Heather Woods Broderick at The Glee Glasgow

Heather Woods Broderick excels at distilling her experiences into a soulful melancholy that’s enduring both for it’s intimate relatable moments and its persistent sense of mystery. Her uncanny ear for evocative production and gorgeous vocal harmonies serves her well on her new album Glider. Through- out the album, the rich dreamlike atmospheres she creates hint at a darkness looming on the horizon, while the singularity of her ethereal voice always seems to linger long after the music has stopped.

As a talented multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Heather has had the opportu- nity to record and tour with plenty of incredible artists including Horse Feath- ers, Efterklang, and Sharon Van Etten, which has kept her moving house and traveling around the world for much of the past decade. She’s currently living in Portland, Oregon, but it’s easy to imagine how her peripatetic lifestyle might diminish her sense of a place to call home, while also strengthening her resilience, and her connection to the reassuring constants in her life. As she explains “Living in so many different places has made me able to feel pretty comfortable everywhere.” Her uncommon sense of ease and grace, despite her hectic life, stems in part from her deeply rooted and intertwined musical and familial background.

Music took root in Heather’s life before she was even born, when her parents, both musicians, met for the first time at one of her mom’s gigs, which her dad was attending. The two married and moved to Maine where Heather, second of three children, was born at home. When she was 8-years-old the family moved across the country to Oregon, and soon after moving, she asked if she could take piano lessons, a practice she would continue through high school and into college. In elementary school band she learned flute, and later picked up cello and guitar.