Olivia Dolphin bringing her musical talents to Dusk

By ROB DUGUAY
Posted 8/11/21

Rhode Island has an abundance of multi-talented people who call the place home. There are folks in these parts who are good at doing a bunch of creative things, and many of them have found their way to make a living at it. Providence's

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Olivia Dolphin bringing her musical talents to Dusk

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Rhode Island has an abundance of multi-talented people who call the place home. There are folks in these parts who are good at doing a bunch of creative things, and many of them have found their way to make a living at it.

Providence’s Olivia Dolphin is one of these people. She’s a musician, a poet and even the founder and editor-in-chief of a literary magazine. On Aug. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at Dusk, located at 301 Harris Ave. in her home city, she’ll be showing the musical side of herself as part of a stacked show with local acts How’s About Charlie?, Heather Rose In Clover, Back Rhodes and poets Maurisa Li A Ping, Abigail Dufresne and Daria-Lyric Montaquila.

We recently had a talk ahead of the show about her being part of a local record label, her many creative outlets, taking pride in paying people for their work, and thoughts on the upcoming gig.

ROB DUGUAY: You’re on the roster for the Cranston-based label Pitch & Prose, so how did you join up with Matt Maggiacomo and the crew over there?

OLIVIA DOLPHIN: I’ve been going to Harry Potter conventions for around 15 years, which is half my life. I know Matt through The Whomping Willows and I’ve been a fan of his for many, many years. Through his involvement with the Harry Potter Alliance, I was involved with it, too, and we’ve been in the same community for a while. When he launched Pitch & Prose, I was one of the first artists they signed and I was working on some original tunes. He reached out, told me he was starting this label and he asked me if I would be down to sign with them, and I said, “Absolutely.”

I was kind of just starting out and I had no recording experience or anything like that. It all happened at the perfect time.

RD: What do you consider to be your main musical influences?

OD: I want to say Ingrid Michaelson has been a big influence for me, any female pop artist that sits with a piano. Some of Billie Eilish’s recent stuff is definitely influential and just the idea of somebody sitting at a piano because it’s the main instrument that I play. Matt would say that I’m influenced by Tori Amos, but I’ve never listened to her in my life, so maybe somewhere down the line that got infused into my style.

RD: Along with being a musician, you’re also a poet. Do you ever find both music and poetry intertwining when it comes to your creative output?

OD: Yeah, absolutely. My early songs were stripped back or rearranged versions of poetry that I had used and I knew already resonated with myself or with an audience. I kind of put them to music and added a melody and a piano part, but over time I’ve begun to approach both music writing and poetry very differently. They’ve kind of branched off from each other but I do go back to poems and find lines that I really loved and turn them into lyrics.

RD: You’re also the founder and editor-in-chief for Wizards In Space Literary Magazine. What’s the vision behind the publication and how has it been when it comes to running it?

OD: First of all, I’m very fortunate to have an editorial team who I delegate a lot of work to, so I can’t do it alone. The vision behind the magazine is to uplift unrepresented voices that you don’t get a lot of within popular media. By doing that we give people the opportunity to be paid, a lot of our artists in the magazine are paid for their work for the very first time. One of the reasons why we started the magazine was to have people to start seeing their worth and that they can write for a living, they can do this and be paid for it. I wanted it to be physical in order for people to pull something off the shelf and say, “Look at what I’ve published, look what I’ve made,” so that’s kind of the vision behind it.

It’s been an awesome experience to run the business behind it, I’ve learned a lot. To be able to pay people, whether it’s someone coming to help sell merch at a table and giving them a paycheck for doing that or to compensate my staff and writers is really a wonderful experience. I’m able to blend that into my music, especially with Pitch & Prose who have sponsored events with us and we share the same belief that people should be honored and compensated for their work.

RD: I totally agree and it’s pretty cool how you have all these things going on with you but they also intertwine themselves in a way that you can fuse your talents together. It’s very unique to see that from an artist. What are your thoughts on the upcoming show at Dusk? Is this going to be your first time performing live in front of an audience?

OD: I’m super excited and also a little nervous. It is my first full set and it’s my first full band experience. Matt and Jay Ferguson of Pitch & Prose will be accompanying me on guitar and bass so my songs will be performed in this way for the first time. I’m a performer at heart. I went to school for flute performance at the University of Rhode Island, so performing has always been something that I’ve done with flute or poetry, but this will be my first time doing a full end to end set. I feel very vulnerable in a very awesome way and the other bands that are lined up are amazing.

I’ve been a fan of How’s About Charlie? forever, so I’m honored that they would play this show that I’ve organized and put together. Heather Rose In Clover is another band that’s also a labelmate of mine, so it’s cool to see these things coming together. There’s also going to be some poetry readings and it’s important to me to have both sides of myself represented with spoken word as well as music.

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