Lithuanian Woman and Cultural Creative Nijole (Neola) Sparkis

THE LITHUANIAN THING
"When I was a kid growing up on the South Side of Chicago, my folks had me go to Lithuanian school and participate in all these Lithuanian activities. There was a lot of singing going on always -- Lithuanian is one of the oldest cultures on earth and it's very steeped in an oral tradition. Before there was written language, the way wisdom got handed down from one generation to the next was thru song.
In my community, people would spontaneously burst out into 5-part harmony and there was an entire lexicon of songs that everyone knew. Lithuania is a country of singers -- they staged the Singing Revolution in 1991 which led to their freedom from Soviet occupation. Eventually I rebelled and wanted to just get into the cool pop music I heard on the radio, but those choral 5-part harmonies got ingrained in me and that's what I try to capture in my work."
Incidentally, the name Nijole is that of the Lithuanian Goddess of the Underground. (TRUE!)

THE VOICE
Nijole (pronounced Neola) Sparkis has a 4-octave singing range but she thinks she's a better writer than singer. She went to Music School at De Paul University in Chicago and discovered that she LOVES Music Theory, which she decided to major in. "In the Lithuanian community, I was a star child actress and poetry declaimer. I was on stage a lot and wrote a lot of poetry and plays, too. Then in high school I met a group of guys who had a band and I started singing harmonies with them. My dad had to come to gigs with me because I was underage, and I blew my voice out singing in bars the wrong way. By the time I got to university, I had a one-octave range. Then I heard about the best voice teacher in Chicago -- Doug Susu-Mago. He eventually opened my voice up to a full 4 octaves. I learned so much about the singing voice in that process that I was able to teach others all that I had learned."

THE INFLUENCES
"Once you grow up multi-culturally, you're never satisfied sticking with a single culture again. When I was listening to pop music, the music I found most satisfying was by the pop artists who brought world music into pop -- Peter Gabriel's African or Indian drum grooves, David Bowie's Middle Eastern "Lodger" album, Sting's post-jazz era, Kate Bush's Bulgarian Women's Choir background voices... except that my background vocals are in Lithuanian. I most admire the folk-pop album "Divine Comedy" by Milla Jovovich, who includes a Ukrainian folk song on her album. Another big influence is Dead Can Dance, though I'm not as Goth -- I have more of the art pop innovations of the Beatles in their experimental era, the exotic strains of George Harrison's sitar, the Middle Eastern strings in Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", Grace Slick's droning melody in "White Rabbit". And though not direct influences, I do love the soothing vibe of Enya, the Celtic/Middle Eastern blend of Loreena McKennitt, and the artful expression of Jane Siberry in her more sensual and fanciful tunes."

SPIRITUALITY
"Lithuania was the last pagan country in Europe to be Christianized, so the traditions I was raised with, were a healthy combination of earth-based ritual and the mystical side of Catholicism. This gave me a colorful pallette of religious symbolism to draw from. Because De Paul was a Catholic University, I was required to take some theology classes in order to graduate. So I studied Comparative Eastern Religions and Creation Mythologies. It just went on from there -- I delved deeply into every avenue of spiritual study I could get my hands on, reading the I Ching, etc. I much prefer the empowering belief systems, like the New Thought movement that teaches how to better find answers for yourself, rather than old school religions that seem to be more interested in having power over their obedient congregations."

THE REST IS HISTORY
Nijole graduated from De Paul magna cum laude, toured the Midwest and played clubs and festivals in Los Angeles with all-originals bands. She also continued acting in performance art and avant-theatrical shows and college films. She opened her own voice teaching studio, The Vocal Point, taught singing at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and briefly taught singing for the Disney Channel, where she witnessed the start of the careers of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Jessica Simpson, Keri Russell, JC Chasez, and others. She sang the Theme Song for the DVD release of Paul David's controversial film "Timothy Leary's Dead". Nijole's life experiences and spiritual study helped her to coach many artists on their singing careers using the principles she learned.

Currently, Nijole's music is being played on legendary DJ Jim Ladd's Theatre of the Mind radio show "Headsets" on Los Angeles's #1 Classic Rock station KLOS-FM 95.5, as well as various podcasts and Internet radio shows. She has co-written and sung vocals for 3 tracks on Fritz Heede's last album "Ritual Path" which features Jon Anderson (lead singer of 70's super-group Yes). Her video was played on Harmony Channel, and she's also contributed backup vocals for Jon Anderson's upcoming Trance-scendent Dance album, to be released in Summer of 2008. Her favorite female vocalists are Norway's Anneli Drecker (Bel Canto), Russia's Milla Jovovich, England's Kate Bush, Ireland's Enya, Scotland's Eddi Reader, Canada's Loreena McKennitt, India's Najma, Morocco's Amina, the Bulgarian Women's Choir, and Egypt's Natacha Atlas.

For Nijole's thoughts on her "Parallel Universe" CD, click on CD Bkgrnd under the MUSIC menu above.

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All content © 2005 Nijole Sparkis.
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