Gaelynn Lea: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Gaelynn Lea, the winner of NPR s second annual Tiny Desk Contest, makes music like nobody else. Her sounds are steeped in the deep melodies of great Irish fiddle tunes, but her performance and singing style aren t traditional. More than 6, 000 artists submitted videos in which they performed an original song behind a desk of their choosing with the hope of winning a chance to play a Tiny Desk concert at NPR. Gaelynn Lea was the overwhelming favorite of our six judges. After voting for Lea, I wanted to learn more about her and her remarkable talent. Following about a minute of just focusing on the desk, her video pans to a small woman in a wheelchair as she plays a violin she holds like a cello. Lea has brittle bone disease, which made it necessary for her to reinvent the ordinary and, in this case, a way to play the fiddle. I also discovered, after selecting Gaelynn Lea, that she d become friends with Alan Sparhawk of the band Low. Sparhawk first heard her perform at a farmers marke