By: Tim Donahue
There’s a quiet side to Bellingham’s music scene these days. The house show capital of the world is going soft, it’s acoustic and swaying and lyrically complex. It’s part of an extensive tradition, and because of people like Ivy Ficarra and Kazmyn Zercher, it feels as new as ever.
They are folk singers, Western students [though Kazmyn graduated this past Spring], and wonderful examples of the depth that exists behind the studies of our student body. True artists that have stuck to their convictions, both Ivy and Kazmyn are great examples and reveals that it is not only possible, but imperative for students to create.
Photos of Ivy Ficcara [Left] and Kazmyn Zercher [Right] playing music with their guitars on stage. Photos by Dezi Zercher
Ivy Ficarra grew up watching and performing with her father, a folk musician in his own right. Studying Folk Music [her major] during the day, both she and Zercher have spent the past few years writing, jamming, and gigging in the nights. It’s a sort of a double-life, that of the performing student, and it just so happens to be the only kind she’s ever known. Ivy Ficarra’s father is a musician, and she grew up playing and performing music as far back as she can remember.
While Ficarra was performing with her dad long before she started at Western, the music “wasn’t completely hers” until she moved to pursue music on her own in Bellingham. Ficarra’s Fairhaven studies have aided her songwriting, and knowledge about the music industry, while inserting her into a network of local musicians that introduced her to her first gigs in the area.
“The balancing act has been a lot at times,” Ficarra said when asked about the division of her time between music and school. She is looking forward to studying and performing music in Ireland during April of this year.
Kazmyn graduated from Western Washington University with an English degree in 2023. During her time as a student, she supplemented her education by performing around Bellingham, and has since moved to Seattle to pursue her music on a full-time basis. The transition has taught the musician to advocate for herself without being able to rely on the structure, the distraction and the safety net, of a college education.
“There’s more time to travel to gigs when you don’t have to be back in Bellingham on Monday morning,” Kazmyn said. “Now there’s no excuse, nothing to keep me from working [writing and performing] every day.”
Kazmyn works as a resource now, having spent the past six months in Seattle, she has taken a responsibility for introducing Bellingham acts around when they graduate and make the natural turn to the Seattle music scene.
“I’m still new,” She saod. “But even my six months is longer than a lot of people have been here.”
The transition from college-musician to professional can be a hard one, and sometimes all it takes is a friendly face or two to welcome an act into a scene that might otherwise seem exclusive.
[From left to right] Musicians Lily Potter, Diana Fay, Kazmyn, and Izzy Rae Jones celebrate after a performance. Photo by Dezi Zercher
To create is a risk, it can be a scary proposition, especially if you’re going through the creative process alone. In a town where the college experience seems to revolve so heavily around music, and artistic expression in general, Ficarra and Kazmyn are turning themselves into great examples to show that it is possible to live as an artist while maintaining yourself as a student.