Rooftop Session with Margot MacDonald

I started hosting salons in my home several years ago because I was a bored lawyer selfishly looking for ways to surround myself with cool, creative people who might inspire me to something greater and more meaningful in life. Those salons grew and eventually became the basis for Pink Line Project. Though I still host them occasionally, nowadays, I am so busy running the business that I don’t have time to do the very thing that inspired this amazing journey in the first place and I wasn’t feeling very good about that. So this past weekend, I pulled myself together and invited a few friends over for a music salon with one of the most amazing young musicians I have heard in a looooong time, Margot MacDonald.

The weather forecast for the day of the salon was filled with tiny pictures of menacing storm clouds, but we would not be deterred. After Margot and her awesome percussionist Alan Kayanan finished setting up their equipment, a dark ominous sky filled with thunder and lightning in the distance and threatened to shut down our party before it even started. The lovely Mary-Alice Farina sang a couple lovely songs to kick off the evening and soon fat rain drops splatted down on us. I passed out some umbrellas. We were not intimidated.

At dusk, Margot took the "stage" and from the first notes we were riveted. I first heard Margot when my good friend and trusted music advisor (and life advisor really!) Ryan Holladay sent me a link to her YouTube video. Within seconds, I was hooked. Absolutely mesmerized. I later spoke to Ryan about Margot's special ability to enrapture an audience. It’s not like at a lot of concerts where there are always a few people standing in the back talking and jabbing at their cell phones and not paying attention. When Margot performs, everyone listens. There are tons of terrifically talented musicians out there, but she has that extra unexplainable star quality and soulfulness that emanates from some place really deep and that allows her to connect wholly and intimately with an audience.

A clap of thunder introduced her second song and created a sense of urgency. I had the thought that maybe this experience was a lesson for living. We’d have to enjoy every second of this beautiful music right now at this very moment because it could get shut down at any second when one of those dreadfully beautiful clouds opened up to let go a torrent of warm summer rain on us. I looked up at one point to scan the slow moving clouds and I saw a giant, bright rainbow arc across the sky. We put away the umbrellas just as the sun began to set and the moon to rise, and we lit our sparklers and utter joy ensued. It was magical.

I looked around the terrace and saw so many smiles and the bright eyes of wonderful people sharing an amazing moment. I have no doubt that one day Margot will make it really big, and we will all look back and remember how we shared this moment with her and with each other. And we will think of all the wonderful things that that night inspired and be grateful that there are those among us who can create such beauty and who can inspire us to greatness.

More photos from the event HERE.