About

About Mysina

Named for an imaginary locale invented by lyricist Katherine McCanless Ruffin, Mysina is definitely a place. But it's "not a town, really — just a juncture." The same can be said of Mysina the musical collective. A dynamic, ever-changing ensemble, it has taken multiple forms over the years as projects have materialized and players step in to realize the sound and vision.

Originally, it consisted of me and Manjula Dias-Hargarter putting Katherine's poetry to music. The result was recorded in a basement and represents the songs in their most spare and necessary arrangements. Later, during the COVID pandemic, these songs became fully arranged and performed by a cast of players who contributed their parts remotely. The result was the album TRACKS, released in 2022.

Galvanized by the possibilities, Chris worked with Katherine in laying the groundwork for WATER MAGIC, which presents two very different approaches to the same source material. Nearly all of the players on TRACKS re-upped for WATER MAGIC; also joining are drum dynamos Pat Mastellotto and Clark Goodpaster, flautist Karmen Gould, and singer Trina Hamlin. Consisting of two suites that take their titles from dramatically different settings, one ('Santa Barbara') is an exuberant, top-down, pop confection while the other ('Pine Orchard') is a dense, far-off-the-beaten-track thicket of jazz exploration. Manjula sings the first with shimmering, multi-tracked, vocal acrobatics; Trina steps up for the second, her smokey, single-track, performance woven into the players' improvised tapestry.

Chris Mills
2025