LIZZY HOYT
By her own admission, fiddler-singer-songwriter Lizzy Hoyt is “a true Canadian mash-up.”
“My mother’s side is Scottish, Irish and English,” says award-winning Canadian musician Lizzy Hoyt by email, “while my father’s side is French-Canadian, Irish and Latvian.”
“Because of that heritage,” she continues, “my connection to Celtic music is very strong. It actually makes me feel like my bones are vibrating.”
Those bones have been rattling for as long as Hoyt can remember.
“Music has been my life,” she explains. “And if life is a journey, then so is my music. In truth, they are one and the same. They are not separate.”
That journey began at a young age; with two musicians for parents, Hoyt was surrounded by melody throughout her childhood, and began studying the violin when she was just four years-old.
“I started to pursue fiddling more seriously in my teens,” shares the songstress. “It was around this time that I also picked up the guitar and mandolin, and started to write songs.”
By the age of 15, Hoyt had snagged her first professional gig as a fiddler for Canadian country singer Eli Barsi. Over the next few years, Hoyt continued to work with Barsi as a fiddler, mandolin player, and backup vocalist. She also collaborated with a number of other artists, including Maria Dunn, Tracy Millar, and Samantha King.
Her dedication to music didn’t stop her from pursuing a formal education, however, and in 2009 she graduated from the University of Alberta with a BA in Sociology.
As a testament to her first love, the twenty-something troubadour already has four albums to her name – the most recent being 2014’s New Lady on the Prairie.
Amazingly, she has accomplished it all without a record label.
“I am a self-managed, self-booked, independent artist. So, really, there are two challenges at play here; one is taking care of the business side of my career, and the other is writing, rehearsing, recording and touring.”
Thankfully, the rewards outweigh the challenges.
“I get great pleasure from knowing that I am giving something ‘good’ to this world; I hope to bring joy to others through music, perhaps touch them in some small way and help them to connect to something.”
It’s not just fans that have connected to Hoyt’s music.
In 2012, she beat out 11,000 other applicants to win “Best Female Artist” honours at the 8th International Acoustic Music Awards. She has also been a Canadian Folk Music Award Nominee for “Traditional Singer of the Year,” and was named a finalist in both the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the USA Songwriting Competition. Perhaps most poignantly, in 2013 she was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor General of Canada for her outstanding contribution to commemorating Canadian veterans and history for her song Vimy Ridge.
Critical acclaim aside, Hoyt is content to continue challenging herself as an artist.
“As time has passed, I feel my fiddling is stronger and more nuanced. My guitar playing is more rhythmic and detailed. My voice is getting stronger and warmer.”
She acknowledges the strong Celtic presence in her music.
“My instrumental skills are largely based in traditional Irish, Scottish and Canadian music. That said, I listen to many types of music, so there are influences from other genres as well. I strongly identify with the story-telling component of folk music, and they are some of my favourite songs to write, sing and hear. And folk music often contains the core ingredients of a good song; an honest message, and a solid sense of craftsmanship in both the words and the music.”
Things show no sign of slowing down for the singer-songwriter; this summer, she was in Italy to sing in a baroque opera. Then, she returned home to play festivals in Ontario and Alberta. And this fall, she will be back on the road, touring across Western Canada. A major tour is also planned for the spring of 2016.
“I am very thankful I have had the opportunity to visit so many parts of Canada and the world,” smiles Hoyt. “It really has been an amazing journey so far.”
Dear Ms Hoyt:
Your music (singing; playing; writing . . . all of it) is near and dear to me. Your “Prairie” album was also selected as a favorite by Wanda Fischer, host of “The Hudson River Sampler” radio program from WAMC, the NPR affiliate in Albany, New York. Not co-incidentally, she just received an award at this year’s Folk Music Alliance conference in Montreal (this week: February 13, 2019.) She is a dear friend and also former broadcasting colleague. And, is the reason I write.
Though you tour (or, at least travel to) other parts of the world, your performing schedule has you primarily in Canada. I (and Wanda) are in “upstate” New York. Not far, at all, from the Border. Though the rest of the world, understandably, may think of the U.S. as a hostile place these days, it is the government, and not “we the people” who have created this very real impression. I invite you to come here. We are a loving people.
“Here” in just this area of up-state New York are some of the premiere clubs and venues for your work. All of which I and/or Wanda could help make arrangements for you.
There is Café Lena . . . likely the most revered and historically important venue certainly in America, if not the world: most of the folk music world’s artists literally got their start, if not the major boost in their career there. Can you say: Bob Dylan? Yes!
Café Lena is in Saratoga Springs, just a short drive south from the Border.
Also in this region . . . just a few miles in circumference . . . is the internationally-famed “Falcon Ridge” folk-music festival held every summer in early August. Again, most of the Western world’s folk musicians have either gotten started there, or had a boost in their careers.
Though there are literally dozens of other venues to mention just in this area, I conclude this entreaty by mentioning perhaps the most significant of all: the Old Songs Festival.
In the off-season. concerts are held in a magnificent old church, but, each June the organization presents a weekend-long festival on the grounds of a local Fair. Everybody who is anybody has performed there. Maria Dunn, for example, has played both at the off-season venue, as well as the Summer site. I have seen her often.
Not too far away, down the Hudson River from where I live, was the home of Pete Seeger! And, his “Clearwater” boat plies the waters to this day (I have sailed and worked on it.)
I would like to invite you to come here for at least a short tour of appearances.
I am in a position to “know someone who knows someone who knows someone” to make all the necessary connections.”
Sincerely,
Bruce Robertson
Kinderhook. NY
USA
BTW: With your knowledge of historical matters, it might be of interest if I tell you that Café Lena is located in Saratoga Springs, not far from the famed battlefield site where British and American forces clashed during what was known as the War of Independence. American troops defeated the Kings’ Army there, and thus turned the tide: this was the turning point in that war.
Often, I have walked the windy ridge there, overlooking the Hudson River, where Colonial forces defeated what was then the world’s leading super-power.
Come down and sing “Vimy Ridge.”