Led by composer, singer and harpist Thistle Jemison, the music of THISTLE is best categorized as Chamber Folk, an amalgamation of the jazz, western classical, world music, and folk genres.  Playing live as a trio, a revolving cast of classically trained musicians play Jemison’s original through-composed scores, weaving a rich cinematic backdrop upon which stories inspired by literary works are sung. THISTLE's 2019 debut album The Ice Maiden Comes, is a collection of eleven  original songs, each based on one of Hans Christian Andersen's stories. For THISTLE's  upcoming release Mysterious Star: A Tribute to Poe, Thistle has crafted into songs a handful of  Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poems, including "Spirits of the Dead," and "The Raven." In 2023,  Chamber Music America awarded Thistle an Artist's Project Grant in order to help promote the  record, calling the music "beautiful, unique, and hypnotic." Thistle is a performer with Astarte  Creative Agency, and has toured as a member of cello rock band Rasputina, of 1990's fame.  

Thistle was born to two painters who took art seriously. Fostering creativity, art-making, and independent thinking were among their primary child-rearing goals. Thistle’s mother heard the piano is the "gateway" to all instruments, and insisted all her children learn; from the age of seven, Thistle practiced piano daily, studying classical and ragtime music,  especially enjoying the music of J.S. Bach. She played clarinet in middle school band, adding another hour a day to her practice regimen. While attending Quaker boarding school, The George  School, she took singing lessons, sang in rock bands, and performed the music of Ulali in Tuscaroran and English, with the daughter of founder Pura Fe. At Hampshire College Thistle studied singing, theory and composition in multiple genres, using the Five College Consortium  to her benefit: jazz at UMass, improvisation and world music at Hampshire College, South Indian Classical music at Amherst, and western classical theory and composition at Smith  College.  

Thistle finished her formal musical studies at the New School for Jazz & Contemporary  Music in Manhattan, achieving a BFA with honors in Jazz Voice. For six years, she studied  Karnatak (South Indian Classical) voice with Saavithri Ramanand in Queens, learning classic devotional songs of the Brahman caste in the Hindu, Tamil and Sanskrit languages. Before she learned to  play the harp, Thistle took up the electric guitar and the drums, creating a three-piece rock band  which she named Queen of Sibyls. She recorded an album of songs inspired by the alt rock  female-led groups of the 1990's (link to album Dark Horse in Music tab), but ultimately  abandoned this music due to its personal nature...it seemed to Thistle that singing about more universal  themes would be more gratifying.  

It was just before the recording of Dark Horse that Thistle was finally diagnosed with Celiac Disease, two decades after the onset of symptoms. An ADA recognized disability, Celiac Disease is debilitating when diagnosis is delayed. Thistle went on to spend the better parts of her 20’s and 30’s fighting for her life. Existing primarily in survival mode, the damages from the disease greatly affected the trajectory of her music career and her ability to physically make music. Nevertheless, Thistle’s drive to share her gifts necessitated that she continue to try.  

Thistle began studying harp in her late 20's, under the tutelage of Tomoko Sugarawa, a classical  harpist and reviver of the ancient Japanese Kugo harp. Early on, she did some work as a session  harpist and vocalist with rock/folk bands such as Caitlin Cannon and the Cannon Dolls and Ben Shepard. She also took lessons from Marilu Donovan, harpist in the violin/harp duo Leya. During a four year hiatus from music, Thistle worked as a freelance interior designer in NYC, designed and managed her own vacation rental in the Catskills, and took drum lessons with Sara Landau of The Julie Ruin/Bikini Kill. In 2015, after performing for several months as a backup singer in a rock band, she returned to the harp, crafting songs in the folk music tradition, using the literature  of great authors as inspiration. Eventually Thistle felt drawn to arrange her music in the classical style of through-composition which she had learned at Smith College, and thus THISTLE was  born. 

The music of THISTLE is meant to serve as an access point to the spiritual world that lies behind  a veil, and which can be experienced through different states of mind. Exaltation, mystery, and  wonder are the emotions THISTLE wishes to evoke. Her lifelong passions for architecture and  visual art have greatly influenced Thistle's compositions, where sounds must fit together just so.  Thistle hopes to one day have a castle where her music can resonate within stone walls, and she can offer an artists’ residency, providing a space for other artists to create in their most inspired state.