tag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:/blogs/news-from-rhiannon?p=13News From Rhiannon2024-02-14T11:30:58-06:00rhiannonfalsetag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/73511982024-02-14T11:30:58-06:002024-02-14T11:39:32-06:00THE MURMURATION PROJECT<p><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);">FEBRUARY 2024</span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);">In the spirit of inclusivity and full disclosure, I want to introduce the Murmuration Project.</span></p><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">For the last eight years or so I have been including Murmuration work whenever I teach Vocal River classes.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">They became intertwined for me, one leading to the other and magnifying each another.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The Vocal River forms are the musical small ensemble vocal improvisation pieces from my book with shared leadership at the core.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Murmuration is the name for the way Starlings move in the sky by hundreds and thousands as they float and fly in incredible formations that disappear and reappear. Dancers who call this flocking led the way in understanding how humans can mimic the beauty of nature.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">This work has always been collaborative and meant to grow and evolve as it spreads around the world.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I love these forms which continue to evolve and new ones come into being because of all of you who invent and share your ideas.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I am grateful to be acknowledged for my contributions as I continue to acknowledge the creators who have shared with me; singers, dancers, instrumentalists, actors. My desire is that we endlessly evolve this work, it is improvisation after all, while honoring the lineage that gives it breadth and depth.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">As I began to see the possibilities of adding Murmuration as connective tissue in performance, I saw that the Vocal River forms could move from one to the other in a seamless, theatrical kind of way. </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">In fall of 2023, Margie Gillis, choreographer and famed solo dancer from Montreal, and I decided to test the magic by bringing 28 singers who had all trained with me in my All The Way In year long vocal improvisations study. We worked in studio five hours a day for two weeks to imagine how to create a kind of immersion going from one idea, one movement, one vocal line, adding physical dimension that shape shifts, musical rhythms, harmonies, bass lines, percussion, syncopation, supporting lines, solos and language, and then segue for an hour so that the whole creation becomes a piece.</div><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/3820/d167e3d88fcd59d3910e9c1a5241180cff9f106b/original/image20231109153010.png/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">It was very difficult to choose only 28 people but even at that, I had gone from rational to wildly hopeful that these 28 could blend and make music together. I wanted this group to be international, culturally diverse, age diverse, body diverse. I had to leave out names. Maybe you were one of them. My apologies because inclusion is meant to be built into this work and yet I had to draw boundaries so that we could go in depth. I know the word travels that this Murmuration work is going on. I want to talk with you all about it so that you understand this first study was just the beginning. There is so much more to come. The door is open if you are interested.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Margie Gillis and I are making plans to teach a five day session in Montreal next fall to deepen the process and allow more singers to enter and dancers as well. I sense that for me, this is the next big wave of work that follows The Vocal River. I intend that people can study both Vocal River and Murmuration as forms for collective music making that gets its grace and depth from the body.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Performance is not the only aspect of Murmuration. There are plans for social change and healing work ensembles. More to come.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I also believe that there will be other chosen murmuration ensembles around the world. That is part of the exploration. If you can find local collaborators, it is much easier to work together live, find festivals, create festivals and move this beautiful work forward in the way that we do things which is to share information and trust there is enough for all.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Much love in all you do, in all we share. Dream on singers.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div>Rhiannon</div></div>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/73511972024-02-14T11:30:57-06:002024-02-14T11:30:58-06:00THE MURMURATION PROJECT<p><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);">FEBRUARY 2024</span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);">In the spirit of inclusivity and full disclosure, I want to introduce the Murmuration Project.</span></p><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">For the last eight years or so I have been including Murmuration work whenever I teach Vocal River classes.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">They became intertwined for me, one leading to the other and magnifying each another.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The Vocal River forms are the musical small ensemble vocal improvisation pieces from my book with shared leadership at the core.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Murmuration is the name for the way Starlings move in the sky by hundreds and thousands as they float and fly in incredible formations that disappear and reappear. Dancers who call this flocking led the way in understanding how humans can mimic the beauty of nature.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">This work has always been collaborative and meant to grow and evolve as it spreads around the world.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I love these forms which continue to evolve and new ones come into being because of all of you who invent and share your ideas.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I am grateful to be acknowledged for my contributions as I continue to acknowledge the creators who have shared with me; singers, dancers, instrumentalists, actors. My desire is that we endlessly evolve this work, it is improvisation after all, while honoring the lineage that gives it breadth and depth.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">As I began to see the possibilities of adding Murmuration as connective tissue in performance, I saw that the Vocal River forms could move from one to the other in a seamless, theatrical kind of way. </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">In fall of 2023, Margie Gillis, choreographer and famed solo dancer from Montreal, and I decided to test the magic by bringing 28 singers who had all trained with me in my All The Way In year long vocal improvisations study. We worked in studio five hours a day for two weeks to imagine how to create a kind of immersion going from one idea, one movement, one vocal line, adding physical dimension that shape shifts, musical rhythms, harmonies, bass lines, percussion, syncopation, supporting lines, solos and language, and then segue for an hour so that the whole creation becomes a piece.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">It was very difficult to choose only 28 people but even at that, I had gone from rational to wildly hopeful that these 28 could blend and make music together. I wanted this group to be international, culturally diverse, age diverse, body diverse. I had to leave out names. Maybe you were one of them. My apologies because inclusion is meant to be built into this work and yet I had to draw boundaries so that we could go in depth. I know the word travels that this Murmuration work is going on. I want to talk with you all about it so that you understand this first study was just the beginning. There is so much more to come. The door is open if you are interested.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Margie Gillis and I are making plans to teach a five day session in Montreal next fall to deepen the process and allow more singers to enter and dancers as well. I sense that for me, this is the next big wave of work that follows The Vocal River. I intend that people can study both Vocal River and Murmuration as forms for collective music making that gets its grace and depth from the body.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Performance is not the only aspect of Murmuration. There are plans for social change and healing work ensembles. More to come.