Violin Voyager Sees World With Silver Linings

Violinist Kim Angelis is just about as landlocked as she can be in California; she lives smack in the middle of Gold Rush country, in a farmhouse in Railroad Flats, a town nestled in the Sierra Nevada. But when she was reached at home by phone last week, her husband was coming to pick her up . . . in a boat.

“The weather is misbehaving,” said Angelis, who appears at a pair of concerts tonight at Laguna Beach Artists’ Theatre, rain or shine.

In the case of the ever-cheerful Angelis, it’s always shine. “We have an acre pond with way more going in than going out. It’s turning our property into white-water rafting!” she said of the flooding in Northern California. Her husband, guitarist Josef Gault, was bringing in sandbags.

Angelis calls herself the Violin Voyager and specializes in Gypsy-inspired music. She’ll be joined for the Laguna World Beat Series concert by Peruvian-born guitarist Ciro Hurtado and former Shadowfax percussionist Stu Nevitt.

Cuts off her recently released CD, “Esperanza” (Skysong Records), will account for about half the program. Angelis knows that material well: She recorded the album twice.

The label for which she first recorded it (in December 1995) ran into financial problems, precluding its release.

Angelis ultimately was grateful.

“I learned a very important lesson,” she explained. “The producers very kindly offered to put a lot of money into the recording, but I found that the more money a producer is willing to put in, the less freedom the artist has--to say ‘I want to do the music my way.’ They were really good people, but they wanted to do it their way. . . .

“They put me in a studio not conducive to violin music. When I work with [engineer Dennis Moody], we go into a room with 14-foot ceilings and a wooden floor. People think they only need to do it digitally with a very good mike, but that doesn’t work with violin.

“They did not allow me to use my engineer. Ciro Hurtado was not used on it. My musical integrity was more important to me than being with a record label. . . . Instead of being disappointed or upset, I thought that now [after the first recording was not released] I could do it the way I did my other albums.”

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Angelis rerecorded “Esperanza” in June, using Moody and nine musicians including Hurtado.

“Ciro has a lead on the title tune, and it gives me the chills every time I play it,” Angelis said. “The album has a Latin influence, more so than my other albums . . . a dash of Spanish and flamenco flavor. That wasn’t deliberate; it just happened--it’s about California.

“But not about California underwater,” she added, still waiting for her ride.

* Kim Angelis, the Violin Voyager, and guitarist Ciro Hurtado perform tonight at the Laguna Beach Artists’ Theatre (at Laguna Beach High School), 625 Park Ave. Part of the Laguna World Beat Series. 7 and 9 p.m. $6-$12. (714) 497-2787.