PLATTSBURGH — By day, Nate Pultorak is the Holy Cross Parish choir director and organist.
By night, his baritone can be heard in the local band The Lowmen.
In between, he gigs solo as the 2019 National Hammered Dulcimer champion, who just released his first solo project, “Of Trees and Stars and Stuff.”
The title track was inspired by a high-school mission trip to West Virginia with his youth group.
“One day we were just hanging out on the back porch of the lodge where we were staying, and it was just incredibly peaceful with the pine trees,” the Chicago-suburbs native said.
“You could see the stars; in the air, lightning bugs flashing everywhere,” Pultorak said. “Even though the night was clear, you could still see flashes of heat lighting off in the distance. To me, it brings to mind peace and good times with friends.”
All instrumental and all his arrangements, the 12-track disc is mostly originals with a few covers.
“All are recorded as solo with the exception of one track where I brought in a good friend of mine who also plays the dulcimer,” he said. “It’s a friend from college; She lives in Pennsylvania. She has competed at the international level in Irish music. Her name is Mary-Grace Autumn Lee.”
Pultorak hit his dulcimer project hard last year.
“Though the ideas and the different songs from it have been milling around in my mind for years and years, I’d say,” he said. “It’s been like a very long time coming.”
With no central theme, the album is more a smorgasbord of his 29-year-old mind’s wanderings.
“Another aspect ‘Of Trees and Stars and Stuff’ (is) just like expressing a variety of things that I love and that have influenced me over the years,” he said. “It’s largely contemporary, though I do touch on some Irish folk music, which is a very traditional thing to play on the dulcimer.”
“Chasing Toto” was a nod to his trip to Kansas for the dulcimer contest.
“I was like, what is something that is very Kansas-like?” he said.
“Toto. There’s songs that I have that are inspired by nature. ‘The Wandering’ is one, then there is also ‘Raven Falls’ that was inspired by a waterfall in the western Adirondacks. It’s not the official name of the waterfall, and it’s a very hidden one. I learned after I wrote the song about it. I named it Raven Falls because it came out a small lake called Raven Lake. Then, I looked at a map, and I realized it was actually called Kettle Hole, not nearly as romantic as Raven Falls. So, the name stuck for me.”
“Two Silver Hearts” is dedicated to the 25th wedding anniversary of his parents, Ed and Sue Pultorak. “Rising Son” is an Easter-themed piece.
“I actually recorded in my office at St. John’s Church,” he said. “The office is so separated from everything. It kind of worked well as a soundproof room. On the back of album art, I labeled it not as St. John’s. I labeled it as recorded at Naomh Eoin Studio, which is Irish (Gaelic) for Saint John. It’s a little codename that I put there, especially with St. John’s Church’s heritage. It’s a very strong Irish heritage at that church, I figured it would be a fitting name for the studio.”
Pultorak engineered the album himself.
“It was quite the learning curve to say the least,” he said. “I made a bunch of CDs. One thing I realized is that CD players are starting to disappear. So what I’ve done is I figured out a way to bundle in a download card with the CDs, so that way people can still have the physical item. But, they can very easily download it onto their phone or whatever they want to listen to music on without having to have a CD drive directly to your computer.”
No solo concerts are on his horizon, but catch him with The Lowmen at today’s Parks Come Alive from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at South Platt Street Park (Fox Hill) in Plattsburgh.
“Our lead singer John Wagar, he’s written a whole bunch of songs,” Pultorak said. “One of them stuck out to the band a lot is called ‘The Lowmen.’ I guess it’s based on the idea of being the low man on the totem pole. We have a lot of fun playing around. We play very often at The Monopole, over at Old Soul.”
“Of Trees and Stars and Stuff” sells for $15 and is available on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.
Website: natepultorak.com
Social media: @natedulcimer