Cassia Schramm fills her spirit with music

Times Contributor  

 

“My spirit was really longing for music,” says Cassia Schramm, graduate of Rosebud School of the Arts. 

Since producing her first album in 2010, she says, “I feel really blessed to have been working a lot as an actor and that took up a lot of time, so music got put a little bit on the back burner.”

Early this summer, she recognized a longing to get back to music and decided to plan a music tour. “All of a sudden,” she said, “there were places to play and people that wanted to play with me. It’s like ‘Ask and you shall receive.’ ”

She mentioned her idea to Nathan Schmidt, Rosebud actor and musician. He immediately said, “Well, I’d be happy to play with you,” naming a song from her album that he’d especially like to perform together. 

When Schramm invited friends Joel Goundry and Sienna Holden, each of them also gave her an immediate yes. 

“It’s really affirming for me, to have such enthusiasm come up behind me,” said Schramm.

With Schramm on vocals and guitar, Holden performing vocals, Goundry doing percussion and vocals, and Schmidt on the fiddle, mandolin and vocals, they have performed house concerts in Rosebud and Olds, with other events upcoming in Blackfalds, Okotoks, Edmonton and Calgary. They are also performing dinner music for Rosebud Theatre. 

On August 31, they will perform at Rosebud’s outdoor music festival, 15 Minutes of Fame. Schramm herself will also perform at the festival with the Mull River Shufflers and Fool’s Tongue.

Schramm is also satisfying that longing for music by working on a second album; it is a 3-track EP called ‘In Memory Of’, which she hopes will be out this fall. She wrote the three songs a few years ago, at a time when several members of her family were dying. 

It was one of those seasons when “it comes all at once.” She is already observed the impact of these songs when she plays them live. 

“I did some songs in Olds, which is my hometown,” she says. “These people that I’m writing songs for were from Olds and you look around and everyone’s weeping.”

This fall, while Schramm returns to acting with Sandbox Children’s Theatre and plays Lucy in Rosebud Theatre’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, she hopes to continue nurturing her musical spirit by performing house concerts. Fans can follow her events on Facebook: Cassia Schramm, and find her albums at www.cassiaschramm.bandcamp.com. We can also see her perform at 15 Minutes of Fame in Rosebud on August 31.