Maya de Vitry

Saturday, 6/24 – 1pm on Shenandoah Mountain Stage
Saturday, 6/24 – 4pm on The Hill Stage

Pennsylvania-raised and Tennessee-based, Maya first traveled and performed as a fiddling street musician, and then in bars, theaters, and on festival stages as a founding member of The Stray Birds. In 2019, she released her critically-acclaimed solo debut Adaptations, produced by Dan Knobler, and has since emerged as a prolific solo artist. NPR calls Maya’s music “the perfect soundtrack for uncorking that emotion and defiantly loving life again”. Her musical heart is rooted in her love of songwriters like John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, emotive vocalists like Nina Simone and Bonnie Raitt, and the traditions of Appalachian string band music. 

The title of Maya de Vitry’s 3rd solo album is a reference to “ultraviolet” light—a frequency which, while visible to creatures like butterflies and bees, lies beyond any human sense. It’s a reminder of a simple human limitation and an inspiring concept for an artist who feels most at home in the woods or the garden, observing the non-human living world and then emerging with vibrant and vital songs on the human condition—songs that, as No Depression says, “open windows that give us insights into the ambiguities of our lives”. 

Produced by Maya de Vitry and Ethan Jodziewicz and recorded in a basement home studio, Violet Light also became a way to reach for human connection. The 11 new songs each feature an entirely unique band – a true collaborative feat in a time of unusual isolation. Many local friends dropped by the basement to play or sing, while others sent in piano or harmonica from across the country or across the ocean. The gorgeously varied arrangements include the dynamic playing of instrumentalists Paul Horton (Alabama Shakes), Chris Eldridge (Punch Brothers), and Thor Davidsson (KALEO), as well as a stellar cast of harmony vocalists including Kaia Kater, Ric Robertson, Shelby Means, and Joel Timmons. 

Maya enjoys playing live around town in her home base of Nashville, TN, playing shows around the country with her band, and also traveling as a solo singer-songwriter, supporting artists like Aoife O’Donovan, John Craigie, and Fruition. At once reflective and urgent, and as intimate as it is expansive, Maya’s music is an open-hearted invitation to explore the tensions between the visible and the imagined, between love and control, and our unrelenting human desire to belong—to a home, to an environment, and to each other.