First Night

Vox Lumina featuring Erik Lawrence: For many moons, Vox Lumina (Big Blue Sun, House of Woo) has been moving crowds with her fully emotional blend of rhythmic, rootsy guitar and sophisticated, soulful vocals, sharing the stage with the likes of Donna the Buffalo, Blue Rodeo, and Ember Swift. Along with her elegant and inspiring lyrics, Vox Lumina’s “organically grown soul music” moves through a variety of musical landscapes- blues, jazz, folk, rock, world – “a veritable celebration of sound that highlights depth and creativity and is accentuated by extremely mindful lyrics” (First Degree).
We might hear the influence of Ricki Lee Jones, Van Morrison, or Bjork as well as yoga inspired trance-chanting from her self-released album Music is Medicine (2006) and her gigs as a kirtan wallah. Her Musical Medicine Shows are punctuated with the sounds of a 16-inch diameter quartz crystal bowl, a powerful and unusual instrument generating resonant overtones and harmonics.
Her new album, Song of Light, released this year, features Erik Lawrence on winds. In addition to leading his own groups, Lawrence has been a sideman with greats from Allen Toussaint to Sonny Sharrock. Erik is a founding member of The Levon Helm Band, with whom he was recently featured on the Grammy winning albums Electric Dirt and Ramble At The Ryman. He has performed solo improvised saxophone at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City. Erik has been featured at music festivals around the world and has performed with Chico Hamilton, Medeski Martin & Wood, Aaron Neville, Bob Dylan, Buddy Miles, David Bromberg, Bruce Hornsby and many, many others.
Vox Lumina can be heard as part of the Highmark First Night Pittsburgh AcoustiCafe performances.