In addition to her own original acoustic songs, Elisabeth has performed classical, bluegrass, and traditional folk music, and co-formed a folk noir band called House & Bird (no longer performing, but their EP is available for download on this site). She recently wrote, recorded, and mixed her first solo album, Country of Origin. It includes songs inspired by the Halifax Explosion of 1917, the martyrdom of Joan of Arc, and the Futurist movement, among other bits and pieces. She also writes, arranges and records commissioned multi-layered vocal pieces for artists who perform in theatre, puppetry, art and magic.

Her influences include:
Bob Dylan, Björk, John Williams, Yann Tierson, Sandy Denny, Leonard Cohen, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Yma Sumac, M. Ward, Great Lake Swimmers, Radiohead, Coldplay, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, swing music, traditional folk music, Iron & Wine, Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley, Cloud Cult, Sufjan Stevens, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy, 
and her very talented friends and in some cases, collaborators: 
Vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Krystee Wylder, physical theatre performer & singer/songwriter, Sandro Garibashvili, Will and his band Teenage Rage, Vocalist/songwriter/pianist Jessica Fogle, and singer/songwriter Tom Copson.


Visit her blog, befriend her on MySpace or Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

• Elisabeth has just completed an album of music for London-based magician Christopher Howell's magic show for children. The album is comprised of songs and narrative from his live show, and is now available on this site for purchase! 

• Working alongside London-based artist and puppeteer Luka Vardiashvili, a performance of The Tale Of William Baruppub was given in September 2009 at a small art gathering in Chicago. It featured a story and music written and recorded by Elisabeth, and a marionette crafted and maneuvered by Luka. They will be working together on more involved marionette theatre projects in the future. Below is the video which documented it, along with the original soundtrack.
  
  
  
  
   

 Elisabeth has been collaborating with writer Connor Coyne for years. This year she is completing three songs to accompany his novel, 'Hungry Rats' in addition to acting as editor for the book, which he is self-publishing through the fantastic funding platform Kickstarter. These songs will be up on this website soon; in the meantime you can hear an older version of one of them on the streaming menu of songs, called 'The Hungry Rats Theme.'

Elisabeth is currently working with actor/musician Sandro Garibashvili on several exciting projects. Last year she wrote and recorded a song for his theatre company's production 'AWOL' which ran at the Peter Jones Gallery in Chicago through June of 2009. This song, titled 'We're Not Afraid Of God's Blade,' uses text by the great poet Rumi. It can be heard on this site's streaming menu of songs. 

• In 2009, Elisabeth was the lead vocalist for Carole McCurdy's piece ALAS. Carole was one of the year's artists-in-residence at Links Hall in Chicago. Photos below by Dubi Kaufman and Abbie Singer.



• In 2007, Elisabeth was the lead vocalist for Robert Metrick's performance art piece, The Power Of Then, which was presented as a work-in-progress at the Chicago Cultural Center's SITE UNSEEN 2007 festival. Video documentation is available here. Photos below by Simona Bogode.

The creation of Elisabeth Blair and Ryan Gunzel, and now ended, House & Bird's music was acoustic folk noir. The band employed an eclectic variety of instruments, including melodica, upright bass, banjo, chord organ, concertina, guitars, keyboards, and a bunch of other things they came across in antique stores or on Ebay for a dollar.

You can purchase their album, what do words know, here. Read more about the band and see pictures here.

In 1899, Major J. D. Elderkin published his humorous, disturbing, and valiant autobiography.  Sometime in the early 1990s, Elisabeth's family found a copy in the dumpster of the Traverse City, Michigan Public Library. It was just a quirky possession until Ryan Gunzel came along and they started writing songs using only text from the book for lyrics.
It evolved into a shadow-puppet musical narrative extravaganza that ran at the Peter Jones Gallery for four weeks in November/December 2008. It involved Barbara Swem, shadow puppeteer and creator; and Eleffant Foot Theatre Company (Masha Kore & Sandro Garibashvili).
The album of music from the show will be available for download on this website by the end of 2009.

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