TO MEET · 08/13/2013
Artist in Residence: Sophie Auster
First up in our Artists in Residence series, Sophie Auster. Thanks to a music teacher with a good ear, Sophie stumbled onto the musician track as a third grader in school choir. “My teacher came by when we were all singing, and she said ‘who is that? Are you singing like that?’” She pulled Sophie in front of the class to sing Rise Oh Children Rise, the gospel song the class was practicing. “I have a recording of it somewhere on a cassette tape. I was so nervous too, you could just hear the quivering in my voice,” Sophie says.
It worked out well though: Sophie got the class solo, her teacher encouraged her to take up voice lessons, and now, years later, she’s got an EP, Red Weather, tucked away with a full-length album in the works.
We sent New Yorker Sophie to L.A. where she wrote outside in that infamous California sunshine. “There’s something about getting out of your comfort zone and the place where you write all the time. I definitely felt more opened up.” She came prepared long before touchdown: “the idea for the songs were already swimming around in my brain,” but the time crunch proved a little challenging.
“I was thinking of all the different elements that could be better.” We’re sure it’s more than just fine.
Thanks, Sophie!
Photos by Alden Wallace