been an all-encompassing presence in Micarelli’s life for as long as she can remember.

Born in Queens, New York, she was just 3 years when she first embarked on the world of the arts. Micarelli experimented with practicing dance and piano, but it was ultimately the violin that captured her heart.

“As far back as I remember, violin was a thing,” she explains. “I think it took a couple of years, but by the time I was 6 or 7 I know I identified myself that way and I was really excited about it. I wanted to be a violinist and I was telling everybody about it and practicing hard.”

After moving to Hawaii, 5-year-old Micarelli continued to refine her talents. She debuted as a soloist at 6 with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. It wasn’t long before she began frequently appearing on local television shows and concertizing throughout the islands.

At 11, the young Micarelli attended the Juilliard School of Music’s Pre-College Division to study with the renowned violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. She also took lessons with Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin and Won-Bin Yim.

Following a win at the Pre-College Concerto Competition, and appearances at the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center and international venues, Micarelli solidified the violin as her calling by the time she was a teen.

“The more effort you put into it, it kind of becomes the thing you do,” Micarelli shares. “By the time I was a teenager, it was much more of a personal form of expression and I felt like it was the thing I was supposed to be doing.”

She was 17 when she left Juilliard to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with celebrated international violinist Pinchas Zukerman. During this time, she expanded her interests into nonclassical music. She began moonlighting with local jazz and rock bands in New York clubs, according to her website.

Micarelli’s extensive resume also includes the release of two solo studio albums, “Music from A Farther Room” and “Interlude.” In 2018, she appeared in her first PBS concert special, spawning the live album “An Evening with Lucia Micarelli.”

“Being able to feel like I can, through music, connect to a lot of people and share something deeply human — that’s pretty cool,” Micarelli expresses.

The musician adds she is particularly eager for the upcoming Phoenix appearance.

“I’m excited to be coming back to Phoenix; I’ve been there a bunch of times,” Micarelli says. “This is only my fourth show back from COVID … so it still feels like a real high school reunion to get out there and see people again.”

Lansing City Pulse - Violinist Lucia Micarelli brings star power to LSO concert - Lawrence Cosentino

Google Lucia Micarelli, the Lansing Symphony’s guest soloist this week, and the “People Also Ask” section opens with the question “Is Lucia Micarelli a real violinist?”

This Friday, Micarelli is tackling one of the biggest concertos in the repertoire, the vast and craggy Sibelius violin concerto. 

Come on, how real do you want it?

People who only know Micarelli from her role as New Orleans street violinist Annie in HBO’s acclaimed “Treme” series (or from heart-warming turn in the Hallmark movie “The Christmas Bow”) can be forgiven for asking.

No matter what you call “real,” Micarelli probably has you covered. On her regular touring show, she flips from bluegrass to Led Zeppelin to Ravel to Tom Waits without batting an eye.

“My brain doesn’t separate genres of music,” she said in a phone interview last week. “I’ve had such a weird musical education.”

Her life was front-loaded with classical training from the likes of Pinchas Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman and even from Perlman’s teacher, the legendary Dorothy DeLay. It’s not that she got it out of her system early. She still loves to play the classics. Her system just needed more high-octane fuel.

Barely 20 years old, straight out of Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, she got the itch to stretch out and started moonlighting with local jazz and rock bands. Before long, she was sawing away with the vein-bursting Trans-Siberian Orchestra and touring with crossover stars like Josh Groban, Barbra Streisand and Ian Anderson’s flutey, meta-medieval rock band, Jethro Tull.

“I’ve had this great privilege of being exposed to so many different kinds of music, and learning about them from greats in those fields,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m switching hats. I think of it all as music that I love.”

Throughout October, she was diving into the Sibelius to get ready for her Lansing gig, while doing her own poly-stylistic shows in Berkeley, Sacramento and the Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo.

“I might be leaning on different things in my toolbox, but in my mind, in how I feel emotionally, my approach is the same,” she said. “I’m trying to express emotionally a story, or what I feel, musically, and that process is the same no matter what I’m playing.”

Before talking with Micarelli, I couldn’t shake the feeling that her name rang another, non-HBO, non-Sibelius bell for me. A hasty search through a box of dusty cassette tapes confirmed that Ian Anderson mentioned her in an interview for City Pulse when Jethro Tull came to the Wharton Center 15 years ago.

“We are so honored to have her as she graces the stage with her 21 years and her bare feet,” Anderson told me back then. Micarelli still plays barefoot.

For proof of her seamless, committed approach to all kinds of music, check out a YouTube clip from her 2018 PBS special, “An Evening with Lucia Micarelli,” and watch her skydive from serene, seagull-high swoops of Sibelius straight into the Cyclopean stomping of Led Zeppelin’s epic “Kashmir” without so much as a change of snood.

LSO music director Timothy Muffitt was floored by the “Kashmir” clip, but it left him unsatisfied.

“I wanted to hear her do the rest of the Sibelius,” he said, diplomatically withholding the implied “Duh.”

Actually, Micarelli has already worked with Muffitt, while they were both touring with pop trumpeter-composer Chris Botti.

“I adore him,” Micarelli said. “I’m really excited that we’re going to have this adventure together.”

The Sibelius adventure won’t take us to “Kashmir” Friday, but the concerto is one of the most compelling ever written, a brooding idyll of windswept Nordic moods.

“I learned it a million years ago, when I was young, and it’s always been one of my favorite concertos, because it’s so epic,” Micarelli said. “Even without the solo violin part, it’s already this incredible symphony. The orchestration is really, really special, and it’s quite involved, rhythmically. Things come back but they’re slightly rhythmically different.  There’s many, many things happening at once, a lot of interplay with the musicians.”

Friday’s concert will open with the work of a living composer, Jessie Montgomery’s lyrical “Strum” for string orchestra, and close with Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, a close match with the Sibelius concerto when it comes to epic sweep and roiling emotions. 

Perhaps because she performs in so many different styles and settings, Micarelli is far from jaded about riding the force waves of a symphony orchestra.

“That first rehearsal, the first time it’s really loud, it feels like a blast of wind. It’s really amazing,” she said. “An orchestral performance is so visceral and exciting, not only to watch and listen to, but also to be a part of. It’s a pretty unusual thing to be in collaboration with 60, 80 people at once, all together and live, creating something.”

She stepped back further, taking an even longer view of her chosen life.

“Isn’t it wild that music exists? It’s so amazing that music, somehow, came into the world.”