Oropendola
Joanna Schubert, the Brooklyn-based singer, keyboardist, composer, arranger, and educator behind Oropendola, creates kaleidoscopic chamber pop filled to the brim with energy and emotion. Her songs often sound like a wink but hit like a gut punch, pendulum-swinging from playfulness to earnestness with deft, technicolor brushstrokes.
After a 2016 vocal cord surgery, Joanna found herself relearning her voice and figuring out what it - she - was capable of. A period of upheaval followed: she ended a 5-year relationship, moved to NYC, and started making music again. On the first day of 2020, two months before the world shut down, she adopted the moniker Oropendola (Latin for golden pendulum, a mesmerizing bird she encountered in the Peruvian Amazon whose songs repeatedly spilled into her own). This move catapulted Joanna into a nonlinear, inward time of deep explorative play and creative unblocking. From there, she recorded her debut album as Oropendola: Waiting for the Sky to Speak. Working in close collaboration with co-producer Zubin Hensler (Half Waif, Hannah Epperson, Elori Saxl), they created an imaginative and colorful chimera of a collection peppered with with the theatricality of Kate Bush and FKA Twigs; the off-kilter humor of Miranda July; the surrealism of Alice in Wonderland; and the melodic core of Joanna’s childhood soundtrack (90s pop, jazz standards, and the Beatles).
After completing the album, Joanna got restless and released three separate singles and two collections of fully improvised voice memos, all in 2022. Her first single - Stillness - was reviewed as a “delicate and dreamy masterpiece” and “reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens’ finest works.” She also assembled an eclectic 7-piece Oropendola band, complete with synths, clarinet, flute, and 3-part harmonies, with whom she regularly performs in various combinations throughout the city.
Primarily a solo creator and performer in the past, collaboration now feels rich and nurturing. The musicians Joanna plays with and friends she has made in artistic spheres have become some of her greatest influences and teachers. 30 musicians ended up playing on Waiting for the Sky to Speak. She has toured the country with both Half Waif (2021) and Barrie (2019) on synths and vocals and sung with Samir Langus, Elizabeth & the Catapult, and many others. Currently, she plays in Brooklyn-based bands Beccs and Nicomo and is a member of Rosa, a traditional Serbian vocal group. From 2018-2020 she ran a monthly songwriter series - Symbiosis - featuring in-the-round song shares and collaborations amongst women and non-binary artists. Joanna’s older sister Erica was her earliest collaborator; they would sing endless harmonies on long car rides and record themselves on the tape deck in their childhood living room in Teaneck, NJ.
When Joanna isn’t making music, she is helping other humans make music. She teaches lessons in piano and songwriting, has led contemporary vocal groups, and writes and music directs eccentric musicals with kids. She lives in a 5th floor walk-up with her almost-8 year old cat Moose, and frolics in Greenwood Cemetery every chance she gets.
Waiting for the Sky to Speak will be released in March 2023 with Spirit House Records and Wilbur & Moore Records. "[Oropendola] is joining an exciting group of multidisciplinary artists who refuse to adhere to standards of genre or form... [she] cannot be contained to one box or descriptor." - HighClouds music blog
Recent Releases
Waiting for the Sky to Speak (2023)