Julie Byrne

For nearly a decade, American songwriter Julie Byrne has moved through the world as a characteristically private artist largely outside the public eye. Raised in western New York State, now living in New York City, she has counted many places as home since committing her life to her work. In the folk lineage of the wanderer, Byrne's poetic, evocative songcraft pulls imagery from the road and takes its shape from the evolving impressions of friendship, love, and loss. She taught herself guitar after picking it up when her father became ill and could no longer play the instrument himself. She carries an aura of warmth and vulnerability, an innate musicality connected to the natural world; there is real gravity in her ability to make that a shared feeling. And just as gracefully, she can recede from view; it's been six years since her acclaimed breakthrough, Not Even Happiness. In 2023, Byrne emerges from a deeply trying and generative period with the most powerful, lustrous, and life-affirming music of her career, The Greater Wings. Navigating themes of grief, intimacy, and transformation, Byrne widens her signature fingerpicked guitar sound with lush synth tones, piano, harp, and strings, rising forever changed.