Sonya Kitchell to play West Milford

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI

WEST MILFORD — When Sonya Kitchell brings her traveling show to West Milford's Music at the Mission in Union Valley Road on Saturday, April 16, she'll be bringing her string quartet with her.

That's right. A string quartet.


The 22 year-old Massachusetts native said that she enjoys playing with the "Brooklyn Strings" because they give her "more space" during her songs.

"When you have loud drums, guitar, bass…the notes all kind of mesh into each other and there isn't a lot of space," she said. "I think it's more melodic (with the quartet)…and it's a pleasure to work with them."

During the show, Kitchell will be playing electric guitar and piano, as well as singing the lyrics that she's written that are quickly earning her comparisons to the best in the business, such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.

It might be surprising to hear the depth that lies in her words, which remain simple and concise — Kitchell's seem to speak to jagged experience that is unexpected from someone who's barely in the her third decade of life.

Of course, to her, it's not unusual — she points out that when the aforementioned singers were in what she called their "first prime," they were both young.

"Certain people are insightful and notice things in life perhaps in a different way," she said. "I've always really enjoyed taking stock of human interactions and emotions and things that happen in life and the poetry in it."

Being as she wrote her first songs at age 12, she's also come into the peculiar situation of having to grow into her own lyrics.

"When I was 12 I had no idea what I was writing about…they were (things) that I didn't understand, but I felt like I could imagine it if someone was going through it," she said. "As I've gotten older, I've started to understand my songs more, and I'm singing something five or six years later and I'm finally able to relate to them."

Kitchell started honing her craft at the tender age of 7, when she asked her mother if she could take voice lessons and learn to sing.

Her parents, both of whom are visual artists, supported her decision to go the music route, and she was soon immersing herself in both singing and jazz while learning guitar from her mentor, June Milllington.


"I was really lucky that I grew up in a place where I was surrounded by talented and encouraging people," she said of her youth. "I had a lot of great influences."

The singer, who now lives in Brooklyn, still looks to her Western Massachusetts roots for guidance, especially when writing songs.

"I grew up in the country, and it has had a huge impact on who I am as a person and what I seek in life," she said.

Far from friends and without a TV as a child, Kitchell said that she spent a lot of time in the woods by herself, and that provided her the refuge from which to write.

"That's the space that was there for me to start writing and playing and singing….and to this day, I seek that quiet, and that space. It gives me the platform to be a strong artist," she said.

She takes little credit for some of her deepest songs — haunting ballads like "Soldier's Lament," which was featured during the ending of the season four finale of "The Unit," came from somewhere else, she said.

"I swear that song was written in 15 minutes," she said. "I didn't write it…some songs just come through you, and that's one of those that I don't have any personal experience with whatsoever (but) it needed to come through."

Kitchell said that she believes as a musician, she is something of an open vessel to whatever is around.

"Almost any great musician would never take credit entirely for their ability or the material that they write…they can't create without these things that are in the atmosphere, so to speak," she said.

The same can be said of her voice, which drips of painful years that she hasn't yet seen and sounds far older than it should.

"I think it's always been there," she said. "Some people believe in old souls, some don't…I do, and that's part of it, I think."

Next Saturday, she'll be playing songs from her 2010 EP "Convict of Conviction," which is full of material written over the course of the winter of 2009 when she spent time alone in the country.

She'll also be playing newer tracks that haven't come out yet, as well as favorites from her older albums.

When asked what she wanted from her next album to be, she had a simple answer— "the most awesome."

For tickets or more information about her April 16 show, go to MusicattheMission.org.