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Sam Shaber

To kick off the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series at Cornell University, the campus's Willard Straight Hall will be showcasing a rising star, Sam Shaber, who has been called "the soul of New York folk."

Pretty good start.

Shaber, a 1994 Cornell graduate and 2001 John Lennon Songwriting Competition finalist, will perform her raw and edgy blend of folk-influenced pop Tuesday, April 24, at 8 p.m. in Willard Straight's Memorial Room. The show is free and open to the public, and with Shaber's staunch local following, it should be crowded, too.

The music series that Shaber is inaugurating was created in memory of Lauren Pickard, a 1990 Cornell graduate who died suddenly a few years ago while living and working in Paris. While at Cornell, she had been an active student employee and volunteer at Willard Straight. She loved the student union's weekly coffeehouse series and was a poet and an activist. The series was created through an endowment established by Pickard's mother, and one to two programs will be sponsored each academic year at Cornell featuring bright young artists.

Singer-songwriter Shaber seems a perfect choice to start the series rolling. Music reviewers are given to superlatives when describing her talents. One (Fairfield County Weekly ) proclaimed her as "one artist who is absolutely in the process of rising to the top." Another (Advocate Weekly Newspapers ) said, "This up-and-coming songwriter has a way with words that cuts through to the heart and reminds you why it's beating." And a third (WXPN, Philadelphia) called her simply "stark raving great."

Her second CD -- "perfecT" -- was voted number 7 out of 1,800 albums for Best Independent CD of 1999 on CD.Baby.com. And after the release of her latest five-song CD-single, titled "Sam*pler," she was voted among the Top 5 Independent Female Artists of 2000 at FEMMUSIC.com. Touring from San Francisco to Scotland, she has opened for artists such as Richie Havens, Shawn Mullins, Kristen Hall and Patty Larkin and has toured with fellow Big Apple artists in the musical review "Live From New York."

Talking about what has helped her to build an audience, Shaber once said: "To be myself and allow my audience to be themselves. I try to welcome them, inspire them, cheer them, upset them, let them cry with me, laugh with me, share experiences with me through my songs. And I also try to kick butt on stage."

For more information about Shaber's concert or about the Lauren Pickard '90 Emerging Artist Series at Willard Straight Hall, contact Catherine Holmes at (607) 255-4311 or cah4@cornell.edu .