Robinlee Garber | Woodstock Wednesdays | Premieres December 9, 7 pm/CST

Robinlee Garber continuing this month as Woodstock Wednesdays celebrates the holidays!

Woodstock Folk Festival is excited to bring high quality music and spoken word to our community and to enjoy and support these artists who have worked with us over the years, including Robinlee Garber. You can show your support and appreciation by visiting https://robinleegarber.bandcamp.com/album/somewhere-theres-music and purchasing Robin’s latest digital release. You can also support her with a tip here using PayPal.

The video premieres HERE at 7pm/CST, Wednesday, December 9.

It will remain in our Gallery after the show if you would like to see it again or share it with others. You can enjoy watching our past performers’ shows by clicking on our Video Gallery.

Featured Performer: Robinlee Garber

Philly born and bred but a proud Chicagoan these days, Robinlee Garber brings a crystalline alto voice with gently burnished edges and an outsider’s point-of-view to the original and time-treasured songs she sings, focusing on a repertoire that harkens to the past without being a novelty act, and is relatable without pandering. Her love of music infuses all her performances, from sophisticated showcases to inclusive open mics, exposing everyone to a lovingly curated and wide-ranging songbook of folk, jazz standards, rock and contemporary music where the voice is front and center.

You can go to Robinlee’s YouTube channel and hear a live version of the title track for her 2018 release “Resilience.”

Featured on WDCB’s Folk Festival with Lilli Kuzma, Robinlee acted as the music director of Culture Cafe for the wildly popular Chicago VeganMania festival for eight years and has been running a well-attended open mic in Chicago. She has also performed across the US, Canada, Sweden and Finland.

Cover art from Robinlee’s current release titled “Somewhere There’s Music”

Her latest album, Somewhere There’s Music, features 9 songs from the Great American Songbook, and her Dad. Recorded with producer Dave Gordon in Evanston, IL and mixed by mixing engineer Scott Gerow in Nashville, TN

Robinlee Garber – Vocals
Dave Gordon – Piano
Chris Siebold – Guitars
Matt Ferguson – Bass
Gerald Dowd – Drums

Robinlee grew up idolizing singer-songwriters and performers of Laurel Canyon’s heyday, like Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne and Carole King but was also deeply influenced by the music of her parents: Cole Porter, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Heart is at the center of the music she loves as she believes a great song has universal appeal no matter the language. From her earliest musical memory of sitting in her mother’s teal Chevy station wagon and noticing how perfectly Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” synched up to the windshield wipers to watching “The Sound of Music” on stage as a child and wanting so much to be on stage performing, the transformative power of song has been stitched through Robinlee’s whole life. As someone with chronic health issues that often left her feeling isolated, music was also an especially potent antidote to loneliness.

As a child Robinlee always felt different as she struggled with chronic health issues but found solace in creating art and music. She studied figure drawing and glass sculpture at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, and she won a glass blowing scholarship at the Pilchuck School of Glass in Seattle after graduation. Not feeling entirely satisfied with creating her own art for art’s sake, Robinlee did what she calls artist activist work, and then she ultimately got another full scholarship to earn her Masters degree in Art Therapy at University of Illinois at Chicago.

Since then Robinlee has worked professionally as a creative arts therapist and clinical counselor using music and art to help others heal. Robinlee is looking forward to sharing her music and her message of hope and resilience with everyone.

Enjoy Robinlee’s show!

Views expressed by performers and others who appear at Woodstock Folk Festival events or on the website are solely the views of these individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Festival or its Board members.