Singing with friends can make you feel on top of the world!
Choral singing has been one of the great joys in my life, from my start in the Kennedy Jr. High Chamber Singers to the Vocal Art Ensemble I sing with currently.
The choirs I am leading now are a way to offer that joy to everyone around me.
In the fall of 2011, I attended the Community Choir Leadership Training program, led by Shivon Robinsong and Denis Donnelly, in Victoria, B.C. Katie Henry came with me. We studied what it means to lead community choruses where all voices are welcome, where singing is treated as a natural birthright, not a privileged gift of the talented few. We explored methods to help pitch-challenged singers and ways to build a sense of emotional safety in a group that may include people previously wounded in musical or religious settings. We sang many, many wonderful songs.
The Free Range Singers and the Yolo Youth Choir are a part of what I now think of as Singing For All-- my multi-pronged enterprise that includes classes beyond these choirs, such as Music Theory Empowerment, Word Silence Song, and Laughter, Pleasure, and Fun, Oh, My! These offerings are, in turn, part of a larger movement afoot in the world-- a movement toward community in song: simple, human, low-tech, high-reward. For more information about this broader community, check out:
Natural Voice Practitioners Network