The Burlington Performing Art Centre’s (BPAC) Live and Local series has once again shown an amazing talent with roots in and around Burlington. Alyssa Giammaria was the featured artist in the Nov. 20 performance, with Marc Jordan and the Mark Lalama Trio.
Alyssa, who grew up in Hamilton and spent much time in Burlington, reports that she “had a great time” at the BPAC performance. She enjoyed performing in the BPAC’s smaller Community Studio Theatre, saying that it is a “great space” but still “pretty intimate,” and the space, alongside the opportunity to play with excellent musicians, and in front of an enthusiastic and engaged audience, makes for a special show: “you don’t always get all three of those things, so it’s great when you do!”
Alyssa, who currently lives in Toronto while working on her master’s degree in jazz at the University of Toronto, was always a musical person. Her parents are both musicians, playing in a wedding band; that is where they met, so it was only natural for them to teach Alyssa to sing as soon as she could talk. Her dad would play guitar, and young Alyssa would sing along.
Piano lessons followed, as well as vocal lessons. The formal piano lessons stopped at a certain point, and Alyssa taught herself from then on; the singing lessons continued.
But it was at Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius, doing musical theatre courses at around 8 years old, where she decided that music was what she wanted to do as a career. Les Misérables was the first musical that Alyssa performed in.
As she grew up, Alyssa had many friends in Burlington, and ended up working at a studio here, teaching private piano and voice lessons for younger, beginning students. She enjoyed the teaching so much that she intends to incorporate it into her future career.
Her next step was to attend Mohawk College’s jazz performance program; though her previous studies were in classical music, she didn’t want to continue with classical music professionally. And it was there that her love of jazz was born.
Now, at the University of Toronto, she’s doing a lot of songwriting, composing, arranging, and more teaching, this time as a teaching assistant.
A lot of Alyssa’s writing is done at the piano. Even if she didn’t sit down with the intention of writing, she sometimes will come across something compelling, something interesting that she wants to come back to, so she’ll write it down later. For composing, she says that if she starts at the piano, then she’ll usually hand-write the music first, then later input it into notation software.
For songwriting, Alyssa cites Joni Mitchell as a particular inspiration. For vocals, it’s French modern jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant, who, she says, plays a lot of traditional songs, but has a modern approach; “she’s my favourite artist.” And Alyssa still studies classical romantic era composers, including Ravel and Debussy.
Though Alyssa says of her own music, “I have a difficult time putting genres to it,” her style can be characterized as modern jazz; in particular, she brings jazz’s improvisational aspect into her music. She grew up hearing many styles of music, from the pop and choral music her parents played (in their band and in a choir), to the classical and jazz she studies, so many influences can be heard in her music. “I feel like everyone can take something different from it.”
Alyssa’s goal in songwriting is to create music that people can relate to in their own way; she writes about “existential life things that I’m working through…very universal themes.” But she will write in an open-ended way, so that regardless of whether listeners relate from exactly the same angle as her own experience, they can find their own interpretation.
For the future, Alyssa wants to continue performing as much as she can, continue writing for herself, and possibly for other groups as well. Eventually, she’d like to teach at the university level.
So where can you hear Alyssa’s music now?
Alyssa released an original EP last year, called Moments, and you can listen to that on Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere you can stream music. She also leads her own band and sings for other people’s projects and can be found performing in venues and bars around Toronto.
Of course, we asked Alyssa about her favourite haunts in Burlington. She loves walking in Spencer Smith Park, down by the lake. Another favourite (echoed by many in Burlington!) is Kelly’s Bake Shoppe on Brant St.
