SUMMER 2009

Watching the Pacific Ocean from my perch on the front lanai of my little plantation house at Leo Nani (Beautiful Singing Farm). Wow, that is a great and true first sentence. I can hardly believe it is me saying this, but here I am and grateful to be.
In the last year, my partner Janne and I left our beloved house, the community and land of Point Reyes, dear California and one another in the knowledge that it was the right move and that she and I would be back together in the months ahead.

On January 1, 2009 we flew with our three senior kitties to the Big Island of Hawaii and began to take over the house and land we bought during 2008 with the help of two music-loving personal angels. I stayed for ten days while we ripped up carpets and visioned the color scheme and made plans to set this sweet house back in order.

Then I left Janne here with her young, strong nephew and took off for Boston. I am now an Associate Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music and happily so. There are students from all over the world, great faculty and world-class resources in all areas of contemporary music.
I chose to live outside of the city in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about one hour by train out to the coast where I can see ocean and tidal river out my windows. I rented a little house there and settled in for New England winter. It was lonely and cold without my family of Janne and the kitties, but then I knew it would be. Janne was having her own winter with torrential rains in Hawaii and caring for those same senior kitties I was missing. As always, dear friends helped Janne and I both to find our way through this period of separation and huge change. We are forever grateful.

All this in the name of believing in our dream of creating a sustainable farm/music and healing center on our 8 1/2 acres. There is huge work ahead of us to bring the soil back from years of sugar cane mono-crop farming and get trees, ponds and crops going. The house is now in good shape, and I love living here with the ocean below us and Mauna Kea above us. What a great contrast to Gloucester and city life teaching at Berklee. How can I be so blessed!

We hope to welcome guests and students by 2010. Be sure to stay tuned if you would like to come here or know more about the center and the farm. We are part of a 501C3 (a non-profit organization) with our Hawaiian partners who share this vision with us. It feels so right to be part of this group that has a collective dream of a sustainable future.

And Hawaii herself is so kindly welcoming us with incredible summer weather and this benevolent earth-based culture that has drawn me here over and over for 25 years. The local farmers are sharing their wisdom with us as well as keiki (baby) plants and their abundant local fruit. Lucky us.

Suzanne d'Coney continues to be my manager from her perch in Point Reyes. It is 15 years now for the two of us as a team. Together we are organizing the sessions for this second year of All The Way In, my year-long vocal improvisation training intensive.

WeBe3 had a wildly successful tour of Europe in May/June with team-teaching and great performances ending with d'Off Festival in Montreal where we had three standing ovations during the performance. We have found some new and rich terrain in our improvised work together. There were also public marathon Circle Singing gatherings in Locarno, Liestal and Amsterdam, as well as great work with a young international choir in Munich called One World Projekt. We felt like we met many more singing soulmates on this tour. I am thrilled to continue working with my music brothers, David Worm and Joey Blake.

In March of 2009 I recorded a totally improvised album with Abraham Laboriel, Alex Acuña and Otmaro Ruiz in Los Angeles at a great sound stage studio with a live audience. I hope to mix this summer in Hawaii and release the audio album and dvd in the next months. It was a very rich and magical experience with these three stunning instrumentalists.

My book, The Vocal River, is close, very close. As soon as I finish this letter, I plan to get back on it. I am completely enthusiastic to get it done and published. I have this sense of finishing many aspects of my work and opening the doors to the next chapters.

I continue my annual teaching at Hollyhock, Cortes Island in August and at Hale Kai, Big Island in January. There are only a couple of spots left in each of them. Please come and join me at one of these magical places. Now that I am teaching at Berklee and living in Hawaii, I am only able to teach at a these few special places. I hope to see you at one of them. It means so much to keep my contact with all of you in the music.

With Barack as our new American president, I know that many of us have the sense that we can begin new chapters in our lives and in the world. There are certainly hard times all around, but a profound calling to prioritize and leave fear behind as we make the changes necessary to dream the planet into the future.

May these dreams come abundantly true in your lives.
Mei ke aloha,
Rhiannon