Ada Lea @ Radio Bean

$15 | All Ages
6:30pm doors | 7pm show

Ada Lea (Insta | Website | Bandcamp | Spotify | Youtube)

when i paint my masterpiece is an epic, 16-track opus. It’s a kaleidoscopic exploration of the transformations art can bring: the vision of an uncompromising artist dancing bravely and freely between registers and across mediums. The album marks a reset—a quiet revolution. After years of relentless international touring, Levy felt an urgent need for community and renewal. Gruelling road schedules with very little support left her wondering: who am I really doing all this for? The system was uncaring and broken, and so she envisioned a new healthy and healing mode of musical genesis. Levy went back to school to study painting and poetry, got a job, and began teaching.

Ada Lea’s albums have been swelling in scope alongside the evolution of her artistic life. Her recent turn toward pedagogy—teaching a songwriting course at Concordia University and co-facilitating a community-based group called “The Songwriting Method”—weaves another vivid thread into her multifaceted practice. The shapely, intuitive songs that comprise Ada Lea's third album are surprising, imagistic, tactile. They stand before us and we feel their brushstrokes.

By the end of these sixteen songs, it’s clear: when i paint my masterpiece isn’t chasing perfection, it’s comfortable in the magic of being. These songs are alive with poetic specificity and a wide-open heart—deeply felt, often strange, and always reaching. There’s an optimistic and plainspoken wisdom in the lyrics, building on Ada Lea’s singular songwriting style of surprising harmonic and melodic turns—now with a newly rich, organic sound that rewards slow listening. The masterpiece, not a product, is the process.