At first listen, one might assume that the intricate interplay between honeyed vocals and any variety of violin, cello, or harp of a Glass Heart String Choir song would require careful discussion between musical partners, but songs are the one thing Ian Williams and Katie Mosehauer never talk about.
“In a vast sea of disposable music, every once and a while something comes along that notches out its very own immaculately unique nook.”
Global Texan Chronicles
“Glass Heart String Choir dwell in a beautiful, humbling darkness. Their honesty strikes the heart with a fierce blow, beckoning us further into their world of wonder and woe.”
Atwood Magazine
“Light glows with complex luminous colors, supple textures, and a gorgeous liturgical aura.”
Popdust
“Brace yourself. This quiet song about the internal disquiet that often seems to go along with being human is startling for both its beauty and its honesty.”
YabYum Music + Arts
Verbose when discussing the nuances of nature (especially birds) or poetry (especially Russian), Ian is a person prone to long pauses while searching for the perfect word or metaphor to describe his own inner mechanics—a listener may wait indefinitely for sentences that never finish or metaphors that remain unfound. It is songwriting that allows him ample time to plumb the more faceless emotions of life and dredge for exactly the right words to capture them. Recipient of the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award in musical theater, Williams is adept at telling others’ stories, as well as his own through song.
For Katie, music presents a wondrous, wordless reprieve. Spending much of her time crafting public policy, words are a high-stakes game with far reaching implications. “I spend a lot of time in other arenas parsing the meaning of individual words and their intention. When it come to our songs, we seem to have found our own language—Ian never needs to tell me what they mean, and I never need to ask.” Composing allows her to think only in sound and shape and color, to fill in spaces not with what must be said to make the world more just but with what could be heard to make it more beautiful.
In their first release since their project’s debut EP in late 2018, the release of singles Stars and It’s Never Enough scheduled for early 2020 move on from Light’s themes of leveling doubt to trade in absolutes. Both songs apply surging vocals over baroque musical sheets, weaving together intricate stories with cinematic soundscapes, but to different effect—Stars bursts toward the future with a knowing, formative, certainty while It’s Never Enough looks back with an equally certain sense of devastation. This paired couplet of songs is day to each other’s night, full of contrast and compliment.
