Family Concerts
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Biographical Information
Lui Collins has earned international acclaim for her “grown-up” music, but when she gets in front of a group of families with young children, all the seriousness falls away as she gets down to the business of singing with children. While her over 35 years of music study and performance is evident in her vocal and instrumental proficiency (she accompanies herself on guitar and banjo), the spontaneity she’s learned in working with the youngest of children is what rules in her family concerts, as she brings her spirit of playfulness and whimsy to the stage. You may expect to be called upon to sing and wiggle and be generally silly!
After starting out singing in local venues while studying music theory and sociology at the University of Connecticut, Collins established herself in the folk community in the late seventies and early eighties with the release of her early Philo and Green Linnet recordings. She has since brought the total to 8 solo recordings, including one for children called North of Mars. This highly acclaimed album was awarded a Parents' Choice Honor, and was recommended by NPR's “All Things Considered” who called it "beautifully rendered." Her poetry chapbook Moon of Ripe Berries, first published in 2001, is now in its third printing. Collins has been featured on several other musicians’ recording projects, singing both lead and harmony vocals and playing guitar, and she has had her songs recorded by Garnet Rogers, Priscilla Herdman, and others. Her most recent recording, Closer, was released by Waterbug Records in 2006.
Lui’s work with children evolved naturally, starting with story hours at the local library with her own children. She collaborated in the 1990’s with the Grumbling Gryphons Children's Theater, writing "Peace on Earth" for a 1992 Arts Camp production, and in 1993, the song "Sedna," based on an Inuit myth, from her collaboration with the children.
A native Vermonter, Collins now makes her home in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. Wishing to bring music into her home community, she trained with international early childhood music and movement program Music Together and founded Hilltown Music Together in 2003. In 2005, Ms. Collins was awarded Music Together Certification I status, for outstanding achievement in teaching, musicianship, program philosophy, and parent education. In 2007 Collins began research and development of her own Kids’ Jam, a music education program for 5-7 year-olds, which is currently her primary creative focus. She has produced 10 seasons of Kids’ Jam CD’s and Songbooks to date, with songs she has collected from traditional sources as well as many she has composed herself specifically for the program.
Collins is highly regarded by both the press and her fellow musicians. The Boston Globe dubs Collins “one of New England’s first and brightest stars,” and Sing Out! Magazine calls her “incomparable.” Renowned guitarist Dave van Ronk called her “one of the best guitarist-arrangers I have heard in years.” Michael Devlin of Music Matters Review describes Lui as being “among the barefoot royalty” of those “creating new traditional music.” Andrew Calhoun of Waterbug Records says, “Lui Collins sings the way people did a great long time ago, before most of us forgot how to breathe.” And as guitarist/folksinger/songwriter Geoff Bartley says, “Lui’s got the juju!”