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I also believe that there will be other chosen murmuration ensembles around the world. That is part of the exploration. If you can find local collaborators, it is much easier to work together live, find festivals, create festivals and move this beautiful work forward in the way that we do things which is to share information and trust there is enough for all.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Much love in all you do, in all we share. Dream on singers.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div>Rhiannon</div></div>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/73401862024-01-25T17:38:31-06:002024-01-25T17:38:32-06:00JAN 2023 ALL THE WAY IN 2024<p><span style="color:rgb(5,5,5);">Jan. 22, 2024</span><br><span style="color:rgb(5,5,5);">Today begins the 15th All The Way In. 2024. We are at the farm, Leo Nani, Hawaii Island. 20 singers and 2 co-pilots. Joy, excitement and tenderness along with some fast beating hearts. More photos to follow but if you have been to the farm you know we start at the ahu everyone bringing some plant family and the day ended at the Hakalau market down the hill where we Circle Sang and brought some joy, bought some food and met the local Ohana. Feels very good. Very promising. Of we go. Mahalo for thinking of us, singing our prayers.</span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(5,5,5);"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/3820/442a41c3f1d364d003abd04e293e1e20775e70de/original/422333701-10160510958284678-2324716560767882805-n.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></span></p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/72754412023-09-18T22:42:12-05:002023-10-16T09:51:19-05:00SEPT. 2023<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">After a beautiful spring tour in Italy and Switzerland as well as a return to the bliss of Cortes Island and Hollyhock, I was ready for the international improvisation community of Circle Songs School with Bobby McFerrin in San Francisco at Grace Cathedral. Amazing global faculty and strong and ready singers from around the world. Then I spent three days in studio with Julie Wolf who is producing a cd I hope to release by 2024. We recorded 4 songs as well as a whole bunch of WeBe3 live improvisations.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Whew! What a blessing to live in these various music communities. Thank you all for your visions.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I have been home on the farm on Hawaii Island for 5 weeks soaking up time with Janne. Every day is precious.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I am now gathering my energy to travel one more time this year. I’ll be in Montreal for 4 weeks which is also precious.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Margie Farmer will post a complete list of the projects there which include singing a live score for Margie Gillis and her legacy dancers in a production of Pull of the Seasons which we premiered last fall. </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Then All The Way In session three with final performance, and a new endeavor called The Murmuration Project involving 26 singers joining me and Margie Gillis to innovate and rehearse body and voice in a continuous flow using Vocal River forms and the irresistible pull of murmuration. We learn it from the starlings, from schools of fish, from the many animal communities who move together in dazzling shapes and all the while we are singing.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Then I’ll go to NYC to work with Laurence Hobgood my dear pianist friend who is a mighty professor on that instrument. We are preparing some tracks to add to the album. A concert at the new Shapeshifter Lab space in Brooklyn on October 12, 2023, and a workshop on Oct 14th.. Please come if you can.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">I finish this tour in Guelph, Ontario. You may not have heard of it but it seems to be a vortex for creative artists with an institute dedicated to the study of improvisation in many aspects of life. I am happy to meet Guelph after hearing so much. </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Then I come home to fall on the farm. Lots of harvesting avocados, mangos, lilikoi, ulu, coffee and cacao.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">
<div> </div>
<div>What I observe this summer is event after event, catastrophe after catastrophe of weather conditions; floods, fires, hurricane winds. I would call it climate change but embedded in that phrase is the knowledge that these catastrophes were put in place many years ago by colonial, patriarchal thinking; using up resources, changing habitat without regard to the future, using water, air, land and working people as commodities rather than the precious relations that they are. Now we are feeling and seeing the effects. On Maui which is just one ocean channel away, Lahaina has been burned to the ground. Difficult to imagine how lives lost, jobs lost, schools lost, community lost will ever recover, but new ideas must lead the way. Not rebuilding the same but rebuilding with real affordable housing, gardens for the community, options to create a livable reality for people. Multiply this by all the places on earth suffering. We remember we are all in relation no matter where we are.</div>
</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">The music is part of this healing, this change. Please find a community to sing with, sing to. Go out into nature and sing to her.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;">Thank you for your lives and your musical passion.</div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> </div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);color:rgb(34, 34, 34);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div>Rhiannon<br>Hakalau, HI<br>Living on the farm-Singing in the world<br><a class="no-pjax" href="http://www.rhiannonmusic.com/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.rhiannonmusic.com&source=gmail&ust=1695180691847000&usg=AOvVaw06UzWiTvc5u-B1qUWbqHym">www.rhiannonmusic.com</a>
</div></div>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/72705762023-09-08T15:27:52-05:002023-09-08T15:52:42-05:00THE PULL OF THE SEASONS<div class="gdlr-top-info" style='-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 71, 253);border-color:rgb(255, 71, 253);border-width:0px;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(63, 64, 63);font-family:"Work Sans", sans-serif;font-size:15px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;outline:0px;padding:21px 30px;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;'><div class="gdlr-core-infos " style="background-color:transparent;border-color:rgb(255, 71, 253);border-width:0px;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(255, 71, 253);margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;">
<span style="color:rgb(255,255,255)!important;">10 September 2023 20:00 </span><br><span style="color:rgb(255,255,255)!important;">TCKETS </span><a class="no-pjax" href="https://placedesarts.com/en/event/la-maree-des-saisons-margie-gillis" target="_blank" data-link-type="url"><span style="color:rgb(255,255,255)!important;">https://placedesarts.com/en/event/la-maree-des-saisons-margie-gillis</span></a>
</div></div><div class="gdlr-core-content-wrap" style='-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);border-color:rgb(255, 71, 253);border-width:0px;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(63, 64, 63);font-family:"Work Sans", sans-serif;font-size:15px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;outline:0px;padding:35px 30px;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;'>
<h3><a class="no-pjax" href="https://quartiersdanses.com/en/event/the-pull-of-the-seasons-margie-gillis/">The Pull of the Seasons | Margie Gillis</a></h3>
<div class="gdlr-core-infos gdlr-bottom-info" style="background-color:transparent;border-color:rgb(255, 71, 253);border-width:0px;box-sizing:inherit;color:rgb(255, 71, 253);margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;vertical-align:baseline;"><span>Studio-Theatre of Grands Ballets Canadiens | Édifice Wilder</span></div>
<div class="et_pb_section et_pb_section_0 et_section_regular" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255);border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Lato, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif;font-size:17px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:500;letter-spacing:normal;margin:0px;orphans:2;outline:0px;padding:0px 0px 1px;position:relative;text-align:start;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-size-adjust:100%;text-transform:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"><div class="et_pb_row et_pb_row_1 et_pb_equal_columns" style="background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;display:flex;font-size:17px;margin-bottom:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-top:50px !important;max-width:800px;outline:0px;padding:0px 25px !important;position:relative;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;width:800px;"><div class="et_pb_column et_pb_column_4_4 et_pb_column_1 et_pb_css_mix_blend_mode_passthrough et-last-child" style="-webkit-box-ordinal-group:2;background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;float:left;font-size:17px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px !important;margin-top:0px;min-height:1px;mix-blend-mode:unset !important;order:1;outline:0px;padding:0px;position:relative;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;width:750px;z-index:2;">
