Virtual Song Village Sampler — May 17th, 2020
Hello Friends!
Below you will find the Zoom replay from our time together, as well as links you can follow in order to stay connected to our song leaders.
You are welcome to sing and share these songs, AND it has been requested that you reach out to the original composer for their blessing. Please carry our song babies with care. Each song leader will have different requests about their songs.
Virtual Song Village Sampler Zoom Replay:
Here’s info about your song leaders: (in the order they appeared at our event)
Heather Houston — (Santa Cruz) Heather is passionate about uplifting hearts, freeing voices, transforming lives and building strong, loving communities through the power of singing. Heather spreads her magic through her 20+years of international song circle leading, her private vocal coaching, her 40-voice women’s choir Yala Lati, and her online programs: The Art of Mindful Singing and Sisters in Harmony Song and Chant Leader Training. Please join the growing movement of women song carriers on Monday nights for our Sisters in Harmony Global Song Circles with guest song leaders! Her Sisters of the Moon, Prayers for the Water, and SIRENZ albums are all available on the streaming platforms. Here’s the link to the the song she shared: Tending the Spark
Tim Hartnett — (Santa Cruz) Tim is a songwriter and primary instigator of Song Village. His band, Just Love, has recorded four CDs of sweet/vulnerable/spiritual songs. You can hear some at the Just Love website.
Amy Cooper — (Santa Cruz) Amy is lead singer for the band, Just Love, and co-creator of Song Village. You can hear Amy sing at JustLoveBand.com
Debbie Nargi-Brown — (Santa Cruz) For over 3 decades, Debbie Nargi-Brown has been leading dancing and singing in Santa Cruz, CA and beyond; teaching African-inspired dance classes, leading community sings as well as facilitating retreats and workshops. She writes songs for the heart, for healing, for transformation, for love, for grief, and for all those things that connect us as human beings. To get on her email list/newsletter go to debbienargi-brown.com or contact [email protected] . Free 30 minute Zoom sings on Sunday 5 – 5:30 PST May 24th & May 31st, email Debbie for the link. Here is the link to the song she shared, Oh Grief, Oh Joy! https://soundcloud.com/debbie-
Amanda West — (Felton) Amanda is a singer, songwriter, song circle leader, music teacher, and mother. She is also co-founder of Womb Song U.S., an organization that supports women into motherhood through music. She understands music to be a part of our human birthright, playing an essential role in our experience of being alive. She has found her life path and greatest joy through sharing music with others. https://amandawest.com Here is the link to the song she shared: “You’ll Find Your Way” Upcoming Events: Summer Solstice Community Sing & Ritual on Saturday June 20th @10am PST ; Summer Womb Song session (singing into Motherhood) Saturdays, June 27th – July 25th.
Laura Sandage — (Davis) Laura Sandage is a songwriter, performer, and ancestral healing practitioner. Director of the Free Range Singers and an arts-in-community leader for 20+ years, she has the power to invoke the magical potency of song-as-ritual, as well as the presence and humor to invite singers into intimate connection with self and other through song and celebration. https://laurasandage.com Here’s a link to the song she shared: “Relational Grace”
Lisa G. Littlebird — (Monterey) Lisa facilitates group singing circles as a transformational personal practice, healing art, and to build community. She directs the 150-member Wholehearted Chorus in Big Sur & Monterey, and has been on the faculty at Esalen Institute for more than a decade. https://thebirdsings.com
Sara Stutz — (Berkeley) Sara Stutz grew up singing in a musical family, studied music in college and eventually became a pediatric physical therapist, using song and dance to engage and encourage clients. Along the way, Sara has performed and co-directed musical theater, light opera, and garage bands and is currently thrilled to sing and help co-lead songs in The Living Room Choir, an Ubuntu choir directed by Katie Ty Warren in El Cerrito, CA. https://thelivingroomchoir.com
Karly Loveling — (Eugene, OR) Karly Loveling has a passion f
Copperwoman — (Sebastopol) Copperwoman was born to sing! Her most passion-filled moments are when she finds herself surrounded by a group of people singing with her. She “catches” songs that emerge out of the energy and common experiences of our growing beings. They inspire us with wisdom and insights and rise from a place of core connection. She has been gathering people to sing for decades, around campfires and singing gatherings that she calls CircleSong. https://www.copperwoman.com
Kaitie Ty Warren — (Oakland) Kaitie Ty Warren is a songleader, teacher, writer, and performer. Passionate about waking people up to their joyful potential in body, voice, and harmony, Kaitie is dedicated to creating safe, communal spaces for humans of all ages to play and get silly together while creating beautiful music. She teaches speech for people with Parkinson’s, directs The Living Room Choir, teaches voice lessons, and writes, records and performs music, prose, and audiobooks. https://thelivingroomchoir.com
Roberta Kirn — (Vineyard Haven, MA) Roberta Kirn is a song leader, percussionist, and dancer who has been leading community singing for over 20 years. She is the founder of BeWellSing, through which she brings singing in community to as many people as she can. Her most important teachers have been Ysaye Barnwell and Bobby McFerrin. Roberta has traveled to Haiti, Africa, and Europe as part of her Song Exchange Project, teaching and collecting songs to share at home and wherever she travels. https://www.bewellsing.com
Kira Seto — (Bend, OR) Kira stepped into songleading timidly in 2017 on the Big Island out of a deep yearning to find and create singing community. She’s traveled the west coast the past couple of years, jumping in to sing wherever possible with an array of inspiring songleaders and learning about the trade along the way. Earlier this year, she completed songleader Flight School with Lisa G. Littlebird. Kira is hooked on the “frisson” of voices weaving together in resonance and leads in hopes to give others the chance to find joy, belonging, release, and beauty through song. Kira and Ian connected at Singing Alive in 2019 and have been collaborating ever since. They now co-lead Open Hub Singing in Bend, OR, a weekly non-audition aural tradition singing group. To join the Open Hub email list/newsletter go to https://www.openhubsinging.
Ian Carrick — (Bend, OR) An instrumentalist and songwriter from Bend, Oregon, Ian fell in love with community singing and exploratory voice work in the Midwest. These soulful endeavors initiated him into deeper personal healing. His journey towards wholeness has been a vocal journey all the way. In 2016 he graduated from Barbara McAfee’s Full Voice Coaching program and founded Open Hub Singing, a regional community choir in his homeland of Central Oregon. Today Ian composes original aural tradition music, brings voice and singing workshops across the region, co-leads grief ceremonies locally, and is deeply committed to (messily) addressing whiteness, patriarchy and other systems that keep us all down.
MaMuse — (Sonoma County) Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker are MaMuse: Ma as in Mamma ~ Muse as in the One who inspires. With deep roots in the folk and gospel traditions, and their hearts in the present, MaMuse creates uplifting music for the next seven generations to thrive on. Interweaving brilliant and haunting harmony with lyrics born of honed emotional intelligence, MaMuse invokes a musical presence that inspires the opening of the heart. http://www.mamuse.org
Laurence Cole — (Port Townsend, WA) Laurence Cole has been leading song circles at various song gatherings and festivals for many years across North America. He is an advocate for the reclaiming of our natural right to sing together as a most basic and primal technology of belonging and connection. In a wounded culture of separation, we can regain the enlivening power of group singing using only what we came in with: our hearts, our souls, our voices, our love. http://www.laurencecole.com