Bio | Tour | Music Store | Listen | Lyrics | Gallery | Contact | News | Teaching 
 Leela & Ellie Home  | Leela & Ellie MySpace

Old News

June 10, 2004:

April 8, 2004:

March 12, 2004:

Hello dear friends!  Spring is beginning to hint of an appearance here in Missouri, and not a moment too soon!  We are still recovering our trip to the International Folk Alliance Conference in San Diego.  It was quite an experience, and as usual, an exercise in sleep deprivation!  There were many memorable experiences in our five days spent in not-so-sunny Southern California (it rained and was a bit on the chilly side most of the time!).  We were part of the Next Generation Old Time Music parade that was organized spontaneously by the huge number of 20-something old time players at the conference.  We met at 4:20 each afternoon and then set out (picture 20 or 30 happy, sleep-deprived young musicians raucously cheering and playing fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins, and drums, and dancing along the sidewalk in tap shoes!) to disrupt the goings on of the conference with a groovin’ parade of “Old Joe Clark” or “Julianne Johnson.”  We also, more officially, performed several times as part of the “There’s Something About the Women” showcase, and were able to share the floor with numerous amazing performers in that venue.  We heard an overwhelming array of incredible music, and made and re-made connections with some remarkable people from all over the country (and the world!).  I’m sure you’ll hear more about the conference and connections we made there in the months to come!

Currently, we are both getting back into full teaching schedules in our hometown, and busily booking our upcoming touring season.  In our latest news, and we are not exactly sure how this happened, but somehow Ellie and I have ended up being featured on this week's edition of the "Open Mic" section of All Songs Considered on NPR's website!  They chose to feature "In My Name (You Shall Love)" from our CD. 

We are still so humbled by the constant inspiration, support, and love that have been offered to us by all of you.  We never could have made this CD without you!  We have been awed by the overwhelmingly positive response to the CD so far . . . We hope our travels bring us near you sometime soon!

Peace,
Leela and Ellie

New!  March 11, 2004: Leela and Ellie featured on NPR's All Songs Considered!  

February 4, 2004:

Happy February!  Here in the heartland, we are spending a disproportionate amount of time scraping ice, shivering, and sliding!  All the sparkling frozen stuff is beautiful to look at out the window, but the cold is causing some hibernation urges on our part!  We hope you are staying warm wherever you are. 

Nothing like some singing out loud with two full, beautiful harmony-singing classes, teaching banjo, mandolin and guitar, and dancing out loud with students of all ages to keep us warm and well-fed in the winter!  We have been busy for the last month or so immersing ourselves in our wonderful local community -- sharing our joy and love of music with students who inspire US much more than they probably realize!   Ellie is starting up new sessions of percussive dance classes next week -- it is not too late to sign up!!  It is more fun than anyone should be allowed to have!

I have also gotten involved with a group of women volunteers organizing an event in honor of Women's History Month called LunaFair.  It will be a benefit for our one-of-a-kind local community radio station, KOPN and will be a celebration of art, music, and all forms of creative expression by local women!  Some women you might know with the last name of Grace are tentatively slated to appear (Win, Leela, and Ellie), and might even do a mother-daughter number!

In the meantime, we are busily singing to ourselves, writing new songs, booking our upcoming season, and selling CD's all over the country via our website.  We are just continually humbled by how our music seems to touch people's hearts.  We are so grateful to be able to bring joy to people while doing something we love so much!  We recently found out that our CD made the "charts" in December and again in January -- the Folk DJ charts, that is!  Ours was among the most-played CD's for each of those months on folk radio!!  If your local folk DJ doesn't have our CD, feel free to put them in touch with us and we'll be happy to provide them with a copy for airplay!

We are getting geared up for the huge, exciting world-wide gathering of everyone in the business of folk music that will be held in sunny San Diego at the end of this month -- the International Folk Alliance Conference!!  We have been invited to share the stage with an array of amazing performers as part of the "There's Something About the Women" showcase and look we forward to making many connections, playing lots of music, and getting very little sleep!

Stay warm and sing loud and we hope to make trails to your locale this year!

Leela and Ellie Grace

January 7, 2004:  

December 2, 2003: "I expected it would be good, but it really exceeded any expectation I might have had. The arrangements are perfect, the production elegant, and the harmonies so rich they moved me deeply." -- Steve Jerrett, Host of "The Sunday Morning Coffeehouse" on KOPN, Columbia, MO

We are just overwhelmed!  The response to our new CD has been just phenomenal so far.  We are still slightly shocked and amazed whenever we hear one of our songs come over the radio, or when someone tells us that they have been listening constantly to our CD (“Our CD?  We have a CD????”)!  I must add that we are quite proud of everything about the finished product.  I feel that it truly represents the best of our music, and the best of the innumerable people who have nudged, supported, loved, and inspired us from the very beginning!  Click here to find out more about the new CD.  You can see what songs are included, hear sound clips, and order one or more!