<div class="et_pb_module et_pb_text et_pb_text_1 et_pb_text_align_left et_pb_bg_layout_light" style="animation-duration:0.2s;animation-timing-function:linear;background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;font-size:17px;line-height:1.8em;margin:0px;outline:0px;overflow-wrap:break-word;padding:25px !important 0px 0px;position:relative;text-align:left;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;"><div class="et_pb_text_inner" style="background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:17px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;position:relative;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;"><p><span>The Pull of the Seasons “</span><i><span>We are all Nature</span></i><span>” – Margie Gillis.</span></p></div></div>
<div class="et_pb_module et_pb_text et_pb_text_2 et_pb_text_align_left et_pb_bg_layout_light" style="animation-duration:0.2s;animation-timing-function:linear;background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;color:rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;font-size:17px;line-height:1.8em;margin:0px;outline:0px;overflow-wrap:break-word;padding:0px;position:relative;text-align:left;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;"><div class="et_pb_text_inner" style="background-color:transparent;border-width:0px;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:17px;margin:0px;outline:0px;padding:0px;position:relative;text-size-adjust:100%;vertical-align:baseline;">
<p>In this playful and boisterous new work, Margie Gillis celebrates Nature. A call from the heart to her home province of Quebec, where each season unfolds fiercely, each one more vibrant than the next and shaping who we are. Add into the mix, a long and fruitful collaboration with renowned improvisational singer Rhiannon. Working between their homes in Montreal and Hawaii, Margie also drew her inspiration from ‘Big Island’. Here Nature is personified and honored. Pele, the Goddess of volcanoes, dance, and fire, and creator of the Islands, is the symbol of life. And so, this joyful, angry, fragile, formidable, loud, and precious piece was born.</p>
<p><span>Nature is embodied by 10 dancers and an improvisational singer; all flying and flowing through the stage to offer us both a delicate and rambunctious, dazzling landscape.</span></p>
<p><span>An ode to life and to Nature in all its dimensions, where wit and audacity come together in a poignant performance.</span></p>
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<p><span style="color:rgb(214,59,59);"><strong>CHOREOGRAPHER</strong></span><br><strong>Margie Gillis</strong><br>in collaboration with the performers</p>
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<p><i><span><strong>Music (composition)</strong> </span></i><span>: Rhiannon (recorded and improvisational)</span></p>
<p><i><span><strong>Singer on stage </strong></span></i><span>: Rhiannon</span></p>
<p><i><strong>Costumes :</strong></i> <span>Sonya Bayer</span><br><br><i><strong>Lights :</strong> </i>Pierre Lavoie</p>
<p><i><strong>Portrait :</strong></i> <span>Damian Siqueiros</span></p>
<p><i><strong>Aknowledgements :</strong> </i><br><span>Louise Lapierre Danse, Springboard Danse Montréal, l’Église Saint-Mark d’Acton Vale</span></p>
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<p><span style="color:rgb(214,59,59);"><span><strong>DANCERS</strong></span></span><br><span><strong>Geneviève Boulet, Alexandra Caron, </strong></span><strong>Caitlin Griffin, Tessa Rae Kuz, Ruth Naomi Levin, Hoor Malas, Kyana Lyne, </strong><span><strong>Alisia Pobega.</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="color:rgb(214,59,59);"><span><strong>INFORMATION</strong></span></span><br>General Public<br>Duration: 60 minutes<br>Year of Creation: 2022<br> </p>
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</div>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/72400442023-07-11T11:54:01-05:002023-07-11T11:54:02-05:00THE WELL<p><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>The Well</strong> is a global network that supports and inspires vocal practice, collaboration, self-inquiry & human connection through the art of improvising music with the voice and body.</span></p><p><a class="no-pjax" href="https://thewellvocal.com/" target="_blank" data-link-type="url"><span style="color:hsl(0, 75%, 60%);"><strong>CHECK IT OUT!!!</strong></span></a></p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/71760782023-03-21T18:34:06-05:002023-03-21T18:34:06-05:00MARCH 2023<p>Winter, one for the books with snow like mountains and rain like rivers.</p><div>Janne and me in California for all of March in honor of her:</div><div>Photographic Retrospective from her years living in Point Reyes and documenting the community, <br>the land and the light.</div><div>So proud of her artistry. Grateful to hear people heaping praise on her skill, commitment and generosity.</div><div>They told her in a big circle at the opening at Toby’s Feed Barn Gallery that she was always there, her photographs of their children are the best, that she took risks, that her black and white photographs printed in her own darkroom back in the day have incredible depth and definition.</div><div>She had to take all this in. She could not escape from the room. I was right beside her as she has been for me over and over again.<br><br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/s:bzglfiles/u/3820/1fb489b588cbad8ed18bdbfdb4edd445d4ca9a44/original/mass-pe-jul6-banner3b.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></div><div> </div><div>Now the month continues with another Talk story on March 19. This time about connections to nature, so abundant and diverse out here in West Marin. Then Claire Peaslee and I will improvise on that same theme and who knows where that will go, but delicious no doubt.</div><div> </div><div>The final performance will be March 26 when Margie Gillis arrives from Montreal to dance in my voice. <br>We will be at the Dance Palace giving us a beautiful wood flood, big space and lots of light to remind us what is right outside. If you don’t know Margie Gillis, she is all over my website and in my heart space. What a thrill to work with Dame Margie. She comes in honor of Janne. So righteous. Don’t miss it.</div><div> </div><div>And in between we have been traveling the greater Bay Area to visit friends and family. Big distances. <br>Big relationships that need touching. I get to sing with Bobby and Motion on several Mondays at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. Great food. Some long awaited reunions for example with Holly Near at her tribute concert on International Women’s Day at the Freight where a bunch of us sang her songs and reveled in our herstories and that we keep coming back to one another deeper and better with time, and finally we will get to go to the stupendous beaches of West Marin. </div><div> </div><div>So never mind the wind and rain. Please join us as many times as you can. There is always something new to say if we get to meet more than once.</div><div>You know how it is when you have an evening meal and sit down with friends and then stay overnight and talk again in the morning or maybe two mornings. That is what we all deserve in these times of bad news and fears for the future. Solid love buoyed by stories, tears and belly laughs. </div><div>Courage to keep believing and working together. </div><div> </div><div>Bless the future and the children who I hope get to read these scribblings of love.<br>Rhiannon</div>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/70527382022-09-03T20:25:09-05:002022-10-19T08:11:58-05:00FALL, 2022<p>Preparing to go on tour for three weeks to Montreal, Italy and Germany. Both excited and curious. Music has guided me all my life so why not now. Trust for goodness sake. That and Janne who holds the farm, loves me and is her own artist. And of course Margie who orchestrates these tours and students and holds my music life together. That is how it is yah? Nothing is really done alone. We move in Murmuration. </p>
<p>Darya Yefremenko from Ukraine and Israel just posted a Murmuration of Storks, 1000 or more above Jerusalem. I kept wondering what the sound was up there amongst them? Is it really totally silent, beating of wings, conversation of cries? I will think about that in the airports of this tour, Murmurating toward my gate with all the people watching, lines for security, conversations, observations, watching for spaces, trying to glide and not bump. <br><br>“Keep breathing, it’s the most important part. <br>You kick……and then you glide. <br>You kick…….and then you glide. <br>It’s all in the rhythm, all in the rhythm, all in the rhythm of the heart.” <br>Nina Wise </p>
