DiscoverAgile Vocalist
Agile Vocalist
Claim Ownership

Agile Vocalist

Author: Rachel Medanic

Subscribed: 0Played: 0
Share

Description

Agile Vocalist is a podcast about sound and the performing arts with a California connection. Explore artist stories and learn music history, get inspired, and learn about how sound and the arts impact our lives. Created and hosted by Rachel Medanic, Agile Vocalist is for the curious, the creative, and for anyone willing to explore the connection between sound and our shared humanity. 

Agile Vocalist episodes, liner notes, and additional visual materials also available at: https://www.agilevocalist.com

Get Sound Cocktails, Agile Vocalist's quarterlyish email newsletter about sound:  bit.ly/soundcocktails

32 Episodes
Reverse
Send us a Text Message.Mx. Flamenco is a dancer, actor, singer and comedienne who shares her unique blend of performance with the San Francisco Bay and beyond. In this conversation we explore the sounds of flamenco as a dance form and how she brings it together in her ongoing series of world premiere collaborations with artists of other genres. Tachíria is working on her one-woman show and finishing her Masters degree after being a working professional flamenco dancer since the age of 14.&nbs...
Send us a Text Message.Part two with Edgardo covers the power of music that's connected to dance forms, origins of Edgardo's band, Candela, and his eye-opening process of how he used to create original music as he was waiting tables in a restaurant.If you find yourself in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2024, check out Edgardo's newest on Thursday nights at Fame Venue in San Francisco. Come hear the music and dance!Be sure you don't miss part 1 of the conversation here. More about Agile Vo...
Send us a Text Message.Edgardo Cambón is a Uruguayan-born singer who fell in love with percussion after setting aside guitar and getting early exposure singing as a young boy. As a teacher band leader and Latin music business man now, Edgardo continues to perform. His musical career has taken him throughout South America, Europe, and Africa. Since1986, he's been in high demand in the U.S.In this two-part conversation, we cover his career, his love of music and how he discovered drums by treat...
Send us a Text Message.Poet Ali is a poet, compelling performer, lyricist, performance artist and inspirational speaker whose performances and presentations focus on connection with ourselves and our environments. As a soulosopher and entertainer, he is a inspires us to use our gifts to catalyze self-discovery and well-being. As an Iranian-American, Ali gives talks for both youth as well as adult audiences and his unique form of spoken word stands out and isn't easily categorized.His TED Talk...
Send us a Text Message.21 Guests and 27 episodes later, Agile Vocalist has hit its three year mark (which is kind of amazing for a podcast). Thank you to my season 3 guests:Cellista, Alphabet Rockers, Rob Jensen and Warren Trezevant, Sonic Runway creators, sound healer & instructor, Melissa Felsenstein, taiko artist Janet Koike, and carillonist, Simone Browne for their amazing sound and arts stories in season 3!Listen to this epsiode to learn how to get yourself listener gifts to unleash ...
Send us a Text Message.The sounds of bells in towers is a common experience to many around the world. But the reality is there is an entire profession devoted to carillons-- actual lever and pedal instruments making the sounds of bells you hear. Carillons exist all over the U.S., Europe and other parts and are commonly heard from the top of towers and built structures.This interview features Simone Browne, professional carillonist and UC Berkeley student who shares how she found the professio...
Send us a Text Message.Janet Koike is the Founder of Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda, California. She is also the Artistic Director of Maze Daiko ensemble. In this episode she shares her journey from textile fashion design to tap dance to playing taiko, the Japanese drum. Janet's experiences bringing remind us all of the alluring power of sound, how artists are ambassadors for new paradigms, and the power of community that can be created when you bring performing art forms together. ...
Send us a Text Message.Have you ever pondered what it might be like to experience a moment of tranquility amidst the chaos of daily life? Melissa Felsenstein, the founder of Innersounds Meditation, reveals how sound healing can be your haven. Melissa used this therapeutic technique to conquer her personal battles with anxiety and depression, but she's also refined it into a unique formula to certify a new generation of sound practitioners.Sound healing has many benefits including healing the ...
Send us a Text Message.What does it take to synchronize light and sound? Co-creators Rob Jensen and Warren Trezevant, talk about their work creating Sonic Runway, an art installation conceived at Burning Man. Sonic Runway immerses the spectator in colorful synchronized visuals that animate the speed of sound.Hear the story behind their meticulous creation process, making the exhibit first for Burning Man in 2003 and how its success grew to transform it into a traveling exhibit to sites around...
