Rick Drost, a Singer/Songwriter from Cambridge, MA, has been writing songs since the late '60s with depth and heart: songs that repay repeated listening and convey a long love of classical music, natural wonders, poetry.
Rick grew up playing classical piano in a musical family outside Buffalo, NY. He discovered a love of poetry (Shakespeare, Gerard Manley Hopkins) in high school, and played banjo in a Kingston Trio style group. In college he sang with Glee Clubs, and a small folk group. Early influences were Leonard Cohen, who sang under the stars at the Mariposa Folk festival in '67. and Joni Mitchell in '68, who inspired him with her lyrics and alternate tunings. Since college, Rick has sung and toured internationally in small and large choruses, (Spectrum singers, Yale Alumni Chorus), And in the US as a solo songwriter and in small acoustic folk groups. Since the early 2000s he has been writing again and singing mostly solo at open mikes, small clubs and coffeehouses, galleries and listening rooms in the vibrant folk communities in New England, the Midwest and the Southeast, singing at workshops like SAMW, Song School in Colorado, and Folk Alliance. His songs treat life from a varied angles - Jilted lovers, Swans in the Public Garden, Leftover Lobsters, and meditations on meditation. Recent influences, avatars really, include Vance Gilbert and David Wilcox, who has added Rick's song "Turning the World" to his setlist.