Cool, Dreamy, Adult Alternative Music CD by Nijole (Neola) Sparkis

“AMERIKOS LIETUVIS ”
(The American Lithuanian) newspaper published weekly in Chicago, IL
Feb. 4, 2008 - Interview

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE VERSION

Nijole Sparkis: “My life is but a dream, and my dreams are my true life”

Listening to Nijole Sparkis’s CD “Parallel Universe”, you are unwittingly swept into dreaming and mentally traveling to unknown worlds, where it seems that mystical spells hypnotize you and wrap you in the melody’s primordial Source. Something similar can be felt listening to the creations of Enya or Enigma. “Mystical music” – that is the name that reviewers give to this Lithuanian-heritage singer/songwriter’s creations. Born and raised in Chicago, today Nijole lives and creates in California, the home of, as she says, particularly creative people.

Through which paths did you arrive into the world of music? Who was your first teacher?
Just like many Lithuanians, I was probably born singing. My first memories are from the time when, being scarcely 2 years old, my mom and I would sing along with her (Mario Lanza) records. I also remember how my oldest sister Valerie taught me and my brother Romas to harmonize together, and the three of us would be singing in 3 parts around the house and on trips in the car. My father played a little accordion and violin. Later, his friends gave us an old upright piano that we all learned to play. So the biggest influences that pulled me to music were my family, and listening to the pop music of the day, and also the Lithuanian community, where I was very involved in my childhood: from age four, I started acting and performing at Lithuanian school and theater, declaiming poetry, and also as a Lithuanian Girl Scout campfire host. In American school, I put on plays that I wrote and sang in the Special Choir. Later I was in Faustas Strolia’s student octet. But the biggest influence for me was Darius Lapinskas’s avant-garde plays and compositions, in which I often performed, and with whom I finally won the Best Actress award at the Lithuanian Theatre festival. In high school, I formed my sextet “Ziezirbos” (Sparks), for which I created unique arrangements of Lithuanian songs, and with which we toured several Lithuanian colonies around the Midwest. At the same time I started singing harmonies in an American rock band, playing out in clubs, and writing my own songs. When the time came to decide on a university, I first auditioned to study acting at the Goodman Theatre Institute. However, fate led me to De Paul University, where I received a scholarship and sang with the Big Band and a progressive jazz band. Here I finished my bachelor’s in Music Theory, magna cum laude (with highest honors), and then started touring with a recording-contract seeking rock band.

Your songs are often called mystical. Do you write the music yourself? What inspires you? What musical styles are woven in?
I write both the lyrics and music. I create a basic demo with vocals and a synthesizer track showing the chords and melody of the song, which I give to my producer – currently, my husband Fritz Heede – and he arranges the accompaniment, filling it in and hiring musicians to add overdubs. My inspiration is, of course, my emotions – something happens or I read or see something that moves me – and I write about it all. However, I am interested not just in expressing my feelings, but more in transforming them and lifting the listener’s spirit in the course of the song. At De Paul University, I was required to take theology classes, where I became interested in Eastern religions. I would say that I am always seeking my own transformation – that moment of transcendence is dearest to me, whether it occurs mentally, emotionally, or spiritually – and that is why one can call my songs “mystical”.

My musical style is influenced by my own bi-cultural upbringing: I am born and raised in America, but between two cultures – American and Lithuanian. Maybe that’s why I’m most interested in those musicians who successfully blend modern pop music with different cultures’ styles. For example, Kate Bush included the Bulgarian Women’s Choir and Irish folk music into her pop/rock songs, Paul Simon included African folk melodies in his songs. In that way I too include Lithuanian choral harmonies and other cultural influences into my American-style pop songs, and I often sing in Lithuanian in the background vocals. I was greatly influenced by the Ukrainian Milla Jovovich, who sang a Ukrainian folk song on her pop album. Other examples are George Harrison’s use of the Indian sitar in Beatles songs, Led Zeppelin’s song “Kashmir” with its Middle Eastern influence, Peter Gabriel and Sting. I also like to listen to various exotic cultures’ women singers like Egypt’s Natacha Atlas, Peru’s Yma Sumac, Scotland’s Eddi Reader, India’s Najma, Morocco’s Amina, and Australia’s Lisa Gerrard who sings folk songs from all over the world.

What was your feeling upon the release of your first CD?
Of course, I was absolutely euphoric! For many years before that, I was professionally teaching singing in my own studio as well as for the famous Strasberg Institute and briefly for a Disney television show. Later I started noticing how thanks to the new Internet technology, some of my student’s careers started moving forward more rapidly. That’s when I decided it was time to re-dedicate myself to my own music: I closed my studio and started writing. A few months after the release of my CD I learned that veteran DJ Jim Ladd liked my music very much. Tuning into his show on Los Angeles’s #1 radio station 95.5 KLOS-FM, I heard two of my songs played in between Robert Plant, Bruce Springsteen, the Moody Blues, the Rolling Stones, and other great rock legends! Then I was REALLY euphoric!!

