Gaelynn Lea

KUMD is pleased to announce the release of Live from Studio A Volume 1, a collection of 16 tracks recorded in our studios over the past several years.

As KUMD prepares to blow out 2017 with our 60th anniversary, we don't want to lose sight of all the things we did this year to get people talking. Thirty years of For The Birds.  Expanded Homegrown Music Festival coverage.  The local musician making national news.  KUMD was where you turned when you wanted to hear what the loss of David Bowie, Prince or the other icons who said goodbye this year meant to music. We take a look back at how KUMD had you talking this year.

Local singer, songwriter, and fiddler Gaelynn Lea's whole life changed when she won NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concert contest earlier this year. She and her husband sold their house, outfitted a van for touring, and hit the road. Lea was last in our studios the day before she found out the big news; we were happy to welcome her back on November 9, 2016 to find out about everything that's happened since then, and to hear tracks from her upcoming Christmas album Deepest Darkness, Brightest Dawn. She'll perform a CD release show on Saturday, November 12 at Beaner's Central in Duluth.

Don't be surprised if you see Annie Dugan sitting in the audience at Jeffrey T. Larson's Gallery Talk at the Tweed Museum of Art Saturday night.

She's pretty excited to hear about his upcoming art school, "the science of realism," - oh, and she's kind of captivated by that vacumn cleaner as well.

When Duluth musician Gaelynn Lea joined us in Studio A on February 25, 2016, little did any of us know that the very next day she'd get the news that she'd won NPR's Tiny Desk contest. 

After 20 years of playing the violin and releasing albums with projects including Murder of Crows (with Al Sparhawk of Low), Snöbarn, and The Getarounds, Lea released her first solo album in November. All the Roads that Lead us Home features many of Lea's favorite fiddle standards re-worked with the help of a looping pedal into layered, atmospheric sonic pieces. She spoke with Christine Dean about her songwriting,  her recent decision to be more vocal on behalf of people with disabilities, and her plans to try touring for the first time.