<p>Meanwhile the gathering of the next All The Way In for 2023 is organizing through Margie. <br>We have Manuel and Cara as co-pilots. If you know them, you know how lucky to have them and have them together. Great skill and personality blending. They will be splendid. I’m sure of it. You can see their bios on rhiannonmusic website or on FB. I am thrilled. <br>I want to say as well that this All The Way In is a profound study of music, community, leadership, distributed leadership, shared leadership, collaborative leadership. Get the idea, we are in it to grow music, life generosity, community and joy. I love these sessions because we get in so far that I am constantly finding new ideas and exercises that I would not have found on my own. <br>That is essentially how I grew my musical life and my particular love of improvisation, I have good students who teach me and I get them to stay long enough, like a year in this case, so that we breathe together. The music grows. </p>
<p>For example Murmuration. It is an idea I had that because the birds made such beauty, grace and not bumping one another out of the sky, that perhaps humans might benefit from trying it in a spontaneous way. I learned from dancers who are often ahead of the curve and showed me their version of Murmuration. I thought it would be grand with sound as well as movement. <br>The only way this works is if there is enough time to get out there on the floor, try it, change groups, try it again, talk it over, try it with everyone. Leave it alone and come back days later. And then at the next session where magically, progress happens even though we are not together but homework, practice and integration is developing the singers so when we arrive it is as though we all grew and are meeting fresh but with trust to go deeper. <br>All The Way In has made ideas like Murmuration possible. Otherwise we couldn’t get far enough to believe in its value. <br>And Immersion, that is another one. We use Murmuration and all the Vocal River exercises and we go in for 45 minutes, no stopping, but of course pauses and silence to mark the way. These ideas happened through All The Way In. <br>Not sure how much longer I can commit to this year long process which is so musical, physical, emotional and spiritual. <br>It is a graduate degree in Vocal Improvisation and I mean that. <br>If you are thinking about All The Way In. Think NOW. </p>
<p>These times are escalating in so many ways. We all have to pursue our visions with ferocious passion and a kind of bliss that commits completely. <br>Back to packing because I am only doing carry on. Feel me? <br>Gotta decide what is essential. <br>In all ways. </p>
<p>Leo Nani Farms is going to be for sale very soon. Janne and I need to do other work, rest in each others arms and go exploring national parks. <br>We need farmers and artists to take on this beautiful settled farm with five acres still to grow into. <br>We want to continue living here in an apartment behind the music studio. Studio would be for use by me and others on the farm. <br>It would become yours when we pass on. <br>Such a deal. Such a big decision. Serious inquiries only.<br>Hawaii is wonderful and is many complicated things as well when you live here and begin to understand your place in this culture and on this beloved aina. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/55daafcf13a232af9891022af6a10dc2c7fcbded/original/leo-nani-farms-label-final-crop-2.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Steady on out into the world Rhiannon. <br>Steady on Janne, Floyd, Dillon and Kyra holding the farm. <br>May the wars end. The Democrats win and understand their kuleana (responsibility). <br>May the earth see how much we want to live and change so that we honor and care for her. <br>May music forever grow and hold connection, healing and bold invention. <br>A hui hou. <br>E ala E. </p>
<p>Rhiannon <br>Hakalau, HI <br>Living on the farm-Singing in the world <br>www.rhiannonmusic.com </p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/69750832022-05-19T13:51:18-05:002022-05-19T13:51:18-05:00SPRING 2022<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/7d71a4515ed86036a5ac4ad57792ed6ec2ce8505/original/atwi-23-horiz-poster.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Dear singers,<br>I greet you in these unprecedented times with the challenge to sing the exalting power of music. <br>Especially spontaneous music, drawn from your experience, from your skills, from your lives. <br>I am more determined than ever to gather groups of singers, knowing that the power intensifies when we collaborate. <br>The All The Way In annual program is especially potent because we meet for 11 days in 2 locations during the year. <br>There is time to open slowly, study Vocal River exercises and concepts together, invent songs and immersive improvisations and then vision how to take this into each of your lives.. <br>All this in the company of other passionate singers from around the world. <br>This music work is an essential part of changing the world. <br>Especially when we do it together. <br>Please consider joining in 2023. No better time than now. <br>Urgent is the call to sing the soul of this fragile world. <br>Singing for our lives as Bobby says. <br>Joyous and transforming. </p>
<p>Rhiannon <br>Hakalau, HI <br>Living on the farm-Singing in the world <br>www.rhiannonmusic.com</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/68330812021-12-07T15:24:44-06:002022-04-11T08:31:49-05:00December 2021<p><strong>GREAT NEWS </strong><br>RHIANNON's NEW CD will be recorded in 2022 and 2023.</p>
<p>Rhiannon is diving into a project called <span style="color:#c0392b;"><strong>Stories.</strong></span> These are songs of hers, never before recorded or recorded with new instrumentation and arrangements. Also a couple of songs of Joni Mitchell that Rhiannon has in her repertoire - never been heard. </p>
<p>A note from Rhiannon: <br>"As singers we think a lot about lyrics, wanting them to express just what we feel. In this case these are songs I have long wanted to record but the situation hasn’t been right until now. Feels like a cinematic adventure singing these stories that mean so much to me, personal or worldly. I am completely excited." </p>
<p>We need to raise some serious money to accomplish our goals and we are seeking your support this December. A very generous anonymous donor has offered to double your donation up to $10,000 USD !! Your gift this December will go even further to help Rhiannon record. <br><strong>Very special thanks to our anonymous, generous donor. </strong></p>
<p>If you have any questions please contact Margie. </p>
<p>Wishing you all a healthy, happy and peaceful holiday season.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/67312562021-08-30T15:14:57-05:002021-08-30T15:53:47-05:00FALL 2021<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/25e388480d845f3a1dd2a5a90abb8564a9688d0a/original/dsc00629.jpg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJjb250ZW50LnNpdGV6b29nbGUuY29tIn0=/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Aloha to all of you. <br>I am in the healing process after two retinal eye surgeries. <br>Because this detachment was chronic, had been happening for some years, the reattachment is slow. <br>The retina wants to stay in the place it knows most recently so the task is to carefully and gently remind it how to return to its original nice curve in the back of my eye. <br>I feel confident in my surgical and healing team. I see them often. Lots of eye drops and need to rest although I can now do some work around the farm if I am careful. <br>I listen to pod casts as well as lots of eye healing meditative music. And, of course, the continuing face down to support healing whenever I can. <br> I am most eager to leave that behind, but for now, I will face plant. <br>So many of you have sung for me, offered suggestions about healing music and sent messages that mean the world to me. Thank you so much. <br>Please know that I fully intend to return to singing and teaching work in the fall. </p>
<p>I am laying low in August and beginning slowly in September to work online. <br>Please stay in touch with me or Margie with your questions but be assured that vocal improvisation classes with me will happen. I am very eager to meet online and even more to begin to return to live classes with all COVID protocols to make us safe. <br>The world needs music. We need music. <br>In fact it turns out, we are music. <br>I love you all. Miss you terribly. Be well and safe and vaccinated. <br>Prayers for our dear planet, all the emergencies going on especially Afghanistan, all the need to draw together, lay down our differences and heal.</p>
<p>Rhiannon</p>
<p> </p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/65246592021-01-19T05:16:54-06:002021-01-19T12:20:12-06:00January 2021<p>"Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King <br>and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. <br>Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together <br>in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. <br>We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. <br>We are bound and we are bound.” <br><strong>James Taylor Shed a Little Light </strong></p>