“The Grace sisters recorded the album — which contains five originals, four traditional tracks and four covers — in Vermont’s Champlain Valley with revered old-time, folk producer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Pete Sutherland (Metamora, The Clayfoot Strutters, Mac Benford & The Woodshed All-Stars) and musicians Colin McCaffrey, Harry Aceto, Phil Carr, Jeremiah McLane and Stefan Amidon." -- Columbia [Missouri] Daily Tribune, November 13, 2003

Here’s a quick update:  It has been quite a whirlwind couple of months for us!  The boxes and boxes of our CDs arrived to much fanfare, jumping up and down, and shrieking on October 30^th, earlier than anticipated by two full weeks (thanks to our wonderful duplicating company, Oasis CD!).  We leapt into action, planning and rehearsing for our November 15^th CD Release Concert, redesigning our website (isn’t it beautiful?), marketing the CD, etc.  We did all of this while still maintaining a busy teaching schedule (Ellie’s School of Music and Dance had one of its busiest fall sessions yet) and performing on the eastern (St. Louis) and western (Lawrence, KS) edges of Missouri on concurrent weekends.

The CD Release concert here in Columbia, MO was an absolute success, and we were simply floored by the enthusiasm and joy of the capacity crowd!  We were alternately awed, overflowing with joy, and teary at what felt, in many ways, like the culmination of our life’s work.  We were extraordinarily happy to be able to share it with so many in our local community.  We hope to spread that joy further afield in the coming year.  If you know of any venues in your area – concerts, schools, festivals, etc. – where we should be performing and/or teaching, please let Leela know!  We are currently booking for next season.  Visit our Calendar to see if we are performing near you! 

And if we can’t make it to your area in person as soon as you (or we) would like, well, we hope our CD can!!  We look forward to a hectic holiday season marketing and distributing our CD.  Spread the word . . .

We are so thankful for all of you!  We couldn’t make the music we love without your support.  

Peace, joy, love, and beautiful music to you and your loved ones in this holiday season!
Leela and Ellie Grace 

April 1, 2003:  I write to all of you dear people as the leaves are bursting out on the trees and the daffodils are in full bloom.  I must say, I have so missed the warmth, the sunlight, the blue sky, the green grass, the flowers and the birds singing – I love spring!  It makes me feel like singing (not surprisingly – it doesn’t take much to make me want to sing!) . . . This has been a long, but exciting winter, from the wonderful week we spent teaching at the Christmas Country Dance School in Berea, Kentucky to the incredible and overwhelming four days showcasing, networking, jamming and such at the International Folk Alliance Conference in Nashville to the decision, finally, to record a CD together!

 But first of all, I want to say that Ellie and I have been overwhelmed by the response to my song, “In My Name (You Shall Love).”  We have been singing it at every opportunity, and we have been nearly brought to tears several times by the deeply heartfelt, powerful, and passionate reactions of everyone who has heard it (both live and over the internet or the radio).  Just last week, we were bowled over by a room full of people singing out, with tears of joy, hope, and love in their eyes, “You shall love . . .” 

 To back up a bit, this is a song that I wrote almost a year ago, but never has it seemed more important and timely (and only continues to become more so).  Ellie and I were planning on recording it on our upcoming duo CD (more about that below), but the process was moving very slowly.  At the beginning of March, as the world was becoming increasingly divided and fraught with anger, hate, and fear, we felt we had to do something – something to remind everyone (everyone we could reach, anyway) of our shared humanity, of our love, of hope, of joy, and of peace.  We decided to make a quick recording of this song and we put it out that night (with the help of our wonderful webmaster, Kate Akers) on our website as an mp3 for free download.

 Since we have put it out there, it has received radio play on numerous radio stations, and has reached people all over the country (and world).  Thank you to everyone for your support, kind words, work, and spirit.  Keep sending the song out there, keep singing it, keep SINGING any song, keep hoping, keep loving!  There can never be too much love in the world!  As of this week, the song is now also available as a limited edition CD single (although you can still download it for free if you prefer – we just want the song out there and sung and heard by as many people as possible)!!  Go to http://www.chivalry.com/shopping/ to order it. 

 Speaking of CDs, all of the proceeds from the sale of the CD single will go towards funding our NEW DUO CD!!  Can you tell we are a little excited?  We are trying to narrow down our list of songs that we have been performing for the last six years – they are ALL our favorites – and we both keep learning and writing MORE!!  We are planning on going to Vermont in mid-May to do the recording.  We will be working with producer (and musician) extraordinaire Pete Sutherland.  We hope that the CD will be released sometime in September.  In the midst of all of this madness, we will be continuing to tour, perform, and teach steadily.  We are looking forward to a jaunt east (Philadelphia/D.C. area) at the end of this month, and a foray west into new territory (Idaho) in August!  Go to our Calendar to find out more!  If you are wondering when we might return/come to your area, feel free to contact me (Leela) with venue/festival recommendations!  We would love to see you.  We are booking both solo and duo gigs.

 Thank you all again for your support and we hope to see you somewhere down the road!
Peace, 
Leela and Ellie