When I created a music video of my own photography (using Flash animation), it was broadcast on Comcast Networks Harmony channel on cable TV. From that, I was invited to participate in computer animation artist John Banks’ second DVD “Ritual Path”. My husband Fritz Heede composed the music, and I wrote melodies and lyrics to two songs, and added abstract vocals to yet a third music piece. I was asked to write one of the song texts in Tolkien’s Elvish language. And for the second song, I decided to write Lithuanian lyrics and sing in choral harmonies. This DVD and its CD soundtrack are both available at Barnes & Noble booksellers and elsewhere. The lead singer of famous rock group “Yes”, Jon Anderson, also sings on this DVD – from that developed a fully separate album of Fritz’s music, Jon Anderson’s singing, and my choral harmonies. We are finishing this album now, and it should be released this summer. That would be the third CD that features my creative work.

Do you play live?
I played live and toured for many years with various groups, but now I am a solo artist, and besides – it’s quite difficult, not to mention expensive, to re-create my current music live. At my CD release party, we performed altered arrangements of my songs live. And sometimes I perform with a pre-recorded accompaniment, but very rarely. I take heart, knowing that the famous Kate Bush in her over 20-years-long career never toured, and performed live in England only once. She is my inspiration!

Have you ever tried to make your creations known in Lithuania?
Once I got a request from Ugnius Lioge, who has a very interesting Baltic wave website in Lithuania – www. Dangus.net. He wanted to distribute my CD, and we wrote back and forth for a little while to that end, but I don’t know why nothing ever came of it. We went our separate ways…

Have you had a chance to visit Lithuania?
Yes, I visited one time when a couple cousins of mine were participating in the Song and Dance Fest, so I and my mom and a few aunts went to see all the festival events, to meet my mother’s family there, and to drive all over Lithuania – Siluva, Kernave, Trakai castle, and the seaside. I just remember that everything was so beautiful and dear to me, and it moved me so much that I cried practically the entire three weeks…

Your music can be purchased in such Internet stores as Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby. Does music that is distributed this way reach the listener?
That is a dilemma for all of us independent musicians – without a larger record company’s contacts and budget, it is difficult to promote music to a wider arena. As one of my colleagues said, we win over fans just one by one. Nonetheless, the listeners who would like my kind of music, find it somehow. Usually on my own website – www.nijolesparkis.com -- and my MySpace site – www.myspace.com/nijolesparkis.

You live and create music in Los Angeles. How many years are you living here already? Do you love this city? What is special about it to you?
I really never thought I would live here, I always imagined that from Chicago I would move to New York. But my travels after university first let me to London, where I began my master’s degree in Writing and performed my own poetry, and then here, to Los Angeles. I immediately got recruited into an avant-garde musical theatre show, whose musical director was from Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention group. After that I sang and acted in several film shorts and at gallery openings, I created a pop/rock music group with a partner and we performed widely at area clubs and street festivals, including the Los Angeles Street Scene. I also created a women’s trio who sang my original songs in 3-part harmony. This group won a SIGGRAPH award, as one of the first computer animated music videos, with the Lithuanian song “O Atsimenu Nameli”.

And so I became completely involved in the Los Angeles creative life, and now after so many years I’ve grown unaccustomed to colder weather and couldn’t live anywhere else. Of course, Los Angeles is special because it is the center of both the music and film industries, therefore there are a lot of opportunities – for musical work, and also for creating contacts with greater talents. For example, when my husband began a post-production facility in our home, we had the chance to work with Julian Lennon, John Hurt, Ed Asner, Siegfried and Roy, Pierce Brosnan, and many other notables. Also, I would never be able to find as many excellent musicians who play different culture’s exotic instruments, as we’re able to in this town. Besides, since Los Angeles is part of the Pacific Rim, you feel a strong Asian influence here, especially in philosophy and spiritual thought, which is echoed in my songs.

How often do you get to meet with other Lithuanians who live in LA? Do you participate in Lithuanian gatherings, or in the Lithuanian Fair?
For 10 years I sang at the Lithuanian Fair together with Sigute Mikutaityte-Miller, where we performed my arranged Lithuanian songs. She was one of my original “Ziezirbos” (Sparks). I also sang at many Lithuanian weddings. But now it’s been a few years that my musical work takes up all my time. However, I still manage to visit the Lithuanian Fair each year.

Creative people are always dreamers, living as though in another world. Do you belong to them?
I am always dreaming and I believe that my dreams come true. My song “In My Dreams” is written about that – the first words say that my life is just a dream, and my dreams are my real life. Whatever I dream always comes true for me. Fortunately, we are living just from our musical work. My sister thinks that my industriousness and persistence help to make my dreams come true, but personally I feel that I don’t so much work hard, as I just have fun!

