Category: Artists to Know About

Tanya Tagaq Sings with the Voice of Gaia

Tanya Tagaq sings with the voice of Gaia. She is an Inuit throat singer and much more with award-winning albums, including the recently released Animism. Her music isn’t sweet or pretty by mainstream musical standards. Her Gaia isn’t the tall, blonde, lithe, blossom-crowned Gaia that so often is the way Earth is depicted, but the… Continue reading Tanya Tagaq Sings with the Voice of Gaia

ANGELIQUE KIDJO: QUEEN OF AFRICAN MUSIC AND HUMANITARIAN, ADVOCATE, AND ACTIVIST

Beninoise singer-songwriter-humanitarian-advocate-activist Angelique Kidjo has been called by London’s Daily Telegraph “The undisputed queen of African Music.” She has won Grammy awards. She has recorded numerous albums since 1991 and her music is influenced by traditional African music, jazz, Afropop, reggae, gospel, Latin music and more. She has served as an ambassador for UNICEF for… Continue reading ANGELIQUE KIDJO: QUEEN OF AFRICAN MUSIC AND HUMANITARIAN, ADVOCATE, AND ACTIVIST

Joanne Shenandoah: A Voice for Lifegivers and an Artist You Should Know About

Joanne Shenandoah, Ph.D., is a unique American voice who will inspire and strengthen your spirit while delighting your soul. She is a composer, singer, actress, and author who has recorded numerous CDs and is a Grammy Award winner as well as the winner of over 40 music awards, including 13 Native American Music awards. She… Continue reading Joanne Shenandoah: A Voice for Lifegivers and an Artist You Should Know About

Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint Whose Spirit Soared Free

The Medieval world was full of powerful queens and saints, both real and mythical. Second perhaps only to Joan of Arc, Hildegard of Bingen reigns as the woman who, after a thousand years, still moves us most with her life and work. Thirty years ago she was still an obscure saint from Germany little known outside her home… Continue reading Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint Whose Spirit Soared Free

Queendom’s Still Rising: Moving the World Ahead with Music

Queendom is three women based in Oslo, Norway with backgrounds from Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda whose music delights, inspires, educates, and makes a global village out of an increasingly divided world. Their amazing 2012 debut album, Still Rising, is brilliantly and perfectly named because the work of these women – which includes not only music,… Continue reading Queendom’s Still Rising: Moving the World Ahead with Music

Inspiring Summer Reading: Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs

With summer rolling into the northern hemisphere, there is no better time to read Sarah Orne Jewett’s masterpiece The Country of the Pointed Firs. The novel was published in 1896 and tells the story in loving, respectful detail of life in a coastal Mainevillage at the end of the 19th century. Some of her best… Continue reading Inspiring Summer Reading: Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs

Lili Boulanger: Composer for the Great Wheel of Life

Lili Boulanger, in just a few short years until her death in 1918 at the age of 24, composed orchestral, choral, and operatic works that, to me, bridge the three realms of existence: the underworld of our deepest thoughts, intuitions and emotions, the “ordinary” realm in which we live out each day, and the heavenly… Continue reading Lili Boulanger: Composer for the Great Wheel of Life