OKAPI ​is an Asheville, NC-based avant-folk duo composed of Scott Mitchell Gorski (Upright Bass, Harmonium, Voice) and Lindsey Paige Miller (Cello). Hailing from differing musical backgrounds but sharing a passion for unique approaches to songwriting, craftsmanship, and structure, they began formulating candid, cathartic, and intentionally intricate orchestrations rooted in honesty and rawness. Carrying evocative works abundant with descriptive lyrical paintings, they present ideas both intimately and aggressively, hoping to stimulate a universal confrontation with our absurd reality. They aspire to challenge others’ perceptions through promoting consciousness, healthy growth, and individual empowerment.

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*** OKAPI have toured nationally, performed as part of many festivals, including the experimental Big Ears Festival, and have been lauded by publications such as The Wire. The duo has been awarded grants for music and art by such organizations as the Jazz Foundation of America, MusiCares Foundation, and Toe River Arts.

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BALLADS: Outside OKAPI's typical upright bass / cello instrumentation, they explore alternative compositional approaches that employ harmonium, cello, and voice. These original pieces revolve around balladry and other folk music elements, presented through personal interpretation and contemporary lenses that explicitly depict humanity's complex, corrupt, and unavoidably tethered relationship to the divine feminine of nature as well as its abstract, interwoven concepts.

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