<p>And so it goes that this year, Martin Luther King Jr’s honoring day is proximate to the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. <br>Our prayers reach into the air so they can spread far and wide and somehow take in all humanity, all living beings. <br>There is an urgency to call these prayers wide and deep, to bring our hearts to their highest nature. <br>We must believe. Those of us living in the US. We must believe it is a blessing to start again with goals of equality and justice in all things. <br>And this goal goes out beyond borders. <br>This prayer reaches to the children and refugees seeking new life. <br>To all the countries of all the continents on earth. <br>To the land herself who needs our care. <br>To the original people of all lands who need recognition, support and honoring. <br>I wonder how we will manage this? <br>Can we possibly change direction and look to one another, the animals, the stars for wisdom? </p>
<p>Let the clouds lift so we see just where we are. <br>Face it. Change it for the better. <br>Protect the children and the earth. <br>Extend kindness without being asked, by surprise, generously. <br>Talk to the elements. <br>And the animals. <br>I can hear the Trade winds outside. <br>I am listening. <br>Feeling small, private, gratefully a part of everything alive. <br>Breathing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/crKDDS5D_os" width="560"></iframe></p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/64391312020-09-21T05:58:57-05:002021-01-19T05:21:45-06:00fall 2020 LIve from Tomales Bay<p> When I moved to Inverness in 1989 with a broken heart, I rented a house on stilts directly on Tomales Bay in West Marin. <br> Then over some months back in South Dakota, my mom grew sick with cancer and died with me and my sister at her side. That allowed a tenderness to emerge in that most intimate relationship. When I got back to my little house on the bay, my 19 year old cat Georgia died. <br> I lived alone then in that house down 39 steps from the road and began a healing that affected the rest of my life. <br> Didn’t know anyone yet so that first year was lonely and insightful. <br> The migrating birds out on the bay were my constant companions. The air was never really still but always astir with some wings. <br> I swam day and night in those magic waters and walked the shoreline with my new family of cats every day. <br> The human community there was farmers, fishermen, artists, craftspeople, workers and the brave souls who moved out to the country about an hour from San Francisco and the East Bay. <br> Some of the first organic farms in the US emerged from this culture. <br> Food was at the center of every gathering and the food was great. <br> Art, music, photography, writing all poured out because we were living in the midst of a National Seashore with forest, bay and ocean walks to put the breath into you. <br> I lived there for 20 wonderful years and in those years, I often performed at the Dance Palace which was the main arts venue along with Toby’s Feed Barn. <br> In 1996 I decided to arrange live recording sessions at the Dance Palace to celebrate the community, the return of my healthy body and soul, and the music that was written in those years, gleaned from jazz repertoire or improvisations from those evenings in front of the audience. <br> The room was packed with enthusiastic listeners who burst into song more often than you hear on this recording. Playing at the Dance Palace is an embedded memory as is Tomales Bay herself. Being so near the water, which is my home element, affected me radically. I healed in those waters, looking at that sky and those bare hills, in that holy environment. It was a powerful and blessed time. <br> This album went out of print some years back and is finally rediscovered and made available in digital format. <br> I offer it to you through the wonderful musicians who played with me, the audience, the crew of producer, engineer, designer, photographer, house and stage manager, friends and family, all that support and generosity, and the land and water that inspired all of us. <br><a contents="Live on Tomales Bay." data-link-label="Store" data-link-type="page" href="/store" style="" target="_blank"> Live on Tomales Bay.</a></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/72b9fedb3c1721b75501fd864192e9a57b5e6161/original/217t4pft0sl.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/ee523097276e17a60da3611baca5876e9716065d/original/img-5434.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /></p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/63188272020-05-16T06:55:14-05:002020-05-23T08:16:29-05:00May 2020 <p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/3820/ee523097276e17a60da3611baca5876e9716065d/original/img-5434.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" />painting by Ronald Dong, husband of Rhiannon's sister, Janet<br><br>In the ’90’s I lived in a very small cottage built on stilts at the edge of Tomales Bay in Northern California. Extending out onto the bay was a simple but elegantly long pier, a bit run down, my pathway to the water. The brackish water mixing the influx of the various fresh water creeks; Olema, Lagunitas, Millerton, feeding into the Bay, and the mighty Pacific flowing back and forth on the tides. <br>I swam eight or so months of the year, until the water went below 65 degrees and I found it painful. For me swimming is the essence of freedom, a bit weightless and these waters in particular were filled with so much life; reeds, fishes large and small, turtles, seaweed, jellyfish, seals, on and on. When water is vibrant like that, swimming in it becomes an immersion into life-force. Liquid life force. So to swim when it was painful took away the pure joy. I would wait for spring. <br>I loved first thing in the morning swims, mid day in the heat of it all swims, late afternoon swims as the sun lowered over the Inverness Ridge, but the best, the most potent, were the night swims. <br>Going farther and farther out from the pier until I could barely see the lights of my tiny house, I’d swim. When I was satisfied that I was truly out in the middle, out past good sense, I would lie on my back and watch the sky. I would imagine how safe I was, how dangerous this was, how much I wanted to lie here forever until I became a fish or better yet a seal, and swam out to sea. <br>The unknown below me in the depths of the water was terrifying, but exceeding that fear was the ecstasy of being part of the wild night, the tidal waters, the ebb and flow of life. If I stayed still enough, I could be invisible, my molecules dispersing. <br>How incredible to swim back home later and learn I still have legs, I can walk up the ladder onto the pier and reenter my human life. <br>I feel that when I improvise. That I am part of something huge and full of life. I try my best not to judge but just open wider until I am no longer just me, but a part of creation singing what I can in that moment. <br>Is it strange to think about this in the middle of this pandemic? <br>We are out so far from shore. We have so much to lose and yet to lie out here in the midst of all of this panic, separation, inequity, death, and to feel. What I don’t quite know, but feel intensely. The depth of terror, the weightlessness of time, the need to reinvent so we can continue out past what we know, become something else, and/or find our way home to our bodies. <br>To know how much we need one another and that we are all, all of us, deserving of visions and creative, generous, safe lives created by going deep inside our dreams. <br>Greed has no place here. <br>It is spring and nature is showing her generosity everywhere in the Northern hemisphere. Flowers, gardens, trees, mountain streams, desert bloom, warmth, rain, abundance. <br>Bless the best of what humans can be. Burn away the worst. Begin again. <br>Over and over again. <br>Sing.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/62767232020-04-08T20:16:26-05:002020-04-08T20:18:29-05:00spring 2020 ...from the farm <p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="GlcH_JtpZFo" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/GlcH_JtpZFo/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GlcH_JtpZFo?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/60604352020-01-04T16:45:13-06:002020-01-04T18:33:49-06:00January 2020<p>2019—Touring with Gimme5 and Bobby McFerrin, all over Europe, US, Canada. <br>In duo with Laurence Hobgood master pianist, eastern Australia. <br>With Margie Gillis queenly genius dancer, Montreal, Canada . <br>And my own teaching, reaching brave new levels of skill and commitment, me and my students. <br>Traveling the world in the company of brilliance and musical devotion. <br>These are all my friends. We would gladly spend time together anyway, but to have the music as the solace and gift, <br>How generous is the universe. </p>
