Elisabeth Pixley-Fink is a Kalamazoo, Michigan-based singer, lyricist, composer, pianist, guitarist, cultural worker, and educator, who grew up studying piano and singing harmonies with her family . From the depths and range of her voice emerge well-crafted songs: joyful ditties, tunes for healing, aching songs that swell with unhurried intensity. Her playful and moving performances have earned her a strong following in Michigan.
Elisabeth is a member of the Earthwork Music Collective, and is releasing her first full-length solo album, Bloodroot, on January 24, 2013. Bloodroot was funded in part by a KADI Artistic Development grant from the Kalamazoo Arts Council. The album traces four seasons of grieving the sudden death of a 23-year-old man. It is based in the regenerative power of the Great Lakes bioregion.
Elisabeth strives to make her art participatory and collaborative. During her September 2012 Michigan tour she combined performances with a community art project and co-created the Red Clover Quilt: recycled paper infused with red clover seeds, painted with homemade, plant-based paints, and planted as a quilt.
Elisabeth is committed to alternative touring and dynamic performance. In Fall 2011, Elisabeth took a two-month public transportation tour from Minnesota to Mexico with Andru Bemis in support of the duo’s record, Say Yes to Yourself! She spent winter 2012 collaborating with musicians and writers in Mexico City, and studying clowning in Xela, Guatemala.
With a Romantic's view of nature, Elisabeth completed an Artist Residency with the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design in the northern woods of East Jordan, MI, in Spring 2012 with fiddler, vocalist and organizer Samantha Cooper.
In Kalamazoo, Elisabeth collaborates musically with the Double Phelix Collective and other Kzoo All Stars such as the Red Sea Pedestrians & the Go Rounds. She dreams with Understory Farm & Orchard, Eaters' Guild Farm, and Fair Food Matters, and is the Spanish Teacher at the Kalamazoo Montessori School.
