Christmas CD a gift from Niagara musicians
Earlier this year, they pulled the curtains on spring and set the mood with a crackling fire on a laptop screen.
Then they spent the next couple of hours together, two virtual strangers in a room with a piano keyboard creating the musical poetry of a Christmas love song. A heartfelt message about the best gift of all. Love. It has since become their favourite, most deeply felt song on
From Us, To You, an album of original, locally-made Christmas music.
The CD is a collaboration of nine Niagara musicians, and then some, who wrote, performed and produced eight original Christmas songs.
It’s a gift, they say. An alternative offering to traditional Christmas music.
On that day, when songwriter Ola Kiermacz, 23, of St. Catharines and 21-year-old musician and pianist David Vukovich of Fonthill cowrote and arranged The Greatest
Gift, a song that explores enduring love being better than any material gift received, they had met only twice before.
And yet, they felt more like old friends.
“It was like we’d known each other for years,” says Vukovich.
“It was easy to write, because we both love people,” says Kiermacz. “Loving is just something we do. We have love in us.”
Indeed, they are self-described complements to each others strengths. Vukovich, a pianist with
ARCT — Associate of The Royal Conservatory — credentials, the highest academic standing awarded by The Royal Conservatory of Music.
And Kiermacz, a vocalist and songwriter
with a free spirit and make-ithappen personality who turns ideas into reality.
“I have ideas. I babble. And he somehow he understands it and brings it to life,” she says.
Sitting side-by-side at a coffee shop in downtown St. Catharines, the energy of their conversation is visible. They laugh often, together. And when they tell stories, their thoughts come quickly in a mutual, back-and-forth volley of words and ideas.
They have fun together. And they share an enthusiasm for life that could perhaps be best described as an intensity equivalent to two fouryear-olds alone in a toy store.
And yet, by their next breath, next thought, they can be both thoughtful and serious.
For the longest time, Vukovich has felt there was a Christmas CD in him, to be made.
And two years ago, Kiermacz wrote a Christmas song as a gift to her family, and recorded it with her brother, Patrick Kiermacz.
In Four Chord Christmas, Kiermacz explores traditional themes. Reuniting with family at Christmas from near and far. Forgiveness. Love.
“No matter where we all are, I am thinking of you and you’re in my heart,” she says.
Interestingly, what sounds like a trumpet solo partway through the piece, was contributed by her friend, Haleigh Picket, by using vocal sounds only.
The album’s varied genres, came naturally to Kiermacz and Vukovich. Christmas Party Song is an upbeat, radio-friendly, pop song.
Home on the 25th is more big band, jazzy. It’s a song that came to Kiermacz one day, at work at a local winery. She had to leave the sales floor temporarily, to hide (her word) in a storage area among boxes of wines, in order to write down her thoughts and words.
“I had to let it come to me,” she says. “The idea could be gone, and I had to go and explore it.”
And Kiermacz wrote Midnight Kiss, the final song on the CD, alone in Vukovich’s house, at his grand piano.
They had planned to meet, but Vukovich was delayed at work. Rather than leave Kiermacz waiting on his front porch, he offered his pass code and convinced her to wait inside for him. “What should I do?” she asked. “You can play the piano,” he said. So she did. For nearly an hour, and when Vukovich eventually arrived, she promptly informed him, “Hey, I just wrote a song. Thanks for being late.”
They had both talked about writing a New Year’s Eve song, and finished it together. As always.
It’s a duet that flirts with the idea of being among a crowd of year-end partygoers, looking around, and wondering, “Who am I going to kiss tonight?” says Kiermacz.
The CD is available online through places such as iTunes and Spotify, and locally at Chocolates Etc., a store owned and operated by Kiermacz’s parents on Welland Avenue in St. Catharines.