User:Tonirrab/Tania Opland

Tania Opland (born March 31, 1961 in Anchorage, Alaska) is a performing musician, recording artist, composer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She is best known for very wide-ranging repertoire, incorporating contemporary, traditional and early music from American, Celtic, and other European sources, and for her musical collaborations with Mike Freeman (her husband) and popular science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey.

Early life
Tania Opland is the youngest child of Anchorage attorney Robert N Opland and Mildred (Lien) Opland. Her grandparents, Alfred (1900-1985) and Martha (1900-1983) Opland, were early pioneering teachers for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Territory of Alaska, and were also involved in reindeer herding. Music was important to the family, and as a child Opland had lessons on piano, cello, violin and guitar. The second-hand violin she got when she was nine years old turned out to be a hand-crafted instrument by Eskimo violin maker Frank Hobson, and became her stage instrument for many years.

Opland's first paid performance, at the age of 17, was at a local renaissance festival in Anchorage. While attending University - first Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then The University of Alaska, Fairbanks - she continued to perform one repertoire (British ballads and folk songs) at renaissance and medieval events while building a repertoire of originals and popular cover material for other venues. She also learned Russian songs to help with her study of that language. Frustrated with her degree courses and wishing for more time to play music, she left Fairbanks for a trip across Siberia and then moved to Seattle to experiment with the prospect of playing music full time.

Career
Opland started playing in and around Seattle in 1984, mainly in bars and coffee shops and at open mics. Victory Music, a non-profit musicians' cooperative, hosted an open mic in  Tacoma which became a networking base for new performers in the region including Kat Eggleston,  William Pint, Felicia Dale, TR Ritchie, Kendra Shank, Steve Guthe, Heidi Muller and many others. Opland's five solo albums were recorded by Rob Folsom, who was the sound engineer for this open mic. It was also here that she met Steve Guthe and Kat Eggleston, who were then called "The Ferryboat Musicians" and made their living busking on the Washington State Ferries. Following their example, Opland became one of the regular entertainers in what what is now remembered as the heyday of ferryboat music on Puget Sound, and added the hammered dulcimer to her list of performance instruments. She made a lasting mark on the North Kitsap County music community when, in 1993, she started up a weekly jam session in a local coffee shop which carried on in one form or another for over a decade.

Also in 1993 she started making regular trips to the UK and  Ireland, met her music partner / husband Mike Freeman in 1994, and the couple have continued touring from home bases in Kitsap County, Washington and County Kilkenny Ireland ever since. Together they have recorded a duo album and two collaborations with science fiction author Anne McCaffrey.

Solo Discography

 * Renaissance Fare (cassette, 1987)
 * Choice (cassette, 1989)
 * Winter's Time (cassette, 1990)
 * Bonnie Rantin' Lassie (CD, 1993, re-mastered and re-released in 2003 as Hunter's Moon)
 * Tania Opland (CD, 1995)
 * Choice Fare (CD, 2000. A compilation of tracks from Renaissance Fare and Choice)
 * Winter's Time (CD, 2010. An extended version of the 1990 cassette album)

With Mike Freeman

 * Cut to Rhythms (CD, 2000)

With Mike Freeman and Anne McCaffrey

 * The Masterharper of Pern (CD, 1997)
 * Sunset's Gold (CD, 2009)