Sound Travels

Listen to these stories. They will nourish your awareness, passion, and renew your interest in the power of sound, sound creators and the performing arts. 

The Language That Connects Us with Poet Ali

The Language That Connects Us with Poet Ali

Poet Ali is a poet, compelling performer, lyricist, performance artist and inspirational speaker. His presentations, talks and performances focus on human connection --how we connect with ourselves and with our environments. As a soulosopher (soul + philosopher) and...

Sound Lighthouse: Discovering Carillon with Simone Browne

Sound Lighthouse: Discovering Carillon with Simone Browne

Simone Browne is Law student at UC Berkeley who fell in love with carillon playing while at the University of Chicago. In this episode, she sheds interesting perspective on this little-known instrument so many of us have heard but haven't realized is actually an...

Singing in Cars: The Appeal of Mobile Karaoke

Singing in Cars: The Appeal of Mobile Karaoke

It’s worth nothing how much of a raging success James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke continues to be. Why is singing in the car so common? Music therapist, Lyndie Walker says cars are a place we can dive into the music we most resonate with and music activates every part of...

Taiko Beat of Collaboration with Janet Koike

Taiko Beat of Collaboration with Janet Koike

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 which started with success as a textile fashion designer to playing taiko, the Japanese...

The Art of the Sound Bath with Melissa Felsenstein

The Art of the Sound Bath with Melissa Felsenstein

Could your daily life use a moment of tranquility? Melissa Felsenstein, the founder of Innersounds Meditation, reveals how the sound bath can be your haven. Not only did Melissa use sound healing as a therapeutic technique to conquer her own battles with anxiety and...

Sounds of Summer: Liminal Frequencies

Sounds of Summer: Liminal Frequencies

July is high summer here in the northern hemisphere. The season marks a threshold to cross over. Time and space to recreate and reflect is essential. The month is our family's annual dive deep into new, creative and sometimes uncertain experiences. We head off to...

Hip Hop for Change with Alphabet Rockers

Hip Hop for Change with Alphabet Rockers

In 2007, Alphabet Rockers was formed by Tommy Soulati Shepard and Kaitlin McGaw to make music that makes change. Their work uses hip hop to create a more equitable world. In this conversation with Tommy and Kaitlin, we talked about their artistic journeys from...

Taking Cello to New Vibrations with Cellista

Taking Cello to New Vibrations with Cellista

Cellista was trained as a classical cellist but detached herself from that label while in graduate school at San Francisco State. There, she was inspired to collaborate with other art forms such as movement and visual artists. While studying musicology she found...

Grace Note: An Arts Podcast Enters Season Three

Grace Note: An Arts Podcast Enters Season Three

Many of us believe in deity. I believe the omnipresence of music and sound gives us all a means to connect with a similar kind of thing: a force, or forces, greater than ourselves. It's because of my listeners, guests and supporters that I'm excited to be heading...

Animal Sounds: Frida and Metamorphosis

Animal Sounds: Frida and Metamorphosis

An endangered species of parrot--right in San Francisco?! 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...

Reimagining Opera with Burning Man Vocalist, Diva Marisa

Reimagining Opera with Burning Man Vocalist, Diva Marisa

Diva Marisa is in search of opportunities to offer audiences music in context. As a conservatory-trained opera singer and community member of Death Guild Thunderdome (performances happen at Burning Man), she talks about Burning Man's impact  on experiential art...

How the Arts Help Us Navigate the Now

Agile Vocalist is a podcast featuring sound creator stories that will inspire you to look to the arts to navigate today’s challenges. In light of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on women’s rights to an abortion and freedom of prayer and expression, you likely feel strong emotions. These artists stories will inspire with questions to ask to get through these challenging times.

Music for Refugees with Betsy Blakeslee

Music for Refugees with Betsy Blakeslee

Betsy Blakeslee has been working with refugees for over 20 years. She’s been witness to the power of music and sound’s power to transform and shift people who have gone through trauma. This episode dives into the brain science behind that and the shifts in people’s lives she’s witnessed.

Agile Vocalist’s First Year in Your Ears

Agile Vocalist’s highlights on one year in existence including more than 1600 listens across podcast and YouTube platforms. This labor of love and tribute to the arts is growing!

England’s Angel for Gospel Music with Opal Louis Nations

England’s Angel for Gospel Music with Opal Louis Nations

Opal Louis Nations is a British singer, author, illustrator and passionate fan of American gospel music. In this podcast he shares decades of wisdom promoting and supporting gospel music (soul). Listen for the history of the African American experience you may not know.

