Sense of Place Learning

Paula has been writing, researching, performing and recording music most of her adult life. She has released seven albums of original music, including three Parent’s Choice Award winning children’s albums. She has provided programs in schools, libraries, festivals and community organizations across the state, and served as a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Artist in Residence, and a Pennsylvania Humanities Council Commonwealth Speaker. 

Paula’s band, the NewLanders, have released two albums of Pennsylvania roots music and have performed regionally and internationally. Visit:  The NewLanders to hear samples and learn more about the band.

To purchase the NewLanders’s American roots music, visit: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/newlanders

Paula’s Discography:

• In the Blue, Paula & Amy
• Incidental Dreams, Paula & Amy
• It’s Halloween, Family Arts Theater –Parents’ Choice Gold Award!
• Pajama Jammin’, Family Arts Theater – Parents’ Choice Silver Award!
• Near, Paula Purnell
• Impossible Things, Paula Purnell
• Where the Allegheny Flows, The NewLanders
• Born of Fire: Songs of Steel and Industry, The NewLanders
• I Wish I Were an Otter – “PA One Book” Project, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
• Monsters’ Valentine Ball, Family Arts Theater – Parents’ Choice Honorable Mention!

Purnell is a talented songwriter who’s developed her craft in coffeehouses and suburban open stages. She sings love songs that are pithy, poignant, and thought provoking – sweet in sound without saccharin additives    Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Listen –

To hear/purchase Paula’s original music, visit:http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/paulapurnell2

To hear/purchase children’s music, visit the Family Arts Theater, at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/familyartstheatre1

American Roots Music

the NewLanders

The NewLanders in Oberhausen

American roots music brings people together. Singing together raises our spirits, creates community, and allows us to tell our stories in our own, unique voices. Exploring music from different times and places introduces us to the people behind the songs and share their daily struggles, joys, and quiet yearnings.

Your performance added depth to our event. I especially enjoyed your choice of songs and the stories you told. Not only did these pieces serve as reminders of Pennsylvania’s rich history, but they also illustrated the accomplishments of Pennsylvania women.  

-Keith McCall, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 2009

NewLanders in Germany, 2008

The NewLanders have researched and rediscovered songs that capture the American experience. By interweaving traditional instruments, including the Appalachian lap dulcimer, fiddle, and mandolin, with richly layered harmonies and electric guitar and bass, the NewLanders have created a contemporary sound, while honoring and preserving the inspiring stories of the past. A NewLanders’ performance includes engaging narrations and real-life accounts from the mills, mines, rivers, and fields of their home region, western Pennsylvania along with haunting songs that poignantly illustrate the enduring spirit that built our nation.

“Longtime friends and musicians Gazdik, Paula Purnell, Doug Wilkin and Gerard Rohlf are heading to Germany for the third time, performing Thursday and Friday at the Kokerei Hansa Coking Plant Museum in Dortmund and the LVR Industrial Museum in Oberhausen. The band’s music celebrates Western Pennsylvania, reworking old songs from a time when steel mills offered workers, many of them immigrants, both sustenance and camaraderie.” — Pittsburgh Tribune Review