Singers on the Front Lines: Eduardo Mendonca is an award-winning composer, performer, teaching artist, and Music Director for IBuildBridges Foundation, a non-profit that brings together youth from diverse backgrounds to explore their own creativity, compose and perform, and build bridges among themselves, and beyond.
Singers on the Front Lines: Darko C is the lead singer for the Indie Rock band, Side Effect, and also the Director of Turning Tables Myanmar - a global social enterprise working to empower marginalized youth by giving them constructive ways to express themselves through music and film - their hopes, fears and frustrations. Darko shares with us his thoughts on music’s role in culture shift, and the creativity needed to express yourself in a less-than-free environment.
Singers on the Front Lines: Elise Witt is an Atlanta-based singer, songwriter, teacher, performer, and all-around talented and generous human being. Read about her family roots of wide-ranging musical styles, her background and training as an “artivist” (artist and activist), her current work with The Global Village Project working with middle school refugee girls, and her embrace of technology to continue to build community online through music.
Singers on the Front Lines: Maanveer Singh is a coach and trainer as the CEO for Extended DISC India. He has developed his own coaching style to incorporate music therapy principles and Indian classical music. In this interview, Maanveer shares with us specific Indian ragas (melodies) to listen to during the time of COVID-19, intended to create certain frequencies that assist the body to heal itself.
Singers on the Front Lines: Shirley Mae Springer Staten is the Executive Director of Keys to Life Alaska, a non-profit organization founded in 2015 to empower, create and strengthen an inclusive community through rich arts and cross-cultural experiences. Keys to Life Alaska runs the Hiland Mountain Lullaby Project which brings together teaching artists and prison inmates to create lullabies for the children of the inmates.
Singers on the Front Lines: Darren Abrahams is a singer, coach, therapist and trainer and works internationally as a facilitator and project leader in the fields of personal, cultural and community development. He is a Wellbeing Adviser and an international trainer for Musicians Without Borders where he trains musicians to use music for peace building with refugees and in post conflict communities. He is co-founder of The Human Hive which trains volunteer and professional teachers to work in non-formal and emergency situations.
Singers on the Front Line: Rhiannon is a vocal artist with a vision of music as a vehicle for innovation, healing, transformation, and social change. A vibrant, gifted singer, performance artist, composer, and master teacher, Rhiannon has been bringing her unique and potent blend of jazz, world music, improvisation and storytelling to audiences for over four decades.
Read about Joanne’s TEDx experiencing leading workshops on the Power of Voice: Focal Freedom Techniques, at TEDx 2020 in Yangon, Myanmar.
Singers on the Front Lines: Jess Baker is a community musician based in West Yorkshire, UK. She works across a diverse range of settings including Prisons (with people living on the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway), community singing groups, universities and schools. Jess is a board member on the Natural Voice Network and works for Hoot Creative Arts.