Gaelynn Lea, born with osteogenesis imperfecta, a bone disorder, “is transforming our cultural understanding of who can be a musician,” reports Jeffrey Brown on Friday (7/26) at PBS Newshour. “Recently at the South By Southwest Festival [in Austin, Texas] … fans lined up hours before the doors open. Classically trained, Lea is now best known for her haunting original songs and versions of traditional folk music … Lea grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, with a supportive community, teachers and family…. ‘We tried the cello first. And the cello is just too big…. Even the tiniest [violin] was too long for my arm to reach up on my shoulder…. One of us thought of playing it up and down like a tiny cello…. Adaptive sports are a thing, but I think adaptive music is maybe not as common, but I hope that it becomes more common,’ says Lea.… [A video of] Lea’s song ‘Someday We’ll Linger in the Sun’ [performed live in 2016] at NPR’s Tiny Desk has been viewed nearly 2.5 million times…. She’s performed in 43 states and seven countries. On every stop, she makes time to speak with groups in her growing role as an advocate for disability rights.”
Posted July 30, 2019
