Those who attended the Roots & Blues Festivals a few years back and caught the Australian sensation Fruit will likely remember Mel Watson.
Her amazing 4.5 octave voice, multi-award winning trumpet/sax/flute playing and joyous, infectious musicality tend to leave a lasting impression.
After the dissolution of Fruit in 2007, Watson toured as a solo artist until she teamed up with Bowen Island cellist Corbin Keep.
Keep, who brought his solo Wild Cello show to Salmon Arm in 2008, has found in Watson a kindred musical spirit.
From their first evening playing together, these improvisational, boundary-less performers knew they shared something special.
A year and a half after formalizing their musical partnership, they are set to record their second co-written CD, with material already piling up for a third.
Together they create acoustic sculpture, musical transfusion; an aural feast of genre-transcendent, emotionally charged original music.
Elements of folk, classical, blues, jazz are combined, creating a cello and horn driven sound that is all their own.
“Watson… reaches tones that would give Mariah Carey and Celine Dion hernias,” notes the Oregon Coast Magazine.
Having known each other for more than 10 years, Keep and Watson, officially became a duo in 2009.
Since that time, the pair has musically ignited like a fire suddenly doused with gasoline.
Much of their first full-length album together, Travelin’ Light (2010) was co-written within a matter of weeks, and they consider it to be among the best music they have ever produced.
Incorporating various instruments into their live act, including trumpet, saxophone and flute, Corbin and Mel use improvisation to expand the possibilities of their musical expression, creating an exciting and inspirational performance.
Born in England and raised in Australia, Watson now resides in Seattle, where she spends much of her time in her studio creating music and running 100th Monkey Records.
Most known for her work with her former band, Fruit, Watson has received 19 Australian Music Awards for creative achievements, including nine of them for Most Outstanding Instrumentalist.
Watson is accomplished on several instruments, however her preferred instrument is her four-octave voice.
Originally, from Seattle, Keep is a unique and gifted cellist, singer, and multifarious musician.
With a career spanning three decades, Keep’s passion for the acoustic cello has led him to expand and broaden the accepted norms of the instrument.
A board member of the New Directions Cello Association, an organization dedicated to non-classical cello, Keep has been described as “the virtuoso’s virtuoso… you can expect to be in awe of his technical mastery and innovative techniques.”
In solo performances, Keep and Watson regularly bring audiences to their feet.
Travelin’ Light takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 26 at the SAGA Public Art Gallery at 70 Hudson Ave.
Doors open at 7:30 and tickets at $15 each are available at Acorn Music on Lakeshore Drive.
