“Dance music was a big influence for me while growing up,” said Laura Cortese. The violinist from the US, who was born in San Francisco but completed her musical education in Boston, was in Delhi recently to perform at the US Ambassador’s residence and at the American Centre with her band, Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards. Valerie Thompson on cello and Mariel Vandersteel on the fiddle complete the trio.
Laughing about the name of the band, Laura said, “In the US of the ’60s, a dance card was a card a woman would have hanging from her wrist with a list of the dance numbers that would be danced that night. Next to each number would be a space for a name. Men would ask women if they would ‘save’ a specific dance for them, and accordingly, the woman would write the man's name next to that number and then dance with him. So we call ourselves the Dance Cards since today, we want our audience involved, whether by tapping their toes, singing along or sometimes spontaneously dancing.”
Playing a medley of indie-rock and country music, the Dance Cards combine the San Francisco and Boston traditions of American, Irish, Scottish and jazz music. “The violin and cello have a very wide sound palette much like the human voice. We strive to explore the far edges of this pallet with a strong leaning towards rhythmic sounds,” Laura added.
Fresh from the euphoria of the release of their debut album, “Into The Dark”, Laura and her band want to create waves in India. Incidentally, this is the first concert that the Dance Cards have played in Asia. “We are really excited to be in India,” exclaimed Laura. “So far, it has been warm and breathtaking. We are excited to share our music and learn more about Indian music,” she added. However, it has not been all sunny for the band. To record “Into The Dark”, they were forced to produce the albums themselves. “We wanted to have enough space from the composition and recording process to hear the music as a listener not as the creator,” she explained. “Funding was also a struggle. In the end, we were forced to rely on crowd-funding platforms that allowed us to go to our fans to help make the record.”
A low point for the band was when the Boston Marathon bombing took place. It was an incident that affected the band personally. “We left Boston for our CD release tour on the morning of April 15, 2013,” recalled Laura. “A few hours into the drive we saw some strange posts on facebook and turned on the news to hear that the Boston Marathon bombing had occurred. It was extremely difficult to keep our minds on sharing our music while being concerned for the safety of our friends and family. As the week progressed and the city was shut down we were glued to our phones and computers trying to make sense of it all.”
“Luckily every audience we met as we travelled was open hearted, warm and concerned. Thus, those concerts were some of our most powerful.” As for the future, the band is travelling to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Bangladesh, following which they have a full touring schedule, playing at festivals in the US, Canada and the UK. “We are also working on new music for another album,” revealed Laura.
