Tiny Desk Family Hour: Gaelynn Lea: NPR

If you're planning on organizing the very first Tiny Desk Family Hour session – an epic evening of Tiny Desk style concerts, to be held in the beautiful Central Presbyterian Church in Austin on Tuesday night of SXSW – you might as well launch the essential member business of the Tiny Desk family. Gaelynn Lea won the second annual Tiny Desk 2016 competition in 2016 with the bare minimum of ingredients: some fiddling violin strokes, a loop pedal and his fragile yet powerful voice.

At Tiny Desk Family Hour, Lea played in the same spare configuration. She finished with a powerful song called "I'll Wait," which addresses how disabled people – Lea herself suffers from a fragile bone disease and works as a motivational speaker and teacher as well as musician – are often left behind by social justice. movements. It's Lea at its best, while her warm, intense voice and haunting beauty is seen with clear intent.

The crowd, many of whom had been standing for two hours or more while the queues were circling the block, clearly got what she expected: when Lea brought "I'll wait" at an abrupt end, the audience's gentle collective breath gave its breath. way to the first standing ovation of the night.