Lexington musician has been busy. But she found time to work with Tyler Childers.

The concept of lockdown never equated to shutdown for Cecilia Wright. During the nearly year-long stretch where precautions for the COVID-19 pandemic have wiped out the livelihood of many performing musicians, the Lexington cellist and songwriter got busy. Very busy.

With performance venues largely shut, Wright got to work on her thesis for a Master’s Degree in LGBTQ education and music therapy, began organization of a private practice for her work as a music therapist, contributed to the highly unexpected fourth album by famed Kentucky song stylist Tyler Childers and hit the studio for a new recording project by Bear Medicine, the long running Lexington troupe she plays in with husband Joshua Wright.

Oh, yes. And she recorded an album of her own songs, too – a curious mix of light but brightly accessible musicality covering lyrics of vastly darker and more turbulent reflection titled “Another Human.”

It’s enough to make you wonder how much she would have accomplished without the pandemic.

“I never actually had a plan to put together an album during all this,” Wright said. “But I have written a lot of music over the last two years. When I got to a point when I was starting to have a collection of songs, the idea of recording just sounded appealing because, obviously, we don’t have a lot of opportunities to perform right now.”

With that, Wright teamed up with veteran Lexington musician and studio pro Otto Helmuth to record a set of eight original songs. Two key musical cohorts were already close at hand to help. Drummer Robby Cosenza lived next door and guitarist/husband Joshua was right there at home.

“So I already had a foundation of a band I could use. Then it was a matter of figuring out who else we could add on and who would be willing to do some parts remotely, just because people have more availability right now. I had a good number of folks that were up for recording either in person or by sending files over. So it came together unexpectedly, to be honest. I’m really glad it did because I definitely channeled a lot of anxious, pandemic energy into the project. For me, it was a release.”

On first listen, “Another Human” seems disarming enough with echoes of sunny pop/folk melodies swimming through the songs. But a more detailed glance at the material reveals a narrative scrapbook of rather sobering imagery. The album’s title tune is typical of such contrasts. Wright said the lyrics were pulled from “a very, very dark place” of self-examination. The music sitting atop the story, though, is almost pure doo-wop, making the work seem like a summertime snapshot.

“I turned 30 and we’re in a pandemic,” said. “Part of me was asking questions like, ‘What does all this mean? What would it be like to have a child at this point in my life? On one hand, I really wanted that. But on the other hand, we’re going through so many dark times, so many dark things right now. I was feeling conflicted. That definitely came from the pandemic during a very dark moment. The only way I could even really bear to ask those questions was to make it a really fun, happy song that I enjoyed hearing.”

Another curiously balanced pandemic project surfaced last September when Wright was one of several regional string players invited by Tyler Childers to record on his “Long Violent History” album. The record employs eight instrumental pieces – most of which are traditional, all of which are played with a graceful antique sweep – as a preface to an original title tune dealing with social and racial injustice.

Wright said playing on the recording was an honor. But when she discovered one of the two songs she was to contribute to was “Midnight on the Water,” a fiddle tune penned by Red Luke Thomasson and first popularized by his son Benny Thomasson, her enthusiasm soared.

“I grew up around a lot of old-time music,” Wright said. “‘Midnight on the Water’ was a song my parents used to play when I was growing up. My mom is a cellist and my dad plays guitar. That was a song they used to play together, so it just hit me in the heart that this was going to be one of the songs I was going to be part of for the project.”

If “Midnight on the Water” is reflective of the music Wright grew up with and “Another Human” is indicative of the songs she is involved with today, her academic studies may point to what the future holds. Wright said the seven years she has already put in as a music therapist have proven as beneficial to herself as to the patients they were designed to help.

“I’ve worked with a wide variety of communities and really challenging circumstances that have developed my empathy and my understanding of myself in different ways. I don’t know if I can articulate it in a perfect way, but it’s definitely been very transformative.

“Essentially, I have developed, maybe, a more well-rounded understanding of the challenges a lot of different people face, whether those are physical challenges or emotional challenges or just challenges from people marginalized by society. I think it’s made me more empathetic. I hope it has. Empathy is an important part of being an artist.”