Nora Kaminski

Jim Memmott
Senior editor
Sunday, February 19, 2006

Nora Kaminski, 17, a senior at Greece Odyssey High School, is an accomplished violinist and singer. She performs in local clubs, and her first CD is coming out soon.

Here's a transcript of her recent interview with Senior Editor Jim Memmott:

[What got you started performing?]

My dad (Tom Kaminski) used to sing Neil Young and Beatles covers to my brother and sister and me from the time we were in diapers until we were singing them ourselves.

[What do you remember most about your first public performance?]

I remember playing in those little Suzuki violin groups, squeaking out anything from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Little performances for my family, family friends, classmates and my parents' co-workers are mostly what I remember. I remember that they were always fun and people always enjoyed them no matter how bad I was at violin.

[What's the most fun of doing what you do?]

I love to participate in jam sessions. I love sitting down with other musicians in a circle and picking an easy song to jam to. Then everybody sings along whether they can sing or not.

At one point, there has to be a solo section, where everybody can just jam out and be unique with what they do.

With everybody adding their own style to the music, it makes for this wonderful work of art.

[What's in your iPod?]

Heh, I don't have an iPod, and I really don't have any interest in them, but I do have a very large MP3 collection that contains Nick Drake, Sarah McLachlan, Reel Big Fish, Ben Folds, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, lots of The Beatles, Eliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, Moxy Fruvous, Nirvana, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries and Simon and Garfunkel.

[Do you write all of the songs you sing?]

I actually have about 50 songs written, but I use about 10-15 percent of them.

There are nine on my CD that I wrote, but there's fewer that I use in my public performing.

I write a lot of songs, but a lot of them I don't like at all, so I don't use them, Sometimes I'll take things from other songs I wrote that I might have liked and make them into a new song.

[Are there other singers in your family?]

My dad is a singer. My big brother, Alex, is an awesome guitarist who has been studying for a long time. He's got a good voice, too, kind of a John Lennon-esque kind of voice (but don't tell him I said that).

[Describe Greece Odyssey in one or two sentences. ]

There's always something funny or memorable happening around us.

The staff is wonderful, the kids are fun and colorful, and it's a school where anybody and everybody can feel safe to express their mind.

[Describe Greece.]

Greece is a nice town to live in because for the most part it's quiet and humble. I love walking over to the Greece Public Library to hang out, and I love walking around with my friends in the mall on Friday nights. There are neat little corner stores and nice neighborhoods to drive around in and check out.

JMEMMOTT@DemocratandChronicle.com - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Jim Memmott
Senior editor
Sunday, February 19, 2006

Nora Kaminski, 17, a senior at Greece Odyssey High School, is an accomplished violinist and singer. She performs in local clubs, and her first CD is coming out soon.

Here's a transcript of her recent interview with Senior Editor Jim Memmott:

[What got you started performing?]

My dad (Tom Kaminski) used to sing Neil Young and Beatles covers to my brother and sister and me from the time we were in diapers until we were singing them ourselves.

[What do you remember most about your first public performance?]

I remember playing in those little Suzuki violin groups, squeaking out anything from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Little performances for my family, family friends, classmates and my parents' co-workers are mostly what I remember. I remember that they were always fun and people always enjoyed them no matter how bad I was at violin.

[What's the most fun of doing what you do?]

I love to participate in jam sessions. I love sitting down with other musicians in a circle and picking an easy song to jam to. Then everybody sings along whether they can sing or not.

At one point, there has to be a solo section, where everybody can just jam out and be unique with what they do.

With everybody adding their own style to the music, it makes for this wonderful work of art.

[What's in your iPod?]

Heh, I don't have an iPod, and I really don't have any interest in them, but I do have a very large MP3 collection that contains Nick Drake, Sarah McLachlan, Reel Big Fish, Ben Folds, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, lots of The Beatles, Eliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, Moxy Fruvous, Nirvana, Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries and Simon and Garfunkel.

[Do you write all of the songs you sing?]

I actually have about 50 songs written, but I use about 10-15 percent of them.

