Washington County native Emma Page, with Alex Ouellette and Hunter Lefebvre, recently recorded “When the River Meets the Sea,” a Paul Williams tune from Jim Henson’s Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. The trio (called OLP) are roommates, and have been spending these pre-Christmas days watching each other’s favorite holiday movies. “‘Emmet Otter’ is mine,” noted Emma. “They had never seen it and really fell in love with the music. When that song came on in the movie, I just said, ‘Let’s record this tomorrow!’ and we did! Just the sort of thing that happens when you put a bunch of bored musicians in a house.”
The EAC community enjoyed several performances from Emma back in her days as a student at Washington Academy—notably a featured soloist set as part of Quoddy Voices winter 2015 concerts, and, with Anthony Branca, a memorable set as part of Eastport Strings’ 2014 benefit auction event. (Emma noted that six years later, “Anthony and I are still very best friends. He had two albums come out this year!” His new solo album is here, and his band the Meddybemps have also just released an album).
Emma now teaches at Maine Academy of Modern Music, and plans to record more music this winter! In the meanwhile, OLP has one song out, and more Emma tunes may be heard here.
The work of Eastport Arts Center is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.