Julie cannot remember a time when she did not sing. She has contributed vocals to a variety of projects including: Talking Heads "Fear of Music", Joni Mitchell "Chalkmark in a Rainstorm", John Boswell "Love", Tom Mank and Sera Smolen "Where the Sun Meets the Blue"," Celtic Twilight Lullabies", Prana "The Eternal Embrace", Michael Veitch's soon to be released album as well as having a song included in the 2004 Miramax film "Virginia's Run".
Baird
and PRANA (Julie Last, Leslie Ritter, Amy Fradon, Kirsti Gholson, Peter
Beuttner, Joe Viellette, Julian Lines and Bruce Milner) have recently
performed at: a Benefit for The Dalai Lama Foundation, and Omega Institute's
"Ecstatic Chant Retreat" with Krishna Das, premiering Baird's
arrangements of several chants. They also were honored to give a personal
performance for Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. They have opened for Philip Glass
and performed as a part of the "Gatherings", "Tibet House",
"One Voice" and "Woodstock Cycle" concerts series.
In 2005 all of Prana’s “The Eternal Embrace” was played
for the entire “Hearts of Space ” program which airs on more
than 230 NPR stations. In October four pieces from “Waking the Cobra”
were used as part of “Live! Light on Life” A tribute to BKS
Iyengar at City Center.
www.pranasound.com
Julie's
recording of her song, A Nightingale's Lullaby was released on the best
selling album Celtic Twilight.
By turns mournful and mystical, these 14 Celtic lullabies performed by
musicians from around the world give voice to the experience of mother
and child in haunting, evocative folk songs. "More often than not,"
veteran Irish singer Nóirín Ní Riain writes in the
liner notes, "a true lullaby is more indicative of the mental state
of the mother than of her wish to lull her child to sleep, and so often
her frustrations find a legitimate voice through song." Celtic Twilight
3: Lullabies will become a bedtime favorite, both for its lulling pull
to sleep for baby and the numinous, soothing tones of old-country songs
for parents winding down at the end of the day. --Stefanie Durbin Amazon.com
"Singer/songwriter,
producer/recording engineer Julie Last writes moving, literate songs that
deal with the poetry and mystery of life. She is a runaway from the Los
Angeles music scene where she worked for over 20 years in recording studios
with such renowned artists as Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, John Lennon
and Neil Young to name a few. Her debut CD, “Relics”, has
been called by critics “luminous and haunting ”.
Though primarily a guitarist, on this record she played many of the instruments,
and called upon various friends for extra musical touches - including
bassist Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel) and drummer Vinnie
Colaiuta (Sting). Her co-engineer and co-producer for this project was
Michael Jay, who engineered YES's 1994 album "Talk", and has
previously engineered for Brian Eno and Neil Young.