Concert April 9: “Songs for All Sentient Beings”

Online Concert April 9th 7 PM Eastern Time

ASWM always makes space for visual and performing arts in our events. This year we feature five extraordinary performers whose work elaborates themes of tradition and mythic relationships with nature.

This concert is included with symposium registration but we also offer tickets just for the concert. (Ticket revenue is used to support Native American and Indigenous scholars and performers.)

Samara Jade has been called a “modern folk troubadour, multi-instrumentalist songwriter, and a philosopholk mugician” A samara is a type of winged seed – such as those “helicopter seeds” from maple trees. Samara embodies her name by casting out healing spells through her songs, like thousands of whirling seeds on the breeze, ready to land where they are needed. A migratory songbird, Samara’s “home” has been a dance between southern Appalachia and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for the last few years.

Hear Samara sing her Unseen song.

Pádraigín Ní UallachainPádraigín Ní Uallacháin‘s life’s work has been in researching and restoring the song tradition of her native place in southeast Ulster. Singing has been the main focus of her professional career, while restoring over 40 Oriel songs back to the corpus of the Irish language song tradition that are now sung again by singers throughout Ireland. Her recent compositions have been inspired by early spirituality and Irish nature poetry), by the goddess-saint Brigid and aspects of the female keening tradition.

Pádraigín’s“Song of Light” is based on an ancient Irish invocation.

Melanie DeMore is a Grammy nominated singer/composer, choral conductor, music director and vocal activist who believes in the power of voices raised together. Uniting people through music and commentary, Melanie facilitates vocal and stick pounding workshops for professional choirs, community groups as well as directing numerous choral organizations in the Bay Area. She is a charter member of Kate Munger’s Threshold Choirs 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.”

Sing along with Melnie’s inspiring call and response “One Foot in Front of the Other/Lead with Love.”

We have added a special performance to our April 9 concert.  We are grateful to renowned musicologist .Nadia Tarnawsky for sharing the voices of Ukranian women folksingers and offering a beautiful lament to be debuted at our concert. Nadia has been studying Eastern European singing techniques for over three decades. She spent much of 2017 and 2018 in Ukraine as a recipient of a Fulbright award.  She has taught Ukrainian village style singing in workshops for the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, the Center for Traditional Music and Dance in New York city, Village Harmony in Vermont and Oregon, the Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble in San Francisco, and the Dunava Ensemble in Seattle among others.

Nadia urges us all to support World Central Kitchen, which is organizing food relief for Ukrainian refugees in Poland. “Food relief is not just a meal that keeps hunger away. It’s a plate of hope. It tells you in your darkest hour that someone, somewhere, cares about you.” –Chef José Andrés

Hear Nadia raising the energy of this “Song of Spring.”

See the Symposium page for more information.

REGISTER HERE FOR SYMPOSIUM:

• General public ($160) register  here.  
• Members sign in and register with $50 discount here.  
• Join/Renew your ASWM membership here.
• Questions? Contact us.