Singer/songwriter, Meredith Coloma, fuses influences from ska, reggae, pop, rock, and gypsy music to weave the canvas for her masterful vocal painting. Her timeless and relevant lyrics are illustrated by her perfectly pitched and uniquely unpeggable voice. Her songs are accompanied by her rhythm guitar playing on instruments built by her own hand and featured in guitar building magazines and websites in Romania, Turkey, Japan, and the US. Add to this the blues, funk and Latin inspired lead guitar by improvisational master, Daniel Katz, and you have a sound you have never heard before and will want to hear again. Catchy but not kitschy, weighty but not heavy, this is substantial music.
Meredith began her music career at the age of 5 as a second choice; hopes of being a medieval knight dashed at learning she was born in the wrong age. From that point, her weapon of choice became violin which turned into a fiddle at the discovery of Irish music where she made a name for herself as one of the top young Irish fiddlers in North America. Her move to the guitar took her in a new direction as she developed an interest in guitar building. After guitar building school, she invited herself to apprentice with Roger Sadowsky in New York who builds guitars for Aerosmith, Keith Richards, Will Lee, Gilberto Gil, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Regular after-work jamming sessions further developed her unique style under the influence of some of her favourite artists such as Matisyahu and Amy Winehouse.
Returning home to Vancouver, she became the only apprentice Michael Dunn ever accepted and is one of only ten known women guitar builders in the world. Meredith’s original design for a gypsy mandolin and her art guitars won her great respect amongst some of the world’s best luthiers. She has been interviewed in an online video for Premier Guitars and her work has been featured in guitar magazines in Romania, Turkey and Japan.
Meredith is a notable songwriter/musician and performs mainly original compositions with Daniel and in solo performances. She has also played fiddle with The Town Pants, gypsy rhythm guitar with The Hot Club of Mars, and is currently the singer for jazz/R&B/hiphop band Hello Dynamo. She has won recognition in local music competitions and her song, Summer Days, was a finalist in the pop/top 40 category of the International Songwriting Competition. She has performed on Shaw Cable’s Urban Rush and was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Urban Star Contest. Meredith was featured in a video interview on the Vancouver Sun website and on the CBC Radio show, As It Happens, with Carol Off (interview starts at 19 minutes and 10 seconds).