E. May

About E. May

At six, I heard a life-changing sound: an acoustic piano. I sat down next to Cindy, the lounge pianist who would become my first teacher. She taught me my first song on my set break, and I have been a devotee to music ever since.

Over the next decades, I have explored the vast landscape of musical expression by learning many instruments, performing in bands of all genres, learning other people’s songs and writing my own. Through it all, I ever drawn back to the complex vibrations and sense-altering abilities of an acoustic instrument in an intimate room.

I studied painting in college, where I also found dance and performance art, and continued to deepen an already lush writing practice. There, I planted a seed of what I believe to this day: that creativity is an essential part of being human. Every branch of what I do reaches down through these roots. To this end, I have devoted myself to the study, practice, creation and teaching of the arts.

Themes I return to frequently include the wildness of the great outdoors and the wilderness within our own hearts; the joys and struggles of the human journey; and our independent, fragile, yet somehow indelible connection to the web of life. I’m fascinated by the abstraction of numbers and language, how the impact of these abstractions affects us, and how the arts can communicate something more direct and real than these abstractions.

Biography

Hello! I’m EMay, and most people know me as a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, and band leader who has performed internationally. I also have a BFA in fine art, and these days, I focus my art-making time on painting. I am also a movement and dance teacher, currently teaching out of Bright Bear Yoga in Thomas, WV.

I have been a professional artist for nearly twenty years and have received several awards across various disciplines. I have written, performed, and recorded with superstars and regularly study with artists at the top of their fields. I teach online and in my studio in Dryfork, WV, and I perform my original songs and covers most Friday nights in Davis, WV.

When I’m not making music, painting, or hiking with my dogs, I can be found in the garden, growing food and flowers and helping my partner with our homestead business, Healthberry Farm, where we keep bees and produce our hive-to-bottle Honey River Mead. And in the winter, you can find me skiing at Whitegrass or Timberline!