<p>Rhiannon Music and Leo Nani Farms now a non profit—Tonal Grace. <br>New opportunities for scholarships and creative development for our community of improvisors. <br>Margie Farmer……..you rock. <br>Holding Rhiannon Music like your child. <br>Leo Nani Farms thriving with WWOOF staff, Floyd, Gnocchi, Cat Stevens, Buddha, Mio, cacao orchard, tea, turmeric, pineapples, sugar cane juice, all the tropical fruits, greens, and the amazing singing barn, Ha Lau Leo Nani. All of it more abundant each year. <br>All sounds so easy, not at all. And we are blessed. </p>
<p>Injustice and generosity. <br>Joy and endless grief. <br>Wealth and graphic poverty. <br>Guns. <br>Teachers appearing in all shapes and sizes. <br>The impeachment. The rain. The frogs at night. Winter Solstice. Fires, floods, hurricanes. <br>Children in war and locked up at the border. <br>Indigenous women gone missing and murdered. </p>
<p>Ku Kia’i mauna, protecting Mauna Kea from further development and in the process teaching levels of hula,<br>mele and Hawaiian culture unimagined since pre-western times. </p>
<p>All this, while brilliant minds invent strategies to transform plastic, clean the oceans, recycle everything, break down barriers, find solutions, work in community. <br>Maybe the next president of the US will be a team. <br>Don’t stop dreaming. <br>We mustn’t leave the children on their own. We let them know we are still beside them, believing. </p>
<p>"We are all just walking one another home.” Ram Dass.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/56905462019-03-23T07:36:32-05:002019-03-23T18:40:05-05:00Spring 2019<p>Over a year ago, Margie Farmer, my manager and I, decided to concentrate on creating a viable and enduring scholarship program for singers of color and working artists who want to study with me. We strive to support a diverse and world wide population. </p>
<p>Margie organized and announced the scholarship commitment as part of my 75th birthday celebration. </p>
<p>Oh yes what a celebration it always is to have multiple languages, cultures and ages in the room when we make music. <br>Thanks to all of you who contributed, we have made big strides in outreach, being able to offer scholarships and open the door to this improvisation work for many worthy singers. </p>
<p>This is how it looks so far in 2019: </p>
<p>In January, Carolyn Brandy’s Born to Drum came to Ha Lau Leo Nani for a week with her co-teachers and dear friends Mabiba Baegne from Congo and Ouida Lewis from Jamaica. The women who attended were able to study Afro-Cuban drumming and songs with Carolyn as well. I stepped in with Circle Singing and an arrangement for Yamaya which we combined with Carolyn’s traditional drum arrangement. <br>Hearing the maestra drummers talk about their years of study and the difficulties of being women wanting to play the drums of their culture, was an inspiration I won’t forget. We stood tall in their presence, grateful for their courage and persistence. In the midst of all that serious herstory, I have never been with women who laugh so big and open, and who play drums with amazing joy and skill. Kumu hula Ryan McCormack of Puna district offered a generous session on the drum traditions in Hawaiian music and hula. Important when bringing guests to Hawaii so that they understand the history and vibrant culture here. <br>At the end of the week, we offered a one day workshop festival for the local drummers on Hawaii Island ending in a concert with all students participating. This brought many new kama aina (local) people to Ha Lau Leo Nani. The Singing Barn was full and jamming. </p>
<p>All The Way In, my year long program for the study of Vocal River exercises and creating a life and work in vocal improvisation, always begins here at the farm. This year we were able to provide scholarship support to seven singers making a richly diverse group. We all felt from the first day that this broad reach of singers was compelling us to understand one another and the gifts each one was bringing. Beautiful collaborations are taking shape now for our second session in Perugia, Italy. </p>
<p>I must also report that we lost one of our All The Way In singers, Dominic Gregorio in an untimely death. Our hearts are shaken by his passing; brilliant professor, choir conductor, dancer and singer. A Filipino-Canadian of extraordinary talent, Dominic will be held in memory throughout the year and always, as he had already made a deep impact on the group. </p>
<p>Canoe Songs co-taught by Pura Fe of the Tuscarora Nation came to the farm in March. Five singers were given scholarships support so our gathering was rich and diverse once again. </p>
<p>Lucky us, we got to host Pura Fe and her husband Max of the Cree Nation in Canada. The two of them were wonderful guests on the farm in addition to the workshop. Fourteen lucky singers gathered each day to learn the songs that Pura Fe brings through her from her ancestors. Learning them by ear, direct from her was a privilege and joy. I offered the skills and intuition of improvisation. By the end of the week, I could feel how the two forms were flowing into one another. Completely gratifying to sense that the singers were taking in both the ancient wisdom of tribal song and the intuitive life force of improvisation. </p>
<p>Kekuhi Keali’ikanakaole, a treasured teacher and kumu hula from Hilo taught a session in which she helped us understand the process of canoe building from Hawaiian perspective and guided us in creating our own canoe song. That was my dream, to connect the canoe songs of Pura Fe and Hawaii. It was a beautiful realization, including one afternoon we were invited to join a canoe club at Hilo Bay and go out paddling with them while we sang the Tuscarora canoe songs. One evening Max organized a traditional sweat, including building a lodge of bamboo on our farm. We sang and sweated our prayers. <br>Having Pura Fe and Max as our guests for a week created a personal bond as well that I know will continue for all of us here on the farm. </p>
<p>In all three workshops there was a heightened awareness and conversation about social change and music, about diversity and strength, about protecting one another with our songs and prayers. </p>
<p> Now I prepare to head to NYC to sing four nights at the Blue Note with Bobby McFerrin and Gimme5. Later in April and again in July Gimme5 will tour Europe for the summer jazz festivals. We are all thrilled about these tours even though it means being away from home. This is something so special I would go anywhere! I experience these performances as a spiritual journey. Our life long friendships and diverse music skills make creating improvisational music a kind of revelation, and the audience participates all throughout the concert. We hope to see you out there in person at some performance. I love the conversations after the show and the opportunity to catch up with you worldwide. Throw me a kiss across the hall. Sing out loud from wherever you are. </p>
<p>In these grave times, I sense that music holds us like food, like the elements, like the connective tissue of life. <br>Thank you, mahalo nui loa, for your contributions to scholarship and your belief in this music work. </p>
<p>I am bowing in gratitude.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/55305392018-11-28T10:41:00-06:002018-11-28T19:23:27-06:00November 28, 2018<p>Everything is stark contrast. <br>Tour with Bobby McFerrin and Gimme5 taking us to wonderful European cities. <br>Grand opulence in the center of each city, with performances that are artistic, challenging and big learning about focus and the musical mind of Bobby. <br>And each one of us shining in our own creative ways. <br>Amplified by the emotional rollercoaster of the world. <br>f I start to name the particulars, heartbreaks, I crash</p>
<p>Blessing to be a singer. <br>The vibrations, the waves of sound have effect. <br>In that moment. <br>Let this be about that moment, how to extend the moment, the sensation, how to help in real ways. <br>Bring light. Send money. Talk with strangers. Stand up. Stand out. Be visible. Take the heat. Help.</p>
<p>Counting all the stars I can see. <br>Listening to the sound of the Mediterranean just below me. <br>Fires in California that are relentless. <br>Yemen in chaos of innocent souls dying from hunger. <br>Refugees at the border of the US in danger. <br>Children in prison camps. <br>On and on.</p>
<p>Now I lay me down to sleep. <br>I pray for rain soft and sweet, coming on and on until the fires go out. <br>And food for all who need. <br>Justice all around. All around. <br>Until lying becomes so wrong, so obvious that it is not tolerated. <br><br>Election results that keep bringing hope. Diversity. Women. Fight for all the votes to be counted.<br><br>There will be more disasters. We all know it. <br>In Estonia, they sang their folk music together, many thousands of them, while the music faced the war and turned history around. <br>How can we do this, here, now, everywhere? What would it take to be strong enough? How many of us? <br>If I sing does it help? <br>Can an improvisation crash against lies because it is in the present, it is spontaneous, because it is brave? <br>Inspired by the entity called music, the angels of music? </p>
<p>Every time I stand on stage empty and waiting for the music that wants to be sung, I feel gratitude to those angels. <br>When I stand on stage with Gimme5, we are each offering ourselves to the entity of music. <br>Doesn’t 5 make that offering even stronger? </p>