There are nine on my CD that I wrote, but there's fewer that I use in my public performing.

I write a lot of songs, but a lot of them I don't like at all, so I don't use them, Sometimes I'll take things from other songs I wrote that I might have liked and make them into a new song.

[Are there other singers in your family?]

My dad is a singer. My big brother, Alex, is an awesome guitarist who has been studying for a long time. He's got a good voice, too, kind of a John Lennon-esque kind of voice (but don't tell him I said that).

[Describe Greece Odyssey in one or two sentences. ]

There's always something funny or memorable happening around us.

The staff is wonderful, the kids are fun and colorful, and it's a school where anybody and everybody can feel safe to express their mind.

[Describe Greece.]

Greece is a nice town to live in because for the most part it's quiet and humble. I love walking over to the Greece Public Library to hang out, and I love walking around with my friends in the mall on Friday nights. There are neat little corner stores and nice neighborhoods to drive around in and check out.

JMEMMOTT@DemocratandChronicle.com - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Nora Kaminski is a proficient fiddler. She's been playing the instrument since she was 5. She taught herself guitar a year and a half ago after playing violin with local musician Matt Cross.

"He had all these really cool songs written," Kaminski says. "And I wanted to write songs too. So I taught myself. I looked up chords on the Internet and then I watched people."

Now, even with limited training, the guitar has become her weapon of choice.

Kaminski is a utilitarian player. This works well with her quiet delivery and sarcasm. And this 17-year-old has an opinion or two. She pours out songs about Rush Limbaugh, our nation's dependency on oil, emo boyfriends, and tunes filled with general youthful optimism. Of all the women in this scene, Kaminski is probably the most classic in her left-wing defiance and rebellious leanings. That's not to say she's militant, but the music brings out a more vociferous and profane side to this otherwise shy young lady.

"I don't usually swear all that often," she says. "So it's kinda weird that I do in my songs."

She hits SUNY Fredonia this fall and plans to continue playing. Ultimately she wants to work in music therapy or teach kids with disabilities. She's got pro chops and pro insight, but not necessarily pro aspirations.

"The music business is really terrible," she says. "I really despise money. A lot of people are in it for the money and that's what sucks.

"I work it as a summer job but it's because I love doing it."

And she'll continue writing about anything and everything that happens to and around her.

Almost.

"I will never write a love song," she says. "Because it's nobody's business what I do with my love life."

-Frank DeBlase - City Newspaper

Music has been a part of Nora Kaminski's life from an early age.

By ERIC WALTER / Messenger Post Staff

After shows at coffeehouses, people kept asking to buy her album, so it just made sense to record one.

"I kept thinking about it," said Greece Odyssey senior Nora Kaminski, "I could do a CD, so why don't I do a CD?"

The 17-year-old singer/songwriter released her debut album "My Time to Shine" earlier this April. Recorded over a period of several months, the CD consists of nine original tunes plus a Moxy Fruvous cover. Themes range from freedom to open - mindedness to a humorous take on dating a music fan.

"My songs are mostly observational songs," Kaminski said.

A member of the Hochstein Youth Symphony Orchestra, Kaminski has also become a regular on the Rochester coffeehouse circuit over the past several years.

"She's a very good wordsmith," said Janice Grosshans, owner of the Rochester-based Daily Perks, where Kaminski held her release party. "When she sings, it's more like she's talking to you."

For Kaminski, music has long been in the blood.

Her father, who helped with the recording of her CD, is a former musician in the Buffalo club scene. He sang Beatles and Neil Young songs to his offspring while they were still in diapers.

Kaminski started voice and violin lessons at Hochstein around age 5 and will be heading overseas with the school's youth orchestra later this month for several performances in Germany and the Czech Republic.

As for her solo gigs, bookings remain steady, she said.

"I'm just looking for bigger venues to play in," she said. "I'd like to do something in the town of Greece, but there's no coffeeshops that play music."

Eric Walter can be reached at (585) 247-9200, Ext. 301, or at ewalter@mpnewspapers.com .


