Written by Thomas Dimopoulos on . Posted in News.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Kelsey Dodd remembers being driven by her parents to dance classes since the time she was two-and-a-half years old, listening to songs and singing along with the music floating through the car speakers.
One tune especially caught her fancy. She had some familiarity with it having heard it in her dance classes.
“I was singing along in the back seat – ‘All That Jazz’ from ‘Chicago,’ and as my parents tell the story when that one big note comes on at the end of the song and they heard me sing, they looked at one another and said: she sounds good doesn’t she? My parents realized I had a love for singing when they heard me in the car,” Dodd recalls.
The dance lessons continued, and vocal lessons – at the age of 7 – and acting lessons would follow.
“Ever since I was very young, I had a natural tendency in the arts. I always just wanted to push myself further,” she says. “It’s just a normal part of my identity.”
Today, Dodd is 17 and has recently released her debut EP. Titled “Forever Evergreen,” the release features five holiday songs – from renditions of “O Holy Night,” “Let It Snow,” and “Home For Christmas,” to the original title track. Dodd’s main collaborators throughout are Joel Moss, Jim Mastrianni and Cassandra Kubinski, and the tracks additionally feature the talents of many other local musicians – Joel Brown, Dave Maswick, Nate Giroux and Sam Zucchini, among them.
The project began during the summer when Dodd brought a black binder with some 30 holiday songs to a meeting with EP co-producers Moss, Mastrianni and Kubinski, searching, Dodd explains, for the songs in which she could bring the most authentic emotions. “And I think we succeeded.”
“I’ve always had a passion for singing and I really love a classic jazz sound,” says Dodd, a senior at Emma Willard School who anticipates graduating next June and furthering her education by pursuing a bachelor of fine arts in musical theater.
“My love of that sound originated with the late, great Ella Fitzgerald – she has a quality that can never be replicated – and I love some of the current artists bringing jazz to a younger audience: Samara Joy, Laufey. I also take inspiration from people who have had a successful career on Broadway – which is my dream someday – like Barbra Streisand,” Dodd says.
“I’ll go wherever my voice wants to lead me. I dabble in a few instruments – ukelele, piano, I just started learning to play the guitar, but my main instrument is my voice – and I’m very grateful to have it,” says the Saratoga Springs native. “In the future I see myself auditioning for musicals in New York City, but I’m excited to continue to be learning and growing under new professors once I go to college, and hopefully continuing to work with the team I’ve been working with throughout this project to cultivate more music of my own to share more of myself,” she says. “The big dream is to be on Broadway, but that’s a million-to-one shot, so I’ll keep auditioning, putting myself out there, keep building the resume and hopefully one day I can achieve that dream.”
Find the 5-song EP “Forever Evergreen” on CD at kelseydoddmusic.com, and hear it on any number of various streaming services by searching “Forever Evergreen Kelsey Dodd.”
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