INSPIRATIONS
We are keenly aware of the many composers, poets, songwriters, authors, performers, visionaries, colleagues, and friends who have inspired us, both in specific programming and in more global awareness and understanding of what can happen in life, in ensemble, in performance.
From Sweet Darkness, by David Whyte:
"You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in...."
We are keenly aware of the many composers, poets, songwriters, authors, performers, visionaries, colleagues, and friends who have inspired us, both in specific programming and in more global awareness and understanding of what can happen in life, in ensemble, in performance.
From Sweet Darkness, by David Whyte:
"You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in...."
A short list of inspirations
- Meredith Monk’s image of “the figure eight of energy that goes between audiences and performers” has been a constant grounding vision.
- Our many performances of Jennifer Berezan’s Praises for the World have taught us about understanding performance as an inclusive community gathering.
- The performance piece Sound Circle: On Bodies…, which we created and performed multiple times in our early years, taught us about the healing power of performance, and about the possibilities for creating safe space in a performance setting.
- We have been enriched by the many poets whose words we have sung and spoken in performance; Mary Oliver and David Whyte are two whose words have lived with us constantly.
- We are grateful to the visionary ensembles and composers whose music we have been privileged to sing, including Ysaye Barnwell and Sweet Honey in the Rock, Sue Johnson and Coco’s Lunch, Malcolm Dalglish, Moira Smiley, Holly Near, and many others.
- We have deep appreciation for the composers who have written specifically for Sound Circle, including Carol Matthews, Gary Grundei, and Terry Schlenker.
- We consider ourselves beyond fortunate to have collaborated with gifted performers including René Marie, Beth Quist, and Deborah Schmit-Lobis.
- Photographer Chris Brown and dancer/choreographer Mary Wohl Haan are two uniquely important artistic friends of Sound Circle.
- Without the friendships we have with creative and committed choruses in the lgbtq choral movement (GALA Choruses) and the feminist choral community (Sister Singers Network), we would be a very different ensemble.
- We have been deeply informed by our sister-chorus relationship with Unbound Voices at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility.
- Our audiences and community in Boulder, Colorado have given us a beautiful home.
- Director Anne Bogart has written about aesthetic arrest.