Fast facts: Upcoming show

You can check out Nora Kaminski's music live from 8 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday, April 26, at Spot Coffee, 200 East Ave., Rochester.

Her CD is available at www.cdbaby.com /cd/kaminski

Find out more at www.norakaminski.com . - Greece (NY) Post - 4/13/2006

Jeff Spevak
Staff Music Critic

(August 10, 2006) — One song into her first album, My Time To Shine, and Nora Kaminski has already brought up the Kyoto Protocol, Rush Limbaugh, noted that "Mary had a little lamb, but she dyed it black 'cause she's a trendy little twit" and how "Last time I took advice from Seventeen magazine, my boyfriend dumped me and my scarf didn't match." Then she finishes off that title track with this familiar piece of advice:

If you want to live long,
be healthy and strong,
shop at Lori's Natural Foods.

You try to jam all of that into three minutes and 23 seconds. Maybe that's how the short attention span of 17-year-olds we've been hearing about works.

The new grad of Greece Odyssey Academy, heading for the State University College at Fredonia in September, is at Earthtones Coffeehouse in Webster on Friday. She's played guitar for only 1½ years but has been a runaway truck on the coffeehouse circuit, especially the Boulder Coffee Company, until someone ran an actual truck through the front of the building about two weeks ago.

Her "Smartbombs For Freedom" was a junior-year English project on the 1991 Gulf War. That's not the distant past to many people, but Kaminski was about 3 years old then. Her song came out as a political ballad, one questioning whether the so-called "smart bombs" of the day weren't in actuality indiscriminate killers. In many cases, Kaminski's song notes, it would be innocent children as she asks: "Who pays the extra price for your freedom?"

She describes herself as "a typical teenager. I go out a lot, hang out all day, go to the beach." But she's assembled an atypical folkie-teen set list that includes selections from the ska-rock bands Sublime and Reel Big Fish, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and the Dr. Demento favorite "Shaving Cream." Her father, Tom, who plays bass in her band but was once an accordion player in a Buffalo punk outfit, is a primary influence. "A pretty funny guy," she says, who encouraged her to sing the Who's "Baba O'Riley" at one of her first open mikes.

- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Jeff Spevak
Staff Music Critic

(August 10, 2006) — One song into her first album, My Time To Shine, and Nora Kaminski has already brought up the Kyoto Protocol, Rush Limbaugh, noted that "Mary had a little lamb, but she dyed it black 'cause she's a trendy little twit" and how "Last time I took advice from Seventeen magazine, my boyfriend dumped me and my scarf didn't match." Then she finishes off that title track with this familiar piece of advice:

If you want to live long,
be healthy and strong,
shop at Lori's Natural Foods.

You try to jam all of that into three minutes and 23 seconds. Maybe that's how the short attention span of 17-year-olds we've been hearing about works.

The new grad of Greece Odyssey Academy, heading for the State University College at Fredonia in September, is at Earthtones Coffeehouse in Webster on Friday. She's played guitar for only 1½ years but has been a runaway truck on the coffeehouse circuit, especially the Boulder Coffee Company, until someone ran an actual truck through the front of the building about two weeks ago.

Her "Smartbombs For Freedom" was a junior-year English project on the 1991 Gulf War. That's not the distant past to many people, but Kaminski was about 3 years old then. Her song came out as a political ballad, one questioning whether the so-called "smart bombs" of the day weren't in actuality indiscriminate killers. In many cases, Kaminski's song notes, it would be innocent children as she asks: "Who pays the extra price for your freedom?"

She describes herself as "a typical teenager. I go out a lot, hang out all day, go to the beach." But she's assembled an atypical folkie-teen set list that includes selections from the ska-rock bands Sublime and Reel Big Fish, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" and the Dr. Demento favorite "Shaving Cream." Her father, Tom, who plays bass in her band but was once an accordion player in a Buffalo punk outfit, is a primary influence. "A pretty funny guy," she says, who encouraged her to sing the Who's "Baba O'Riley" at one of her first open mikes.

- Rochester Democrat and Chronicle