An Indian Classical Voice for Modern Times with Vidya Srinivasan

An Indian Classical Voice for Modern Times with Vidya Srinivasan

Vidya Srinivasan learned a love of music and performing so well at an early age that she had equal interests in pursuing music vs. technology once it came time to choose a career. Her journey as a female Indian classical music singer, always narrated by music, as she left India to study the sciences and live in the U.S. is an inspiring story about the power of music as a tool to process life and transitions.

Agile Vocalist Has Gone…Podcast

Agile Vocalist Has Gone…Podcast

Agile Vocalist can now be listened to as a podcast. Hear your favorite, or soon to be favorite, sound creator and artist stories in JUST your ears. No visuals necessary…unless you want them!

Announcing the Agile Vocalist Fall Season

Sound artists that create for dance floors, refugee camps, on trapeze, on stage at tech conferences, and in clubs in the early ’60s is where these Fall 2021 Agile Vocalist episodes will take us! Come listen to the stories of Vidya Srinivasan, Betsy Blakeslee, Justin James, Opal Louis Nations and Diva Marisa’s, plus other sound and creativity stories.

The Power of Singing and the Gospel with Mary Ford

The Power of Singing and the Gospel with Mary Ford

Mary Ford found music when her life nearly ended. In this interview, she talks about the power of singing on the body and how she is a midwife for her own vocal gifts when performing. As an accomplished gospel and a capella singer for over 30 years, Mary’s wisdom is a singer and psychologist’s view into the power of sound.

Making Music Together via the Internet with Brian Walker

Making Music Together via the Internet with Brian Walker

How do you make music together in a global pandemic? JackTrip technology has existed for nearly 20 years and has finally found its time, thanks to the global pandemic, for musicians, singers and anyone collaborating together to rehearse and perform via the internet.

Virtual Music for People Who Are Dying with Jennifer Hollis

Virtual Music for People Who Are Dying with Jennifer Hollis

How music thanatology can be effective both at the beside of dying patients as well as in person. Harp lady Jennifer Hollis shares her wisdom and and insights on the labor of saying goodbye to loved ones and the deep work escalating mortality from Covid has put the world through in the past year.

An Art to Comfort the Dying with Jennifer Hollis

An Art to Comfort the Dying with Jennifer Hollis

Music thanatology is a little known field where harp and vocal music are played at the bedside of dying patients. In this interview with harp lady, Jennifer Hollis she shares highlights of her career as a music thanatologist and insights about the power of music on our bodies.

The Screaming Fields

The Screaming Fields

After a year living with the Coronavirus, do you still need to scream? A lot of people do. We’re not over this yet! Let’s talk about your need to scream and where you go to do it to process stress and frustration. Screaming gets a bad rap for being a negative thing. This voicecast may cause you to think differently about it.

Women Who Created the Blues with Pamela Rose

Women Who Created the Blues with Pamela Rose

Jazz and blues vocalist, Pamela Rose shares how she has championed women composers and performers throughout her long and varied career in jazz and blues, including her touring shows: Wild Women of Song and Blues is a Woman.

From Song Exploder to Cookie Exploder

From Song Exploder to Cookie Exploder

Sound lovers who enjoy Song Exploder, a series about music by Hrishikesh Hirway will also enjoy his graphic novel, Cookie Exploder about his work in sound, along with his relationship with his father.

Beatboxing a Path to the Sound Arts with Joshua Silverstein

Beatboxing a Path to the Sound Arts with Joshua Silverstein

Award-winning actor, comic, writer, beatboxer, and educator, Joshua Silverstein shares his sound artist story with Agile Vocalist. Joshua used beatboxing as a way to stage on stage at a young age, eventually using it to conquer a speech impediment and help him become an inspiring artist and educator for others.

The Psychology of Covers

The Psychology of Covers

Our obsession with cover songs has roots in our young adult years. If the tune is familiar, you’ll likely realize that even in an elevator you lean in when you hear a familiar song (even done badly). Learn why you can’t help but listen.

Weaponizing Sound

Weaponizing Sound

What sounds narrated your child or young adulthood? For me, taking back space for myself came when I learned how to zaghareet (use sound to fight back against an embarrasing father).

Introducing ~ ~ ~ Agile Vocalist

Introducing ~ ~ ~ Agile Vocalist

Agile Vocalist is an exploration of sound and sound artists like you’ve never heard, or read before. Born from an idea in the shower, this blog turned podcast will inspire, educate, and entertain you as we dive into the lives and work of anyone who works in sound.

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