Forty years ago, when Marla got bit by the Irish music bug, her late grandfather’s mandolin was the instrument that found its way into her hands, and soon into her heart. It has been her primary instrument and partner ever since. She has become one of the prominent voices of the mandolin in Irish music, bringing a deep and distinctive sensibility to the tradition on one of its lesser-heard instruments.
Her dynamic playing is featured on the 2017 Noctambule release A Sweetish Tune, on the eponymous Three Mile Stone recording with San Francisco favorites, fiddler Erin Shrader and guitarist Richard Mandel, and on The Morning Star, a duo CD with legendary Irish singer and bouzouki player Jimmy Crowley released in 2011. In 2020 she released her first solo recording, The Bright Hollow Fog.. Marla also plays mandola, tenor guitar and button accordion, and is a singer and a composer. She is known for her musical settings of works from a variety of poets, as well as original tunes written in traditional forms. This work is featured in the duo Noctambule, her longtime collaboration with guitarist and husband Bruce Victor. Their earlier releases include Travel in the Shadows in 2013 and The Waking in 2015. She has performed and taught nationally and in Ireland, and was a featured performer at the 2018 Masters of Tradition festival in Bantry, Co. Cork.
An experienced and sought after teacher, Marla teaches private students and classes, and has been a staff instructor at many music camps, including The Mandolin Symposium, The Swannanoa Gathering, California Coast Music Camp, Colorado Roots Music Camp, Lark Camp and O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat. She has taught at Portal Irish Music Week since its beginning! She also provides video-based instruction online with Peghead Nation, and her instructional DVD Irish Mandolin Basics: Tunes & Technique has been a popular self learning tool, focused on acquiring the foundational technique for playing Irish music on the mandolin.