Hello singers of Port Townsend and the Salish Sea area. Do you love to, or would you love to explore, improvised singing with others?

Co-creating satisfying, suprising, oftentimes really quite magical singing with others.

An approach to singing that has the creativity of a singer-songwriter path, paird with the communality of the choir path. Many of us call this Collaborative Vocal Improvisation, CVI.

The Guardian (UK) calls me “one of the world’s leading proponents of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - CVI” - though I bow to my seniors, Rhiannon, Bobby McFerrin and some of their peers. But, wow, Vocal Improvisation has mushroomed; the mycellial network now spans the globe, and we have The Well Global Vocal Improvisation Network. I am one of a host of co-founders.

I shall be visiting Port Townsend because dear friends live there, and because I have been invited to teach all of the choral students at Seattle University. I will again offer a weekend workshop while I visit. I am a dual citizen UK-US.

This is for:

singers new to the artform who enjoy singing, can sing in tune and keep a beat, and want an adventure and

Folks who have tried vocal improvisation before and want to return to the well.

We will: ground in the body and breath; move and wake up the embodied voice from pelvis to head. We’ll circle sing, ground in rhythm, co create sound baskets from interlocking patterns, solo over them. We’ll improvise with words, express ourselves, open the poetic and do all kinds of things with it. We’ll rest when we need to.

You will leave, I hope, with some forms and approaches to singing that you can take forward into your singing life, your collaborations, your choir leadership if you are a song leader. Some students call this work “life changing”. That’s usually more from a week long or year-long course, but folks typcially find shorter sessions, from 1h to 1 weekend extremely nourishing, deep, uplifting and expansive; and I hope you do too.

We are in a polycrisis and I do not shy away from themes of paradigm shift. We can use our voices to express our pain and our dreams of a better world, and meet the times together. This will not dominate the weekend but we will most likely visit these themes at some point, with a view to leveraging our collective power for positive change.

Cost

Tier 1: $300

Tier 2: $200

Tier 3: $100

To apply:

Please email info@brionygreenhill.com

You can pay via Venmo @Briony-Greenhill, or paypal brionygmusic@gmail.com.