<p>Take us all to the water, to the dirt, to the fire, to the music that is everywhere. </p>
<p>We all breathe. </p>
<p>Blessings on us all, heading for Winter Solstice and the return of the light.<br>Rhiannon</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/51417552018-03-22T08:56:14-05:002018-03-22T10:05:48-05:00March 2018<p>In 1994 after I went to India with Fran Peavey and a group of social change activists and artists, Fran got the idea to take a group of women to the former Yugoslavia which was in the midst of a terrible war amongst the people and lands of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. </p>
<p>Old animosities, religious differences and borders could no longer be managed and war began to break the whole region apart. </p>
<p>It continued for some years with many deaths, massacres and genocides and brought about the break up of families and whole regions. </p>
<p>There is no way for me to express the complex nature of the conflict. Every side was tortured by this war. </p>
<p>Into this morass of difficulty came The Doves, this group of women, social change activists and artists once again. </p>
<p>We traveled through each country where we gave group workshops in refugee camps and did performances in cities where the evidence of war was everywhere. </p>
<p>We were sponsored and supported by a group called Women in Black, an internationally named group that was nonviolent and stood for peace in public squares and in all the other ways they could imagine. Incredibly brave women on every side of the conflict. </p>
<p>Our workshops were often quite large. The brokenness of the people was obvious, but they loved art of all kinds and were somehow able to arrive, participate, and brought their sadness, their stories, their songs, their dances, their drawings, their words, even their laughter. Surely we were given way more than we were able to give. Each workshop threw us into territory we had no way of understanding, but this human condition, the grave instability of the culture, was powerfully held by music, dance, theater, drumming, painting, all of that. </p>
<p>I will never forget how real these moments were. There was nothing to do but be present, not disappear into tragedy or fear. </p>
<p>If they could do it, surely we could too. </p>
<p>I can still see faces and remember certain moments of the group workshops where we all lifted out of misery into something whole. </p>
<p>The performances were often in burned out galleries or empty theaters. Every performance was packed. The eagerness of the people to experience artistic expression was enormous. It was like food. What an inspiration to realize how much they needed and loved art. How ancient was their connection to all these forms. We had this in common even though we could barely speak to one another across language. </p>
<p>Much of our performance was improvised. That was critical because who could understand this spontaneous work better than people who had been running for their lives, leaving everything behind. </p>
<p>I could barely take in what I was feeling. Our group tried each day to talk about it so we would stay connected, but sometimes that was difficult as our feelings were so raw it was challenging to communicate. </p>
<p>I wanted to ask everyone their story and I couldn’t bear to hear the details, all at the same time. </p>
<p>I can’t possibly say all that happened during this trip. I went twice to the region during those years. I am deeply grateful for those two journeys and for The Doves. </p>
<p>I think of those times often these days with so many wars, so many refugees, so many torn countries, such cruelty in our own government and division amongst the people. </p>
<p>We are all living with hope and hopelessness. </p>
<p>We depend on beauty and artistry to remind us of the value of being human. </p>
<p>We all need food and shelter. We need to sing and dance. </p>
<p>We need real community. We are tired of the news and the crashing assaults on our Mother Earth. </p>
<p>All I can tell you tonight is not to give up, not any of us. </p>
<p>Demonstrate, share food, sing in circles, dance til you sweat and know that our humanity is something larger than these wars and conflicts. </p>
<p>Stand for the children. </p>
<p>On a day of rest while we were in Dubrovnik, a beautiful old walled city on the Adriatic, I went swimming in the holy waters there. I floated for a long time with this melody running through me. </p>
<p>“ In the arms of the mother, the great Adriatic mother, in the arms of the mother I lay down.” </p>
<p>Later in the day I met with Jami Sieber who had taken a long walk along the shore and had heard music as well for her cello. We put our ideas together in a piece we recorded called Arms of the Mother. It will always be one of my favorites. <br><a class="zoogle-track-widget" data-height="510" data-style="border: 1px solid #9E9E9E; max-width: 510px;" data-width="100%" href="https://bandzoogle.com/tracks/3820/640265679/1440233.html">Listen To Arms Of The Mother</a><script src="https://bandzoogle.com/tracks/3820/640265679/1440233.js"></script></p>
<p>The music of that place transcended the war. It was held in the land and the water. It came into our bodies and offered us this song. </p>
<p>Blessings on all of us around the world, in these times, in all times.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/49559942017-11-30T08:06:36-06:002017-12-02T07:55:22-06:00December 2017<p>Ohhh, it cracks my heart to read Laurel Murphy’s account of visiting holy places in India just now in 2017. <br>It has reminded me of my own time in India so I thought I would revisit some memories of that time. </p>
<p>I was in India in 1993 through Fran Peavey, a social change comic from the Bay Area who also did amazing, innovative, international work. She would assemble teams of artists and activists to come to a community for a specific reason. </p>
<p>In that same year we went to the Balkan region, visiting all sides of the conflict, doing workshops in refugee camps and giving concerts in Split, Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Belgrade and Novi Sad. It was a life changing experience. In my next blog I’ll talk about that trip. </p>
<p>In India, I was part of the international team from Australia, US, Canada and Europe who went to Varanasi to educate ourselves, work with one another and try to understand how to help with the health of the Ganges River, Mother Ganges. <br>We worked with three Indian water scientists. One of whom was also a spiritual leader at a nearby Hindu temple. <br>We visited his temple every day as part as our water work; ceremonial bells clanging, monkeys jumping, everyone praying, music……... <br>We lived in his compound which was right on the gats, the steps, of the river. <br>I would get up in the early morning and visit different places getting my tea from a tea wala in the street. Might as well get up since the prayers at the river began way before dawn and were always so noisy and holy. <br>One morning there was a funeral walk going to the burning gats. I followed quietly in the semi dark as the people moved with the body in shroud through the streets, heads shaved, all dressed in white. An unforgettable experience of letting go and feeling the devotion to Mother Ganges and what it meant to give a beloved body to fire and to the river. <br>We had meetings which always started with song and music, we went to the sewage treatment plant which was electrically run so every day when the electricity went down, there would be leaks into the river. <br>We despatched to the gats every day to talk with locals about fecal coliform, too many flowers in the river as offerings and to listen to their stories. Sometimes without understanding some or any of the words, using hand gestures and signs to communicate. <br>We made a performance I will never forget, collaborating with Indian musicians, all of us offering a devotion to the cause of the Ganges. Through this team, an electric crematorium was built which was an enormous help so ashes could go into the river, but not partly burned bodies. The problem is that wood is very expensive and dear so often poor people cannot afford enough wood to totally burn the body. They do the most they can and then the body would be lowered into the river, adding to the disease of the water. The electric crematorium was less expensive and allowed the burning and offering to the river to was so important in the spiritual belief of the people. <br>The struggle goes on of course because of corruption, lack of information and the confusion of how to honor Mother Ganges who the locals believe could not harm them. </p>
<p>When I was there working on the health of the river which of course you notice is still in dire need, they paired me with an Indian poet who only wrote poems about Mother Ganges. We would get one of those small rowing boats with a wala who rowed us out into the river. Then we would sit and drift while he spoke poems in Sanskrit and I sang. It was a kind of bliss full of contradictions. </p>
