Leah Waybright History Leah began her long journey creating music at age 5 when she began taking piano lessons. She played piano for the school chorus and organ in her church. While piano and keyboards are her current focus, when young she began lessons with her grandfather’s saxophone in fourth grade. She played sax in school band, taught herself flute so she could play in the orchestra, and even dabbled with acoustic guitar. A chance meeting by her best high school friend with another pianist, Barbara Watkins, at summer music camp was to change her life. Leah learned of Barbara’s impressive skills, that were taught by her father, Dr. Lowell Watkins. Dr. Watkins was a gifted pianist and piano professor at James Madison College in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Leah successfully auditioned for him and attended college there. Leah benefitted greatly from his experience and from the many modern composers he introduced to her. In many ways, it was the blending of Leah’s inherent, unique musical voice with Dr. Watkins’ strong musical influence that allowed Leah to blossom into the extraordinary composer she is. At Madison she met the much-lauded American Progressive Rock band “Happy the Man.” Their amazing keyboardist was a certain Kit Watkins, son of Dr. Watkins, and brother to Barbara. Leah’s interest in pop music had the benefit of improving her compositional style and focusing her on the importance of the role of melody, timbre, and emotion in telling a story. This new focus combined with a short modeling career caused her to be noticed which in turn allowed her to explore another professional path as a member of two all-female rock bands. One of the rock bands—Tommie—was based in San Francisco, and featured Nancy Wenstrom, a guitar player known in the bay area for her work with Grace Slick and Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane and Starship. It was an exciting, professional and glitzy experience that showed another way to tell a story, but ultimately it did not fulfill Leah artistically. Concurrent with these musical explorations that evolved through equal doses of planning and happenstance, Leah was traveling a parallel path that led her back to her childhood love of plants and flowers. She found herself in a new city and in need of a job, but unlike most of car-crazy America, she eschewed automobiles and rode her bicycle everywhere. The smaller transportation radius that a bike dictated encouraged a greater awareness of opportunities close to home. Fate influenced her future when she saw a “Help Wanted” sign in a local florist window. While this new world reminded her so much of her youth on the farm, she was suddenly confronted with exotic blossoms from all around the world. A career was born. Leah was asked to run a European-style outdoor flower stand at Lake Anne, which further fueled her intuitive approach to floral arranging. Using her innate sense of design, she became known for innovation, using unusual elements, and for being able to quickly pull together masterpieces. Clues to Ms. Waybright’s personality, career and philosophy are found in her family who are fourth generation farmers. Growing up on a multi-generational family farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania meant that she learned many lessons through Nature. There, the wild, untamed Nature where she loved to wander and dream was beautiful and sublime precisely because it was free and uncontrolled. The farm itself was ground-zero for one of the most famous symbols of the divisions in our world. The Mason-Dixon Line which in 1767 redefined the boundaries of four U.S. states is actually more famous for being a cultural boundary. In effect it divides the North from the South and slices invisibly right through the farm. While it would be impossible to overstate the acrimony in our nation that was caused by that cultural division, the real lesson for Leah was that on the ground there was no difference, no divide. This side or that side of the Line was just…the farm. The very fact that the farm precedes the creation of the Mason-Dixon Line is poetic (the oldest building on the property dates to 1743). And just as in Nature, there was a time and a place for seeing those differences and a time for seeing that we all have much more in common than we generally admit. Leah sees herself as a Steward of the Earth, and was an early adopter of organic and sustainable gardening. While fully informed on a global and national level, she has steadily become focused on her local Her musical identity is similarly wholistic and inclusive. There are no hard lines separating her musical influences. Show tunes, pop music, folk music, concert band patriotism, classical and rock all easily coexist for her. She credits Progressive Rock as the genre that helped her see that music is also a continuum. As one of the few female Progressive Rock artists, one of her greatest skills is seeing how all these genres can blend together, and that apparently disparate musical and/or thematic ideas can be combined to make a new and totally innovative piece of music. In another example of blending without borders, a number of reviewers have noticed that the feminine energy and mystique of her music is balanced and enhanced by the male-energy of her fellow musicians. As well as enjoying this artistic expression, being surrounded by Nature’s beauty in the fresh air was a welcome change from years of piano study inside tiny practice rooms. Leah gathered hands-on experience designing for florists in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. She earned the prestigious A.I.F.D. (American Institute of Floral Design) and Certified Floral Designer (CFD) designations and would later achieve the title of Master Gardener through Cornell University Co-Operative Extension. That experience allowed her to work at the famous New York Botanical Garden where she was a much-loved teacher of floral design. When giving demonstrations over the years, she explained and discussed the guidelines for flower arranging but also encouraged breaking rules to achieve something unique. Spontaneous applause was a common occurrence when Leah worked her magic at these events. Over time the sublime beauty and the protection of her local environment became more important to her than the exotic plants she usually worked with at the NYBG. Combined with a desire to give back, she became the curator of The Wildflower Island at Teatown Lake Reservation in Ossining, New York. Situated in New York’s Hudson Valley, Teatown is a 1,000-acre Nature Preserve and Education Center. For years the Island was Leah’s domain. She was responsible for thirty-plus volunteers as well as all of the programs for Wildflower Island. By giving tours and presentations, she brought her own special insight and enthusiasm to telling the stories of the property’s history, as well as the folklore of all the plants and flowers indigenous to the area. Perhaps best of all, Ms.Waybright championed the cause of preservation to all her guests, and passionately taught how all of us can make a difference through conservation, recycling, and activism. In a delightful case of artistic cross-pollination, Ms. Waybright’s two main passions combined to form something far greater than the sum of the parts. It sprouted when her affection for flowers and their lore was given free reign through being granted the rare privilege of access to the private library of the New York Botanical Garden. That ancient lore which is steeped in passion, romance and mysticism sparked her imagination. These delightful stories were the catalyst to bring back to center stage the music that has always been her passion. She combined that gorgeous and unique musical voice with her newly-uncovered flower mythos to craft “Beauty Gone Wild,” a CD collection of twelve sparkling musical portraits of flowers that celebrate the emotional and spiritual connection we have to these beguiling blossoms. Wrapped up in a lavish, museum-quality mini-book illustrated by Robyn Dewitt and Pat Dewitt-Grush, each provocative track is a hauntingly beautiful gem that like the flower she portrays, wordlessly yet glitteringly unfolds to tell its previously-untold story. These tales are not of a prim, proscribed world; they are not a world of subtle dynamics, but rather, it is an excitedly wild and lush rhythmic world inhabited by exotic flowers, smells, and unexpected landscapes. What Leah’s music achieves so completely is what the title promises: a world of unchecked beauty that is free to unfurl its wildness. The contrasts we see in our world between our manicured, ordered gardens that reflect our idealized natural world and the true, wild, untamed disorder of Nature is also reflected in Leah’s music. Her musical explorations reflect Mother Nature’s vastness. Like flowers in the spring, Leah’s musical themes sometimes peek up in miniature, delicate beginnings like a Lily-of-the-Valley, yet sometimes burst forth in unbridled and barely-controlled enthusiasm like an Angel’s Trumpet. Each musical piece, like the flower it represents, had an organic origin. Themes were discovered, developed and nurtured over the years as Leah played in various coffee houses. Like flowers that stand out in a bouquet, Leah saw how certain pieces managed to galvanize the attention of the audience, despite the busy, convivial atmosphere. That litmus test of live music provided Leah an opportunity to further craft and finesse the compositions for the project. Now, with the 2023 release of “DREAMED” Leah is reminding everyone that she is a musical force to be reckoned with. --By Stephen Vivona |
