Download high-resolution photos for print

Rhiannon is a vocal artist with a vision of music as a vehicle for innovation, healing, transformation, and social change. A vibrant, gifted singer, performance artist, composer, and master teacher, Rhiannon has been bringing her unique and potent blend of jazz, world music, improvisation and storytelling to audiences for over three decades. From her stellar collaborations with the all-women’s jazz ensemble Alive! to a cappella ensemble SoVoSo’ to Bobby McFerrin and Voicestra to her ground breaking solo and ensemble performances, Rhiannon enthralls and inspires her audiences. The unique body-based vocal improvisation and sound healing process that she teaches internationally is a result of living in these times as an artist on the cutting edge of music and theater. 

Rhiannon’s journey began on a South Dakota farm and later took her to New York, where she studied theater and earned her MFA from Cornell University. For the next ten years, she worked as a singer, actor and director in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Her richly expansive and experimental vocal style is greatly influenced by her early life on the wide, wild prairie, the vibrant musical cultures of the cities she spent time in, and the natural beauty of coastal northern California, her home of many years.

In addition to her ongoing solo performing and recording career, and her current ensemble projects, Rhiannon enjoys a longtime musical collaboration with vocal improvisation master Bobby McFerrin. Since 1986 she has been a member of his 12 voice orchestra, Voicestra. In 1997 Rhiannon recorded "Circlesongs" with Bobby, and has been a featured soloist on annual U.S. and European Voicestra tours.

Rhiannon's love of music, theater and the unexpected has resulted in collaborations with poets, storytellers, performance artists, ritualists, visual artists and dancers around the world. These include composing and performing a solo a cappella score for San Francisco's acclaimed dance company ODC and choreographer, Brenda Wey; a commissioned score for Maya Angelou's historic inaugural poem "On the Pulse of the Morning," and ongoing teaching and performance with Ruth Zaporah, renowned founder of Action Theater. Rhiannon has also created a solo performance piece, " Toward Home", presented in improvisational theater, monologue and song. Portions of this show were recorded on Rhiannon's CD of the same title. " Toward Home" continues to be refined and offered as a theatrical production, and is currently in development as a film.

For many years Rhiannon has been on the cutting edge of vocal improvisation and performance art. She has appeared at Monterey Jazz Festival, Montreaux Jazz Festival, Vancouver International Folk Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, The Restless Gravity Festival (Wales), The Festival of Romance (New Zealand) and many others.

Rhiannon currently performs completely improvised concerts with 2 brilliant instrumental trios - one on each coast of the U.S. - as well as with WeBe3, a unique and compelling a cappella ensemble with fellow Voicestra members Joey Blake and David Worm. They released their first CD in May 2008, "WeBe3 Live and Improvised: World Tour 2007".

Teaching has been a strong and continual theme in Rhiannon’s professional life. For the past 35 years she has taught her own unique vocal improvisation process in music conservatories, colleges, universities, retreat centers and master classes produced by RhiannonMusic. In 2008 Rhiannon initiated a year long course, All the Way In, as a certification process to train singers in her method. In the fall of 2008 Rhiannon joins the faculty of Berklee College of Music in Boston as Associate Professor of Vocal Studies. In addition to her own workshops, she has taught collaboratively with Ysaye Barnwell, Joey Blake, Keith Terry, Frank Martin, Ruth Zaporah and Marion Rosen. In October 2000 Rhiannon released "Flight: Rhiannon's Interactive Guide to Vocal Improvisation". This unique 2 CD package is the realization of her vision to provide singers and musicians a learning experience that is challenging, engaging and joyful. Rhiannon is currently completing her first book, The Vocal River, The Skill and Spirit of Improvisation.

Rhiannon is deeply interested in the relationship between music and healing. In 1994 through 1997 she went to the Balkan region and India where she participated in social change programs for refugees and for the Ganges River that included music and improvisation. After decades of exploration in her performances, teaching, and personal life, Rhiannon continues to study the healing properties of sound. Initially supported by the San Francisco-based Institute for Health and Healing and with a seed grant from Marin Arts Council, Rhiannon has brought her experience and her gifts to hospital, hospice and home settings.