www.mayadevitry.com

NASHVILLE — Originally from Lancaster, PA, Maya de Vitry is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter, producer, and instrumentalist whose music blurs the lines of folk, alt-country, indie rock, and Americana. An admirer of the dedicated songcraft of writers like John Prine, Gillian Welch, and Townes Van Zandt—and of the stirring vocals of artists like Bonnie Raitt and Nina Simone—Maya de Vitry’s music invites listeners into a space of openness and connection.

Maya has been recording new songs for her next album (to be released in 2026), which features Shelby Means and Joel Timmons as harmony singers. Maya says, “After all the time we’ve spent on the road and in studios together, they are so tuned in to my phrasing and dynamics that it was a dream to sing these songs live with them in the studio.”

Maya will preview many of the newly recorded songs on this winter tour (2/19 in Jacksonville FL; 2/20 in Charleston, SC; 2/21 in Marietta, GA; and 2/22 in Asheville, NC). One of the songs, “Traveller” (which was written in memory and in celebration of her grandmother), has already become a staple of her live show. “This song is a cornerstone on the new album,” Maya says. “These songs are about connection, relationship, and faith in each other—and I am so lucky to have learned so much from my grandmother’s perspective on these things. Her faith in the power of love was unshakeable.”

Maya released a solo performance video of “Traveller” in 2025, which is accompanied by a piece of long-form writing in her newsletter, sharing her creative process behind the song while on a writing retreat in Texas. (Click to read it on Substack).

Maya says, “These midwinter shows in the Southeast feel like yet another celebration of the ways that Shelby and I have mutually supported each other over the past several years. We have been professional bandmates in previous musical chapters (Shelby with Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway and Della Mae and me with The Stray Birds). While Shelby was tearing up the highway with Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, her husband, Joel Timmons, was my right-hand man on guitar and harmony vocals! We all share a deep love of bluegrass music and harmony singing and can easily complement each other’s musical visions. I put my fiddle on the back burner for many years to focus on guitar playing and songwriting, and it’s honestly thrilling that Shelby has gotten me to dust it off to play shows with her and get back to playing this instrument that shaped me so much as a musician early on! Shelby’s solo career is really taking off—she has a busy summer of festivals around the country, and these Southeast dates will be a chance to see her band in a more intimate setting that’s perfect for catching some of the stories behind the songs.”

Shelby says, “I’ve been lucky to line up with Maya for years of singing, playing, and record making. From living rooms and studios to festival stages. We have had snacks and hikes, good friends, and new stories to incorporate into our songwriting. I recently sang on a three-day session for Maya’s upcoming album. I loved studying Maya’s vocals. Her delivery is a discovery in phrasing, melody, and pure tone. She’s got some bangers recorded, and I can’t wait for y’all to hear our shows in February.”

More about Maya de Vitry:

Maya released new music in 2025, with the most recent single, “Any Bell I See” [July 2025], being about finding ways to reach out and ring the bells of goodness and hope, even in the midst of difficult seasons of change in our lives. The track was produced and mixed by Juno Award-winning Steve Dawson and features an A-list of Nashville session players (Fats Kaplin, Dave Jacques, Jen Gunderman, and Justin Amaral).

In April of 2025, she released an acoustic version of her song “Flowers,” which was initially on her 2022 album Violet Light. Maya says, “I originally wrote this melody on clawhammer banjo, just like this recording, and wanted to share this solo version because I think it captures something about the essence of the song. I started writing this song thinking about the nourishment, beauty, and simplicity of flowers and also rain and the simplicity of reaching towards something that nourishes you.”

She adds, “I’m also continually fascinated by the word ‘love’ and how so many things can get swept into the definition (care and acceptance and comfort and respect… but also sometimes control and domination and manipulation…) until it’s just a really warped and distorted and confusing idea. In ‘Flowers,’ the lines, ‘Tell me again how the world got sad—the part where you say you love somebody but you treat ’em bad,’ have a few layers of meaning for me. I’ve experienced this confusion and sadness in personal relationships and in how I’ve felt moving through the world as a woman… but I think it could also be the literal planet—our home—feeling sad.”

Maya’s most recent solo album, The Only Moment, was released in July 2024. It is a strikingly gorgeous collection of songs that paints a beautiful sonic portrait of her emotional range and power as a vocalist. De Vitry has independently released four records and has nurtured a devoted community of listeners since she launched a solo career with her 2019 album Adaptations, after a formative chapter with roots-Americana trio The Stray Birds.

She has earned praise from Rolling Stone Country (“…de Vitry’s songwriting balances her intensely personal, microscopic style of storytelling with a straightforward, accessible delivery”), NPR Music (“the perfect soundtrack for uncorking that emotion and (defiantly) loving life again”), No Depression (“her songs shiver with an emotional immediacy that stirs our hearts”), and Glide Magazine (“her voice is among the most ethereal and pure in roots music”), among others.

