Hi Reader,
​
It's been a moment. Years, really. I'm very grateful you're still clicking on my messages.

I'm writing you because I'm returning to music!

We've just confirmed several tour dates for October and December. I've upgraded my home streaming setup and will be playing monthly informal shows from my living room. There are new songs in the works, coalescing bit by bit.

I’m also finally getting around to recording and releasing "We've Got You." If you haven't heard that one live yet, it's a pair of songs in different styles and from different perspectives, that I wrote to be playable simultaneously. A ready-made mashup, if you will. A musical expression of holding two truths in your head at the same time.

Writing "We've Got You" - in 2020, amidst getting out the vote and nursing a newborn - made my brain hurt in the best way. I'm excited to create a recording-studio portrait of it for people to spend time with. And I'm excited for what other stories I might be able to tell with this musical form.

There’s a new way to support me in doing all this: Patreon, where you can become a patron of my work. For now there's one membership tier: $5 / month. In addition to monthly patron-only streaming shows from my living room - starting this Saturday - you'll also get early access to anything I release publicly.

Now, here's the sneaky thing...it's not just going to be about music.

These days I also spend a lot of time thinking about climate change. It's what I've been immersed in professionally for the past decade or so, and I think many people don't realize how quickly the picture is changing - nor how much power each of us has actually has to shape the future.

So in this urgent hour, I'm trying an experiment: bringing my music and environmental lives together.

As I work on new music and perform shows, I'll also be creating personalized climate action plans for people in my audience, tailored to their situation and talents and what they already care deeply about. I'll be taking a songwriter's empathy and a climate nerd's mental library, and putting them together in service of thoughtful, busy human beings who want to do their part in this planetary crisis. And I hope my Patreon community will be a big part of how I learn this new craft.

That's all for now. As ever, I would love to hear how you're doing. I am terrible at replying, but I always read every word.

Love,
VT

Show calendar (* = monthly streaming show for Patreon members)

*Saturday, 24 Sep @ 14:00 EDT - Live @ Home #1​
Tuesday, 25 Oct @ 20:00 EDT - Cambridge, MA: Club Passim​
Wednesday, 26 Oct @ 19:00 EDT - New York, NY: Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2​
*Saturday, 29 Oct @ 14:00 EDT - Live @ Home #2
Saturday, 29 Oct @ 20:00 EDT - Washington, DC: The Hamilton​
Sunday, 30 Oct @ 19:30 EDT - Annapolis, MD: Rams Head On Stage​
*Saturday, 19 Nov @ 14:00 EST - Live @ Home #3
Friday, 16 Dec @ 20:00 EST - Ann Arbor, MI: The Ark​
Wednesday, 28 Dec @ 20:00 PST - Berkeley, CA: Freight & Salvage​
Thursday, 29 Dec @ 20:00 PST - Berkeley, CA: Freight & Salvage​

P.S. Here’s Arcadia, aged two and a half: wrangler of polar bears, adventure-lover, and swift commandeerer of any music gear I’m trying to use.