BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:PUBLISH VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:-//NONSGML Sandhills Development\, LLC//NONSGML Sugar Calendar Fe eds v3.4.0//EN X-WR-CALNAME:The Ladles w/ Louisa Stancioff X-WR-CALDESC:Portland Downtown X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 DTSTART:20230312T070000 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 DTSTART:20230312T070000 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:The Ladles w/ Louisa Stancioff DESCRIPTION:It would have been easy for The Ladles to write 2020 off as a lost year. Forced to scrap a calendar full of tour dates and stuck qua rantining on opposite coasts\, the trio watched helplessly as cancellati on after cancellation rolled in and the prospects of making music togeth er grew dimmer with each passing day. Everything the band had planned wa s up in smoke\, it seemed\, everything except for a three-week summer re sidency in the quaint little town of Springville\, New York.\n\n“That residency at the Springville Center for the Arts was pretty much the onl y thing that stayed on the books for us\,” says fiddler/singer Lucia P ontoniere. “We decided we’d just go ahead and treat it as an opportu nity to develop some new material\, but it ended up being so much more t han that.”\n\nIndeed\, those three weeks in rural Eerie County proved to be transformative for the band\, yielding breakthroughs both personal and artistic\, as well as the group’s stunning and spontaneous new al bum\, ‘Springville Sessions.’ Recorded over the course of four days in an historic former Baptist church\, the collection is pure Ladles\, m ixing timeless folk\, pop\, jazz\, choral\, and chamber music into an ad dictive blend fueled by spare\, acoustic instrumentation and lush\, thre e-part harmonies. While The Ladles—Pontoniere\, guitarist/singer Katie Martucci\, and banjoist/singer Caroline Kuhn—have always managed to w alk the line between technical virtuosity and emotional intuition\, ‘S pringville Sessions’ finds the trio reaching new heights with a less-i s-more approach\, embracing their environment and recording the entire a lbum with the stripped-down intimacy of a live performance. The result i s an entrancing chronicle of a singular moment in time\, a raw\, organic record that hints at everything from I’m With Her and The Wailin’ J ennys to Mountain Man and The Staves as it finds connection and hope in the face of isolation and overwhelming uncertainty.\n\n“We never plann ed on making an album like this\,” says Pontoniere. “It was more lik e a happy accident\, and only in hindsight did we realize how special it was.”\n\nThose sorts of happy accidents seem to follow The Ladles whe rever they go. Founded roughly five years ago\, the trio first came toge ther by chance\, when they realized they were the only three women in th e New England Conservatory of Music’s Contemporary Improvisation progr am. While coincidence may have introduced them\, it was chemistry that b ound them\, and from their earliest performances together\, it was clear that The Ladles had something special on their hands.\n\n“When you’ re at music school\, you play with a lot of different people\,” says M artucci\, “but something about our mixture just clicked right away. Ce rtainly there was a shared feminine perspective at work there\, but Luci a and Caroline are two musicians I’d want to play with in any capacity .”\n\nTaking their name from another happy accident—a mislabeled cam pus bathroom sign that transformed “Ladies” into “Ladles”—the trio began recording and performing around New England before they’d e ven graduated\, releasing an early self-titled EP in 2016 and following it up with their acclaimed full-length debut\, ‘The Line\, in 2019. Th e band supported both releases with extensive touring\, playing festival s as far afield as Louisiana and Maine and selling out shows in Boston\, New York City\, and the Hudson Valley along the way. With things heatin g up\, they set their sights on an ambitious 2020\, only to watch it all disappear as the pandemic put a halt to live music everywhere. Rather t han press pause\, though\, the trio pivoted to focus their efforts on wr iting\, treating their suddenly empty schedule as an opportunity to pen a slew of new songs from their respective homes on the East and West Coa sts. By the time summer rolled around\, they were sitting on a treasure trove of fresh material\, and the opportunity to share it with each othe r in Springville was too sweet to pass up\, pandemic or not.\n\n“We al l quarantined beforehand and took tests to make sure everything was comp letely safe\,” says Kuhn\, “and then we entered this little bubble i n Springville where nobody really came in or out. Having spent most of t he year in cities with concentrated case numbers\, it was surreal to be together again\, making music in a place where we could feel relaxed and comfortable.”