Anadara

Growing up in Southern California, Anadara was steeped in the sounds of the folk/singer-songwriter genre. Her mother was a professional musician and Anadara exhibited her own creative bent early on, writing her first song when she was eight. The worship team of the church they attended met at their house weekly for practice. It was one of the things that instilled a love for music in her.

Upon graduation from high school, Anadara headed east to pursue music and theatre studies at Syracuse University, in upstate New York. That first year held a lot of culture shock for the native Californian. Do you know how much snow Syracuse gets in the winter? she asks with a laugh. Pretty much from October through April, you can expect snow on the ground.

Apart from the weather, Anadara struggled to find her place in this new world. Feelings of loneliness and displacement prompted her to pick up her guitar and start writing again, pouring her experiences into songs. Performing these new compositions at open mic nights, she soon found herself with a Best New Artist nomination at the SAMMYS, the Syracuse Area Music Awards.

Anadara finished her degree at Syracuse and, upon graduation, promptly moved to New York City to pursue a long-time dream of making it on Broadway. She began waiting tables and would frequently go on auditions, but spent most of her time continuing to write songs. It was during this challenging time of transition that Anadara began to feel the effect of having drifted away from an active pursuit of her faith during those years.

During an audition, Anadara saw a sign for a church that met in that studio on Thursday evenings. It stirred her heart into recognition of what was missing in her life, and she decided to attend the service that night at Harvest Christian Fellowship.

After I found Harvest, I felt like I needed to stop and spend a season strengthening my relationship with God and asking Him what He had for my life. For a year, I just wrote songs, waited tables and went to church. This time served to awaken Anadaras heart for people and the desire to use her gifts to heal, encourage and inspire. Soon she was playing at coffee houses and began leading worship for the childrens services, which is where she met and fell in love with her husband, Rocky.

The attacks on the World Trade Center occurred during this time and had a profound effect on the young artist. I was in my apartment in Greenwich Village and I thought someone had gotten shot in the streetthats what it sounded like, she says slowly. We were close enough that my roommate and I couldnt live in our apartment because of the fumeswe had to live with friends. It was a crazy time. I was waiting tables, and then going to the church to help out with relief efforts there. At the restaurant, we waited on people who were going from funeral to funeral. It was just a really somber, depressing time.

All of those images that you see of the World Trade Center on fire and falling, I saw with my own eyes. It immediately made me realize that we dont have tomorrow promised. Instead of letting issues and tensions linger or continuing to wrestle with what the Lord is calling me to do, I saw the urgency to be more obedient and decisive. I think many times we KNOW what God is asking us to do, we just hesitate to do it. The morning of the attacks, it became clear to me how many precious days Id wasted waiting until I was comfortable with a situation to act on it.

Anadaras journey of moving and growing paved the way for Into the Unknown, her debut release with Spring Hill Worship, a release drawing musical comparisons to Nichole Nordeman and Amy Grant.Through her introspective lyrics and acoustic/folk style, her music combines her easygoing, reflective artistry with her heart for honest, transparent worship.

Anadara's hope is that God uses the gifts that He has given her. What Im excited about is continuing to write and lead worship, and just be faithful with whatever comes my way. To grow as a person and as a musician, and as a child of God, and to be able to pass that on through my music. I really hope that my music can be part of peoples lives, in the sense that I want what the LORD speaks through the songs to be a part of who they are.