Send us a Text Message.What did you do this summer? What's left still to experience? Better yet, what did you hear? July is a liminal space and time to dive into the creative. This summer soundscape is an annual season pause so you can listen to July. Traveling through California, Oregon, and landing in Washington at performing arts family camp, you're invited to come along for the auditory ride. Catch up with any Agile Vocalist episodes you may have missed now as new episodes start roll...
Send us a Text Message.In 2007, Tommy Soulati Shepard and Kaitlin McGaw formed Alphabet Rockers to make music that makes change. This episode discusses how they met, the wide variety of their performing backgrounds and how they, 3 professional children artists and a host of other artist collaborators use hip hop to put a child's experience at the heart of its message. The Alphabet Rockers mission is to create music that disrupts racism, educates and fills children and adults with message...
Send us a Text Message.Exposed to cello at an early age, Cellista broke away from her classical cellist training to follow her calling to create and collaborate with other art forms including beatboxers, spoken word artists, dancers, and musicians. Her work continues to reflect on and engage the cultural circumstances she experiences around her and she produces what she calls stage poems inspired by French Realists that include pillars of music, film, dance and literature. Liner notes an...
Send us a Text Message.Season 2 has concluded. This episode is how you can (wherever you are!) share in the podcast festivities (listening, sending me an email). Listen as I review the guests we had over the past year, sing you a little song, and recognize some of the amazing people who've supported me in this journey. Season 3 is coming!Listen and then send me an email- this podcast is now big enough that I don't know who you are. Really! Tell me what you do while you listen. Be honest you p...
Send us a Text Message.Chelle Jacques is a career musician, bandleader, educator and more. In this episode she shares the story of her recently launched Daughters of the Delta Project featuring the musical contributions from the women artists of Louisiana we so rarely hear about. She also shares how she got involved with The Recording Academy, best known for producing the annual Grammy Awards. She now serves in a leadership position with the organization's California/Colorado chapter.Hear abo...
Send us a Text Message.I talked to Frida the parrot as she was on exhibit as part of a larger an immersive art experience. This Agile Vocalist episode dives into animal sounds and share a one-of-a-kind recording of my interactions with a parrot I went to “interview.” Our interactions proved some of the most varied from any she’d had with other humans, and it marveled her owners, the hosts and artists at San Francisco’s Gregangelo Museum.Liner notes and more are available at: https://agi...
Send us a Text Message.Folk and classical musician, composer, arranger, instrumentalist, and vocalist Moira Smiley has a broad repertoire of mystical and passionate music that pulls your heart strings. And if you sing, you may find yourself learning something she's written. Her songs, arrangements, artistic collaborations, body percussion sequences, and more have captured audiences shifting some from spectator into participant. With her move from California back to Vermont, where she wa...
Send us a Text Message.What’s it like to lead the edge of change in the arts? Vocalist, Marisa Winter (Diva Marisa) has done that with her career and she remains driven to offer new audiences music in context. As a classically trained opera singer and Burning Man performer, she shares the impact Burning Man has made on experiential art everywhere. Marisa’s early life vocal experiences at first caused her to reject opera, but then she fell back in love with dedication it required. In this...
Send us a Text Message.Dr. Makiko Hirata (“Dr. Pianist") is on a mission to promote the power of music to heal and unite. In this episode, she talks about reconciling her training in classical piano with being a woman in music as well as how musicians have a role to play as first responders in times of climate catastrophe. She has shifted her career from being an "Olympian pianist” performer who uses performance to demonstrate ever increasing mastery of challenging piano pieces to instea...
Send us a Text Message.Betsy Blakeslee’s work has connected refugees with the healing power of music for two decades. She directed expressive arts programs for refugee youth in Bosnia and Croatia during the wars of the 1990s. Since 2016, her Expressive Arts Refuge team and Moira Smiley have been running similar programs at refugee camps in France, Greece, and Lebanon.In this episode she shares stories of how her experiences as a volunteer have touched the lives of Sudanese and Syrian children...
Send us a Text Message.In celebration of Agile Vocalist's 1-year anniversary, this epilogue takes you back through an unexpected trend that emerged with many of my guests about creativity. The theme was this: people are often most creative and get their sound practice and ideas... in the bathroom, specifically the shower. Cars were also a theme as havens for creating. Who knew?Talking about bathrooms, showers, cars & visions for the arts (post-pandemic) are my guests from the past y...
loading
Comments 
loading