\n\nThe joy that came with performing together again was overwhelming at times\, and it led to a newfound appreciation for the s imple pleasures of collaboration.\n\n“It was the first experience we d had playing with other human beings in months\,” recalls Martucci. “Not only was it this emotional release from the stress and anxiety of the outside world\, but it was also an artistic release\, a chance to r econnect with this core part of our identities that we’d had to neglec t for so long.”\n\nRehearsing for hours on end each day\, the trio fel l in love with the acoustics at the SCA\, which was located in a former church building originally constructed in the 1800s. With its high ceili ngs and dark wood paneling lending the perfect amount of natural reverb\ , the space itself became another instrument in the band’s repertoire\ , and it was quickly apparent to all involved that something magical was happening there. The clock was ticking on their residency\, though\, so the band invited their friend Dylan McKinstry from Brooklyn to join the m as an engineer\, and\, over the course of their final four days in the space\, captured the entire ‘Springville Sessions’ album from scrat ch.\n\n“With only the three of us and an engineer in the room\, we wer e free to just be ourselves\,” says Pontoniere. “In the past\, we’ d tried to craft more highly-produced recordings with bigger arrangement s and other musicians\, but this time around\, everything was as intimat e as it could possibly be.”\n\nThat intimacy is at the heart of ‘Spr ingville Sessions\,’ which opens with the dreamy “Sunset Pink.” Li ke so much of the album\, it’s a spare and hypnotic tune\, one which g rapples with the difficulty of communication when barriers—be they phy sical\, like distance\, or emotional\, like anxiety and depression—cut us off from the ones we love. The lilting “Baltimore” reckons with self-doubt and negativity\, while the meditative “Pages” finds solac e in the growth and evolution that can come from our mistakes\, and the airy “Sugarcoat” longs for the understanding of an open dialogue.\n\ n“Sometimes it feels like there’s this third thing in the room getti ng in the way when you’re trying to talk to someone\,” says Martucci . “Maybe they don’t know how to express what they’re feeling or ma ybe you’re both going through something you don’t know how to articu late\, but it’s important to push through whatever’s fogging up the surface and reach that place of true connection.”\n\nWeighty as the su bject matter can get\, there’s a perpetual lightness about The Ladles music that insists on silver linings. The buoyant “TOBS\,” for in stance\, finds optimism in a breakup as it lets go of the past to make r oom for the future\, while the warm and captivating “Thank You” tran sforms loneliness into gratitude\, recognizing that even when we feel mo st isolated\, love and support are never too far away. Perhaps no track\ , though\, embodies the spirit of ‘Springville Sessions’ better than “Nobody Knew\,” which promises that a better tomorrow will come fro m all the pain and confusion of today. “If I could be with you\,” al l three sing in charming\, breathy harmony\, “then I wouldn’t waste a minute.”\n\n“That song came out of the early days of COVID lockdow ns\, when nobody really knew how to handle the situation at hand and the re was so much uncertainty about the future\,” explains Kuhn. “It’ s a pledge that when we get through this and can see the people we love again\, we won’t take any of it for granted.”\n\nIf there’s anythi ng the trio learned from their days in Springville\, it’s that time is precious\, and every moment we share—with friends\, with family\, wit h lovers—is a gift worth celebrating. Far from lost\, 2020 may prove t o be the band’s most important year yet. For The Ladles\, that’s jus t another happy accident.\n\nSongwriter and guitarist Louisa Stancioff\, backed by her bandmates Dave and Dan Kelly\, is quickly establishing he rself as one of the premier musical artists in Maine. Her intelligent an d soulful writing pairs with a confident and catchy indie sound drawing on folk\, rock\, pop\, and her own Bulgarian heritage. You can listen to her previous band Dyado anywhere\, or purchase her EP at a show. Keep a n ear out for her first single\, coming in July. URL;VALUE=URI:https://portlandmaine.com/events/the-ladles-w-louisa-stanc ioff/ UID:urn:uuid:f280b6ef-9c7d-4371-aa4e-3354e323ee98 STATUS:CONFIRMED ORGANIZER: DTSTAMP:20260416T192513Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230805T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230805T230000 LOCATION:181 State St\, Portland\, Maine 04101\, US END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR