Sonya Cotton

Having grown up on the East Coast, San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Sonya Cotton refined her craft as a studio art major at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY. From childhood she nurtured passions for dance, theater, voice, and visual arts, and while still at Vassar she began writing and tracking original songs alongside fellow student and bandmate Chris Kiehne, an effort that yielded her debut EP, Baltimore Trees, in 2005. The next year she launched a cross-country tour that eventually anchored her in the San Francisco art community, where she issued the stark, sorrowful full-length Out of the Ocean in 2007. Kiehne produced the album, which was recorded at her grandparents’ cabin in Connecticut and drew notice from critics both local and national. Cotton has also performed and recorded with other Bay Area acts, among them the Bland Allisons, Chris Maher, and the National Lights.