SONiA brings Disappear Fear to Carbondale
by Shay Kelley
The beautiful harmonies of SONiA Rutstein and Laura Cerulli are Disappear Fear, a folk duet that will bring their message of peace Friday, April 13 to Cousin Andy's Coffeehouse. Disappear Fear is currently touring to promote their forthcoming album, an international release titled La Tormenta Santa, or The Holy Storm, which will be available to the public this fall.
Driven by her desire to spread a message of love and understanding, SONiA has traveled all over the world to share her ideals. She has toured in Denmark, Sweden, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Israel, and Australia, just to name a few. She has witnessed the devastating effects of war firsthand when she spent time in bomb shelters in Israel performing for the World Pride Event. As she told Nightlife, "Sometimes you actually have to stand up and face the bombs," and perhaps this experience is part of what leads her to continue in her efforts to disappear fear throughout the world.
SONiA and her sister CiNDY created the original Disappear Fear. They signed with Rounder Records and released their self-titled, uniquely melodic debut album in 1994. This album won two music awards, the GLAAD award for best album and a GLAMA award. SONiA and CiNDY created one more award-winning album before CiNDY left the tour to become a full-time mom and SONiA chose to continue with a solo career.
SONiA has since been nominated for a Grammy and has won multiple awards for her albums. She has just begun to revive the beautiful harmonies of the original Disappear Fear by adding the vocal talent of Laura Cerulli, who also plays drums and percussion.
SONiA donates eighteen percent of all the proceeds from her downloaded music to a campaign to end world hunger. "[T]he whole world can be celebrating our time here on earth and contributing to the whole world community," she told Nightlife. "That's the way I want to spend my life. Literally spend my life. I get an infinite amount of joy knowing that my music and my choices can feed and help educate children a half a world away or within a mile of my hotel. The satisfaction I get being a bridge to a happier planet-- well, that is a good ride."
Regardless of the ever-changing elements of Disappear Fear, SONiA has continued to successfully share her views on war and peace, love and harmony, for more than a decade.
La Tormenta Santa incorporates multiple languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, and Spanish, consistent with SONiA's desire to share the global language of music with the world. "I love Spanish," she said. "It is so musical and romantic. Some of these songs have just been yearning to be sung in their native language. I freed them. But also when you don't know what a language means, then you hear it like art... like the way you looked up at the alphabet before you learned that an A was an A. I bring the world to you.... It is a beginning to walking in someone else's shoes... or I am the mirror and you are all Don Quixote."
Influenced by the years she spent as a child taking guitar lessons in a nearby synagogue and playing songs by Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Neil Young, SONiA plays not only guitar but also the harmonica and piano. La Tormenta Santa not only implements an array of languages but instruments, including acoustic guitars, Indonesian drums, tin whistles, accordions, pianos, and strings. She concentrates this album on spreading the ideals behind her three themes: "to keep looking for the truth by identifying what is made by God/Nature and what is made by humans, standing up for what we love and who we are, and the helpless romantic songs too."