<p>I did an offering one day and dunked my head. I will never forget how it felt to give myself to the river along side all the Indians. To suspend my scientific awareness and submerge with the belief I was protected for that moment. <br>I am alive to tell the tale. </p>
<p>Even though I got sick there with hallucinations, I will never forget the sounds, the smells, the people and most of all Mother Ganges. <br>The light on that river, the sun coming up, the way the people adore her and bath in her and pray in her. <br>The hallucinations were because I ate some contaminated milk sweet and down I went with the parasites. <br>I had been having daily voice lessons in sa re ga ma pa da ni sa with a beautiful holy man musician. <br>I was thrilled by the focus and depth of the study. <br>I hated to stop but I was not able to get out of bed so I lay all day for the last days of the trip, in my bed by the Ganges with all those prayers streaming in and oh yes did that bring hallucinations. </p>
<p>I learned that prayer is music and that making change using all forms of art is a vibrant reality in many parts of the world. Music is not the entertainment after, but is part of the soul of change, like science, like political activism. The vibration, the sound, the textures is given respect as on that trip to Varanasi. It clarified who I am as an artist, a musician. <br>I am part of the change. </p>
<p>Oh yes we are. And we mean to make change in this pivotal time on our planet mother. <br>Please don’t give up, don’t despair. <br>Know our power as people who respect the earth, who strive to respect all life and who sing for our lives. </p>
<p>Love all around as we enter the darkest time of the calendar year. <br>Solstice coming December 21. Stay strong and soft. <br>Bless you all.</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/48157552017-08-16T07:21:38-05:002017-08-18T14:09:50-05:00Late summer 2017 <p>Unbelievable and totally real times here on planet earth wouldn’t you say? <br>I often write about music magic while touring and the richness of life on the farm in Hawaii. <br>Here’s what strikes me again and again in the last months—parenting. <br>I have the privilege of knowing a bunch of great young parents. <br>Many of you have two babies often close in age. <br>You are all sleepless and wondering how to hold onto what you thought was your path in life while navigating the unique mystery and miracle of birthing and growing up children. You switch from how tired you are to playing endless rounds with some game or toy and reading the same books every night until the babies fall asleep. </p>
<p>Once they are older, you worry about school, will they be safe every time they go out the door, who their friends are and watching them grow and change in sometimes baffling ways. <br>Your difficulties are enormous and your love unstoppable. <br>Some of you are artists wishing for any kind of space to dream up a new song or solve a riddle of words or images. <br>You worry about money and try to keep a real relationship with your partner if you have one. <br>Multiply that all around the world in all the refugee camps, city war zones, immigration struggles and racist terrors. </p>
<p>I want to thank you, every one of you, for being parents. <br>You are carrying the seeds of tomorrow. I cannot imagine how multifaceted, how joyous, how complicated, how much devotion. <br>I am grateful to be in your presence, to spend time with the young ones whose minds are so transparent and brilliant. </p>
<p>And all of you who have grown children and never lose the love or the desire to protect these adults from the madness of the world and all the heartache. I see it in you. It is your prime number always. </p>
<p>It is for life. Sometimes you lose them in unimaginable ways. How is it possible to ever recover? Recently a dear friend lost her only son in a car accident. Only months later she died in her sleep of a broken heart. <br>That is how deep this parenting goes. </p>
<p>Some of you are continuing your artistry with your children in tow. Wow! <br>Some of you stop everything else while you grow them. <br>However it works for you and them, I offer you a deep bow of gratitude and respect. </p>
<p>We need you. We are blessed because you are parents. We are grateful you made that huge decision and took on a baby or three. </p>
<p>On behalf of the planet, I thank you from my mothers’ heart. </p>
<p>And to the children, how grateful we are for all of you agreeing to come to planet earth just about now. <br>May you find joy, enough to eat, good friends, a family that stands by you, creative bliss and, against all odds, a world that thrives.. </p>
<p>Blessings. Go stand in the eclipse and tell me how it feels. </p>
<p>Stay brave. Keep loving. </p>
<p>Rhiannon <br>Hakalau, HI <br>Living on the farm-Singing in the world <br>www.rhiannonmusic.com</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/47119572017-05-17T07:01:32-05:002017-05-17T07:01:32-05:00May 2017<p>All the while the spring comes on. <br>Everything seems like madness and cruelty but the plants continue on. <br>Starts with little blossoms. <br>Here in Hawaii the blossoms are incredibly fragrant. <br>You know, fruit trees, citrus, macadamia nuts, coffee, cacao and the glorious puakenikeni and plumeria. <br>Then comes the fruiting. Not all blossoms become fruit. <br>Some are flowers and that is their gift. <br>But some change from tiny blossoms to equally tiny fruits. <br>Many of these fruits fall off. They have to. No tree can support all those efforts. <br>Some fruits hang on and begin to grow. They are so small, so miniature at first. <br>Seems impossible they will become avocados or mangoes or tangerines or even pineapples. <br>Maybe it is like you and me. <br>Our fruiting which happens many times in a life, in many ways. <br>Seems impossible we will be able to sustain the energy, the courage, the insight, to mature. <br>And the process takes time. Months at least and sometimes for us humans, years, a lifetime. <br>It is only worth it if we know the process matters. <br>And that it doesn’t happen A,B,C,D etc. It is a long and winding road. Don’t you know? <br>How grateful I am to live where I can see this fruiting and recognize the process in other species of life. <br>Wanna be mature? Wanna be rich and full of flavor? Wanna be sweet and potent? <br>Gotta fruit all the way to harvest. <br>And the beauty is, it happens over and over. Can we handle it? Fruit again? Ripen again? <br>Cycles. This one we are in is a doozy. Asking everything of us. <br>Asking us to fruit wildly. Fruit with abandon. Fruit like there is no tomorrow. <br>And do it for all those around you. We feed one another. <br>Hope the metaphor holds. <br>I treasure our dreams. <br>Be safe and wild and tasty. <br>With love in the process,</p>
<p>Rhiannon</p>rhiannontag:www.rhiannonmusic.com,2005:Post/46970742017-05-04T17:37:54-05:002017-05-04T17:42:09-05:00March 2017<p>Precious times. <br>Ridiculous times. <br>Gathering tools and energy to keep our souls alive. <br>Three transformative workshops in Hawaii at Leo Nani farms in January and February this year. Mele a Hakuwale, All The Way In and The Nature of Voice and Body with Margie Gillis as our guest teacher. </p>
<p>In addition, we have the pleasure of inviting our neighbors and community to witness our collaborations. The singing barn is a vision realized! It took an international village! Thanks once again to all of you who contributed to make this dream come true. Please be welcome to come and see the transformation. </p>
<p>Being able to be home, sleeping in my own bed at night. That is precious. Bringing singers and dancers from around the planet to witness the power of nature and culture here in Hawaii. Walking through the farm each day to the singing barn. That is a mighty and nurturing miracle . Singing. Moving with the Trade Winds. Feeling the connection of voice and body and nature. Growing food to share. Astonishing to see that building on the hill as I take my morning walk. We did it! Real as real can be. </p>
<p>Tours coming that will also take me to the East Coast and Europe in June, August and October. <br>Joining the singers of the world to amplify the resilience of improvisation and gathering in the name of music. <br>Signing petitions, making phone calls, being part of the resistance, feeling shocked and mobilized at the same time. <br>Returning again and again to music as a force for community, innovation and goodness. </p>
<p>As I turn 72 in March, I want to keep teaching and performing and doing more of it from home so I can stay strong and connected. Please join me for workshops as I travel or come here to the farm to restore and be inspired. <br>I am dreaming up new workshop ideas to integrate the farm even more. </p>
<p>Thanks to the generosity of our community and our commitment to making this work more widely available, we have been able to offer more scholarship support. <br>It matters to build artistic community everywhere, all kinds, large and small. <br>Do not be discouraged or isolated. <br>Sing for your lives. <br>I’m right here beside you. <br>Rhiannon<br><br><a contents="Past posts" data-link-label="News" data-link-type="page" href="/news">Past posts</a></p>rhiannon