Dana Falconberry

by Stewart MasonAustin-based alternative folk singer/songwriter Dana Falconberry has a similarly sparse sound as contemporaries like Anaïs Mitchell and Jenny Owen Youngs, with most of her songs featuring little more than her delicate yet scratchy vocals and minimalist acoustic guitar style. Falconberry first started exploring music in earnest while attending Hendrix College, a small Methodist-associated liberal arts school in the rural setting of Conway, AR. Falconberry, who graduated from Hendrix in 2002, was also a dancer and choreographer at the school, working in concert with a professor named Mark Schantz, who provided music for Falconberry's recitals. After her graduation, Falconberry and Schantz recorded a duet album together at Memphis' Sun Studio. Featuring Falconberry on vocals and Schantz on acoustic guitar, 2005's Ten Birds on One Wire raised little interest and the partnership quietly dissolved. Meanwhile, Falconberry resettled in Austin and fell in with an experimental psych-folk collective called Peter and the Wolf led by singer/songwriter Red Hunter. Falconberry co-wrote and sang several songs on Peter and the Wolf's 2006 album, Lightness, before releasing her own solo debut, Paper Sailboat, in 2007.