Our Songleaders

Melanie DeMore is a 3 time Grammy nominated singer/composer, choral conductor, music director, and vocal activist who believes in the power of voices raised together. In her presentations, DeMore beautifully brings her participants together through her music and commentary. DeMore facilitates vocal and stick-pounding workshops for professional choirs, and community groups as well as directing numerous choral organizations across the U.S, Canada, and beyond. She is a featured presenter of SpeakOut!-The Institute for Social and Cultural Change, the Master Teaching Artist for Music at UC Berkeley/ CalPerformances; works with everyone from Baptists to Buddhists, and was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir. She is Music Director for Obeah Opera by Nicole Brooks and will be touring with the company to South Africa. She is a charter member of Threshold Choir founded by Kate Munger , a mentor to the Jerusalem Youth Chorus and conducts song circles with an emphasis on the voice as a vessel for healing. In her own words: “A song can hold you up when there seems to be no ground beneath you.”

https://melaniedemore.com/

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A pop up choir to support our Big Sing pop up choir! Our Big Sing organizing team is gathering a motley group of fabulous friends to lead us in a few wholehearted singalongs. Amongst us there are some serious musical chops (ex: Troy wrote the theme song to the Beijing Olympics) and experience curation chops (ex: Oprah said of the workshops we lead, "This is how we change the world") but mostly we're a community of friends here to sing, laugh and enjoy soulful good times.

Briony Greenhill is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - The Guardian.

CVI is the art of co-creating vocal music in the moment. Here is a short film about Briony’s teaching, which has evolved from the lineage of Rhiannon, Bobby McFerrin, Joey Blake and others. Briony is a founding member of The Well Global Vocal Improvisation Network and the UK Vocal Improvisation Festival.

Briony has released 4 entirely improvised albums. Her debut studio album took improvisations and reproduced them adding instrumentation in the studio. Crossing the Ocean featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Radio 3, Woman’s Hour and more.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship from beginner to advanced levels, while also honouring the spiritual, ritual and therapeutic application of CVI.  She is a qualified SomaSource Leader; a “psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.” You can read more about Briony’s teaching values, Vocal Musicianship Trainings, and a history of vocal improvisation in the American tradition here.

https://www.brionygreenhill.com/

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Oakland Youth Chorus is a part of the renowned and beloved Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. Their mission is to inspire joy and unity among all people through
Black Gospel and Spiritual Music traditions.