What do you do when you don’t create?
Creative work never ends! It would be nice to find time for a hobby, but usually there aren’t enough hours in a day. When I am not creating music, I am applying efforts to publicizing it, I maintain both my and my husband’s websites (we are looking for a Webmaster though), I create music videos, and am always learning some new software program. My newest “toy” is a device that will add 3 harmony vocals to mine when I sing live. I also really love photography. But what’s most important is to get together with people. People are endlessly fascinating to me, especially California’s creative types.

If you didn’t create music and didn’t sing – what else in life could you take up?I’ve tried being a radio DJ, an interior designer, I tried drawing and painting, worked in a graphics design studio, and dreamed of being a fashion designer, but after all that, I feel I’m best at writing. I wrote and performed my own poetry, I tried writing screenplays for film and TV, but I most love to write music. Music is the most spiritual of all creative fields, because you can’t touch it, perhaps not even understand it – you can only feel it.

-- Vita Malinauskiene

LA YOGA MAGAZINE
MARCH / APRIL 2006

Parallel Universe is 11 mystical songs all sung in English [and Lithuanian - ed.] from the heart of Los Angeles local, singer / songwriter Nijole (pronounced Neola) Sparkis. Dare I say that Sparkis actually reminds me a little of Madonna when the superstar's ego is lassoed to a yoga mat? Maybe even a little Bjork filters in at times and Sarah Brightman, but certainly Sparkis has her own style.

Born in Chicago and raised in a Lithuanian community, her song-driven compositions encompass Middle Eastern influences as well as 70's rock. This album was produced by Fritz Heede, who is known as a multi-instrumentalist and world music composer. On this CD Fritz plays sitar, Turkish saz, octave mandolin, flamenco guitar, electric guitar and keyboards.

While the musicianship is impressive, Sparkis' tunes tend to fall a little short of the intention which seems to be the desire to combine spiritual, world and rock music into something transcendent. I like the way this record was produced and Sparkis' voice has a very interesting fragile quality. I can't recommend this album for Yoga usage, but it might appeal to fans of spiritually tinted rock music that weaves a dramatic spell on its listeners.

-- Michael R. Mollura

AMAZON.COM
Fabulously Woven Styles
December 3, 2005

What a beautiful, dreamy, exotic, album! I think I've been waiting a long time to hear this music! I knew I was going to like it from the first amazing guitar riff - a cross between Chris Isaac and something Middle Eastern like what Jimmy Page would come up with, set against a backdrop of poignant silence. And then you hear Nijole's voice almost whispering -- You rarely hear a voice so soothing and sensuous, but so expressive - her voice is audibly painting a picture with its subtle shades of emotional expression -- and then the music suddenly sweeps up and out into a lavish chorus of siren song! And then she transports you to some ancient ancestral place when she suddenly goes Lithuanian on ya...! Good stuff... sent shivers down my back. And the girl's got a range, too - check out the unbelievably high notes in "Rise" - I couldn't tell if it was the flute until I heard it playing alongside her vocal, except much LOWER!

So I thought, of course the first song is good, the second song is good... but I'm sure all the weak songs are going to be towards the end. Not so!! Every song is wonderful. Each song is different from each the other - one more pop, one more ethnic, one almost jazzy and the last one is almost classical, though this one is the most unique to me - truly Nijole found a completely unique voice in "Evening Prayer". But somehow no matter how different each song is from the other, the whole album is held together with Nijole's own unique style. She is continuing the Peter Gabriel tradition -- writing pop songs with a different vocabulary, borrowing from exotic influences but still unmistakably pop (or "art pop", as some like to call it). Great melodies that stick with you -- I'm constantly singing a different song in my head. And the words are speaking to our emotional experiences, as well as offering a positive philosophy. She has a unique insight into our psychology...perhaps into her own soul?

And certainly Nijole has found an equally worthy partner in Fritz Heede who did the production -- very lush, very exotic, walking the fine line between ethereal, airy and otherworldly on the one hand, until he brings you crashing down to earth with some wild guitar riff or pulsing ethnic percussion, carving out a style all his own. Each song is like a dramatic piece with a perfectly meshed musical score underlying the meaning - each like a little movie... The musicians on the album are all very top-notch - always fresh, always creative, nothing clichéd in any of the musical prases or arrangements, which is certainly welcome in today's musical environment! All in all, I can't help loving this album, I really look forward to my drive now, knowing that it's going to be really special.

-- Shimmer Valley "Seeker"

All content © 2005 Nijole Sparkis.
Only copy and distribute this content with proper attribution -- thanks!

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