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Artists can spend months or even years putting together an album. University of Maine graduate student Anya Rose has only 28 days. Anya is one of more than 1,600 musicians taking part in the 2009 RPM Challenge. The task, found at rpmchallenge.com, is a simple yet daunting one – record 10 songs or 35 minutes of original, previously unheard music during the month of February.
Anya – an ecology and environmental studies student – recalls composing ditties in her head for as long as she can remember.
“It wasn’t until more recently that I started actually writing things down,” she said. In her songs her voice is sometimes jazzy and soulful, other times light and brimming with cheer. It’s evident through her music that she does not take herself too seriously, and her carefree spirit gives her original songs an offbeat, Regina Spektor feel.
While it’s clear Anya has a passion for writing and performing music, her list of interests doesn’t stop there.
To observers, Anya may not look like a composer of bubbly, quirky jazz songs. With a large scarf twisted around her neck and her dark hair pulled back in two low-maintenance French braids, she looks ready to trek through unexplored backwoods. After years of teaching outdoor education and wilderness survival courses and traveling across the globe, Anya has learned to embrace a self-reliant, nonmaterialistic way of life.
One of her global adventures took Anya to Costa Rica, where she helped a scientist study shrimp. During the trip, Anya had the chance to teach music to children from a small village, an event she spoke of fondly.
“It was me teaching about 10 or 12 kids of varying ages . I was trying to make it an English-slash-music class where I would teach them songs in English and then we would sing them, and we’d come up with different motions for parts of the songs and they would remember them. They ended up teaching me a lot of Spanish, too.”
Back at UMaine, Anya shifted her focus to classes and her RPM entry. This is her second year taking part in the challenge, and one of the things she enjoyed most the first time around was the fact that “you’re writing songs, you’re sitting in your room by yourself probably, but you know that other people all over the country are doing the exact same thing.”
“Dump Song,” a track from her 2007 album, was featured on National Public Radio.
Currently Anya writes and performs all her music and vocals, but she is always looking to expand her act.
“I want to find other people to play with. I could use a bassist and maybe a drummer,” she said. The jazz-singing, guitar-strumming soloist also hopes for a bigger stage in the future. “I hope [to play] more in the area.”
When not studying, teaching, playing music or trekking across the globe, Anya channels her creativity into filmmaking. Her 2001 animated short film “Hamlet,” a children’s version of the Shakespeare tragedy, has been shown internationally at film festivals such as the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and the Toronto Images Festival. Her most recent project, “Tracking the Tracker,” is a documentary following two groups of animal trackers as they test their skills. “I’m thinking that I might want to start up my own film company and do films pertaining to environmental awareness and environmental justice,” she said.
For the next 23 days, at least, the multitalented Anya plans on focusing solely on her music.
Bangor Daily News