When she is not collaborating live on stage, de Vitry thrives in the studio. In addition to contributing as a co-writer to albums by Molly Tuttle, Lindsay Lou, and Steve Poltz, her skills as a multi-instrumentalist and harmony singer have contributed to many Nashville recordings. Her songs have also been covered by several of her contemporaries. On April 18, 2025, The Milk Carton Kids released a cover of Maya’s song “Ribbon” (the closing track on The Only Moment).

Maya also takes on a more behind-the-scenes role in bringing music into the world. She produced her own album, The Only Moment, and also serves as a producer for others, including her guitarist Joel Timmons’ debut record, Psychedelic Surf Country. She says, “The performances are bursting with the humor and straight-talking and drinking-deeply-from-the-cup-of-life attitude that is Joel, and I’m so proud of what we made.”

Other production credits include the recent self-titled solo album from singer and bassist Shelby Means [released 5/30/25]. “Shelby is an absolute force of nature in the bluegrass world,” says Maya of Means, who is a member of Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, with whom she gained her first GRAMMY win. “Shelby is a deep feeler, and it really comes through in her singing—and the band is just epic!”

Twangville writes, “Playing bass with two of the pioneering bluegrass bands of the last couple of decades gave Shelby Means and producer Maya de Vitry access to a who’s who of string band icons. That embarrassment of riches could have overshadowed the songs themselves. But Means is a woman who knows what she wants and wasn’t afraid to give some direction in the studio. The result is a spectacular debut album that’s going to have some staying power on your playlist.”

Maya also served as producer for, and added harmonies and instrumentations to, Hannah Delynn’s debut full-length album Trust Fall [released 9/5/25]. Hannah toured with Maya as part of her ‘Infinite Band’ in 2024, the group that also served as the studio band for Maya’s Infinite EP, which came out the year prior. Maya says, “I remember talking with Hannah about how when we are making a record, ‘we are making medicine, in a way.’ Whatever medicine she most needed—the stories she was telling through the songs, the emotions she’d be revealing through the performance—if she was making her own true medicine, that’s what mattered.” Hannah says, “The ease and connection you hear on the album are very much the foundational fabric of our friendship and, therefore, the record. Maya especially has played such a beautiful and instrumental role in helping me step into my musicianship, both on stage and creatively.”

Maya’s expansive relationship with music seems to allow her to move joyfully between genres, especially in her collaborations. Exploring a fusion of electronic/ambient/folk music performed on clarinets and synth, her voice soars as a featured guest vocalist on a new emotive track, “Over and Over.” The song was released on March 5 as part of Chris Lippincott’s new full-length record and was co-written by Lippincott, de Vitry, and jazz musician David Williford.

Another collaborative track has taken on a life of its own. In his article entitled, “One Song In Many Voices – The Story Of ‘Nothing Else Matters,” WMOT Roots Radio’s Craig Havighurst declares, “It crossed a bridge into a wider world…” “Nothing Else Matters” was co-written by de Vitry and Phoebe Hunt. The song was released by Hunt as the title track of her 2023 album, is the opening cut on Lindsay Lou’s 2023 album Queen Of Time, and in 2024 on de Vitry’s The Only Moment. Other musical friends have continued to record their own versions of the song in a variety of formats, including Bonnie Sims [Big Richard], Nicki Bluhm with Mimi Naja [Fruition], Lauren Balthrop, and Hannah Seng.

Havighurst elaborates, “Here though is something rare, a contemporary song written by mid-career standouts of the roots music scene that’s being interpreted by others in real time, one of the highest compliments one can pay a song… Any songwriter would be gratified to write an American folk standard. Maybe Maya and Phoebe already have.”

Maya says of it all, “In the music industry—and society in general—it’s possible to feel that we are pitted against one another. But music seems to come from a much more boundary-less, universal place, and it just flows through all of us. As much as I can, I try to give and receive in a musical ecosystem where we are trusting each other, lifting each other up, and letting music flow between us. It gives me hope. It’s like weaving an interconnected web, instead of insisting on taking the journey alone on some straight and narrow path.”

“I’m not just making different music now. It feels like I’m breathing in a different atmosphere,” Maya says, reflecting on her evolution from the single-minded focus of The Stray Birds to her more fluid and generative musical present. Her sense of liberation is especially apparent in her live shows, which have become a space for spontaneity, peace, and freedom, often woven together with personal stories. “After the show, I just want to know if I’ve helped you to feel more free,” Maya continues. “That’s my quiet agreement—to myself, my bandmates, and everyone in the audience.”

Known for her magnetic voice and a hard-won sense of purpose, Maya has toured across North America and Europe, supporting artists like The Wood Brothers, Aoife O’Donovan, John Craigie, and Mighty Poplar.