KYRA Greif is a singer-songwriter and performer who is new to the Island’s music scene and has joined the art collective RampArts Jersey, founded by Heather Brown, comprising local musicians and artists.
Originally from Canada, Kyra’s talents encompass a wide range of skills including voice-over work, dancing and singing.
She said: ‘I come from a musical family and it was apparent that music and acting were in my blood from early on, literally, and metaphorically. My parents met in a band when my father was lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, and my mother was bassist, back-up singer and co-songwriter. My mum’s sister is also a professional musician and actor.
‘My grandma is a piano teacher and she started teaching me at age four and I performed in a musical for which she was the musical director when I was five. My grandpa encouraged me to take cello lessons starting when I was seven and I became the first cellist in an auditioned orchestra for young people.’
Kyra went on to sing in her school’s jazz band when she was 12 and, by the age of 14, was writing and recording her own music. At the same time, she was a soloist in the choir as well as performing lead roles in school musicals.
‘Outside of school I performed with my aunt and with other bands, and competed in local talent competitions both as a soloist and with a band. Music was something that I was always told would be my future. Turned out that was actually a lot of pressure which pushed me away from a career in music for a long time. However, I have always known it was my primary calling, and I am thrilled to finally be stepping into that,’ said Kyra, who largely taught herself to sing.
‘I took voice lessons for a couple of years to improve my head voice and spent many extra-curricular hours working on my technique. I have also taught myself to play the ukulele and am still in the process of learning and improving, she said, adding: ‘While I would consider myself to be a self-taught artist overall, I think it would be more accurate to say that I was brought up learning to utilise and improve natural talents that were gifted to me by my family.’
The development of her composing abilities, she says, are the result of living and breathing many genres from her earliest years and she described how her own style of music had changed over time.
‘I think as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to find a good balance of making music that, artistically, I want to create, and that others want to listen to as well. I have dabbled in what I used to call “fairy light indie”, which was indie pop with a lot of twinkly synths and bouncy keys. I am now moving into a combination of alt-pop with my synth-based music, and light indie folk with my ukulele music,’ she said.
‘In my synth and production-based songs I like to create a lot of moving parts and harmonies – vocal and instrumental – that swell and consume the listener. I think it comes from my years in orchestra and choir – crunchy harmonies, dissonant chords resolving into something peaceful and beautiful, or melancholic and longing.
‘I always just wanted to create things that would excite my ears and tickle some strange part of my brain that craves a particular sound or listening experience … if others got the same effect from listening, that was wonderful, but for a long time, that was not the goal.
‘I would create music for myself, and then quietly post the songs because I was proud of what I had created but was too shy to draw much attention to it. I didn’t start to think about marketing myself, playing my own music live, or writing with purpose and for a wider audience until I got older.
‘Now, I aim to create music that moves within a genre that reaches a lot of people but stands out for some of the more unique features that my original sound has to offer.’
Kyra also cites numerous performers who have not only inspired her but also helped her when she has grappled with her own creative struggles.
She said: ‘The top album for me, for a long time, is An Awesome Wave by Alt-J. Their sound, along with Bon Iver’s, are huge inspirations for me. Creatively, I was really inspired by Blindboy, a musician, writer and podcaster from Limerick, who often creates spontaneous songs based on audience suggestion or video game content with a looper. I thank him personally for getting me past a particularly long creative block I had last year, and his words encouraged me to think about creating something just to create it, without worrying if the result is actually good or not.
‘The creative process in itself is something to celebrate. It can, and often should, be joyful and freeing. That was something I really needed to hear, which allowed me to fall in love with the process and to not get so tripped up fretting about the final product.
‘I also have a lot of respect for Arthur Russell, an American cellist and composer, for the same sort of reason. Listening to his music, particularly his cello music, reminds me that there is no one structure for song writing, and that I should challenge what it means to “complete” a song.’
As can be the case for many musicians and songwriters, Kyra describes music as her outlet and ‘place of solace’.
She added: ‘At the core of everything I write for myself as a solo artist it seems that there is a message about one of three things: love, dealing with mental illness, or some very basic philosophical musing about the state of the world and what it means to be a conscious creature existing within it.
‘For a long time I would only write if I felt compelled to do so by some intense emotion or drastic life change, and everything easily flowed together in one writing session, as though it wouldn’t be raw or genuine if I were to write in any other fashion, or for any other reason. Otherwise, it felt forced, a feeling which was the antithesis of my creativity and often resulted in writer’s block or perfectionist paralysis which could go on for months.’
It was when Kyra began song-writing as a freelancer that she was able her to bypass that emotional blockage.
‘I could write to get a point across in someone else’s voice, to teach, or to make something people just want to listen to. I wrote lullabies, a few songs for video-game soundtracks, songs for early learning and children’s shows, and I wrote for and performed on other people’s tracks, she said.’
Despite her difficulties and at times disillusionment with music, it is something she has always returned to.
‘No matter where I go or what I’ve done, music has been my default setting. When I’m out of work, I go back to freelancing in music. If I feel particularly unhappy in life, I begin writing again. I gravitate towards musicians and find friendship with people who I eventually end up collaborating with,’ she said. ‘And I realised during the pandemic that I had never really given a career in music a proper go or a fair chance. I was so afraid of failing at the only thing I ever really thought I was meant to do that it seemed better not to take the risk of finding out if I could really make it as an artist. So, I never really pursued music as a career, but now I think… why not accept opportunities, and seek out more? Why not grab hold of the creative drive and harness it to build a career doing something I am so passionate about?’
And the opportunity in Jersey came when, encouraged by her partner and family, she made efforts to get involved in the local artistic community and came across RampArts Jersey.
She said: ‘I only recently decided to step back into the world of performance, and had my first show, essentially ever, as a solo artist. And that’s all thanks to Heather at RampArts for giving me the opportunity. Heather was kind and supportive enough to ask me to perform at the Blue Note as part of a concert in support of Jersey Recovery College’s 1,000 Cranes Challenge.
‘Little did she know that she was inviting me to take the first step on my journey as a performing singer-songwriter. Thankfully, it went very well and I am thrilled to continue working with her, Ramparts, and the other organisations I will be playing for.’
