Erin McKeown and Natalia Zukerman have cut back on touring, so it is unusual for a state as sparse as Alaska to be getting three opportunities to see the two. From Homer to Palmer, with a Saturday night in Anchorage at Tap Root, listeners will get to hear musicians with two distinct approaches.
Both are adept guitarists. McKeown has a more produced, rock-oriented electric guitar sound, drawing from electronic, pop and swing on her records. Zukerman on the other hand covers the musical spectrum from folk to jazz, usually playing acoustic guitar.
They have played on the same bill before, but never in Alaska, so when Mike McCormick from Whistling Swan pitched the idea, they both thought it sounded like fun.
McKeown, who has been making music for 14 years, used to play upward of 200 dates a year and has played Alaska more than a half dozen times. The artist, who writes and produces, has a new record coming out later this year and is spending her extra time advocating for a number of issues, such as working for the rights of musicians and creators. She was also named a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
"If I made music all the time, if I chose it over advocacy, I wouldn't feel complete," McKeown said.
Meanwhile, Zukerman has been splitting her time between a guitar and a paintbrush. Her mural-making has really taken off, she said over the phone while standing in a half-finished restaurant, working on a new one.
It's a golf-themed restaurant. She laughed as she described an "incredibly tacky" golf outfit -- "lots of argyle." Painting, which she studied in school, allows her more freedom than playing music.
"I only have to do the dates I really want to do now," Zukerman said. "It makes me love playing again."
She compared the grind of the past few years of heavy touring to her childhood, when her parents tried to get her in the family business of classical music. Her parents, Pinchas and Eugenia Zukerman, are accomplished classical musicians, her father a world-renowned violinist and her mother a flute virtuoso.
After the rigors of a classical training, the violin didn't stick. She eventually gravitated to the guitar and songwriting.
Cutting back on touring has made her appreciate all that again. Two of the things that she did take from her family are precision in playing and a love of musical collaboration.
"Music is a conversation," she said. "And playing solo can be like talking to yourself."
By Paul Flahive
Daily News correspondent