Alumna blends worlds together in her music

By Adela Talbot, BA'08, MA'11

You’ll find Kara-Lis Coverdale where the old and traditional meet the new and eccentric.

“I had the typical, classical upbringing, had my first organist position when I was either 13 or 14. I was an organist for many years; I’m still an organist. But I’ve always been a bit of a sponge, since I was a kid. Everything that’s in my surroundings, I’ve taken it in and put it back out through music,” said Coverdale, a composer and church organist.

“Even when I was studying as a kid, my teacher was very encouraging with exploring ‘serious’ music with more fun things, like rags and pop music. It has always been this idea that ‘anything goes’ that probably most informed my work and inspired me.”

Coverdale, BMus’08 (Music History) and MA’10 (Popular Music & Culture), has lived in Montreal since graduation. There, she plays organ at her parish, the St. John Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, and writes her own music, electronic samplings that blend and transcend genre and style.

“I can start with a sound, or an idea of form; it can begin anywhere and it plays out in the process. My work is this constant negotiation and indulging in what is ‘candy’ at the moment, and then taking 25 steps back, and planting that in a more stable foundation,” she said.

“As much as I’m interested in this idea of saturation, I have a lot of hang-ups with tradition – maybe not hang-ups – but there’s something about musical tradition that demands a certain criteria of quality that I find compelling. As much as I look out and see what’s new and interesting, I keep coming back to this idea of what is timeless, what is forever and what stands the test of time.”