Fusing past and present in her pop-inflected old time music, Adrienne Young applies a worldly compassion, a poets pen and a spirit of independence and self-reliance to her most recent album, The Art of Virtue. Young expands upon the themes of cultivation and stewardship so beautifully asserted on her acclaimed debut Plow to the End of the Row. With Virtue, Young makes a statement both personal and universal, both idealistic and constructive. The message is consistent: every choice we make, from the food we buy to the channels we watch to the history we do or dont preserve, has consequences. Our standards can be higher, she says, despite the many forces that seem to corrode them.