We are three women, two poets and one singer, who have been creating, performing, recording and publishing original poetry and song in the Philadelphia area and beyond since 1991. Our work is a lively and inventive blend of the spoken and sung word. [+]We are three women, two poets and one singer, who have been creating, performing, recording and publishing original poetry and song in the Philadelphia area and beyond since 1991. Our work is a lively and inventive blend of the spoken and sung word. We honor each woman's strong solo voice and revel in the many ways we can combine our voices into new and surprising forms. With no instruments but voice and gesture, our performances and recordings are journeys of the soul dedicated to building peace within and without. With intricate patterns of words and music, we draw on personal memory, the cycles of nature, and the current social and political climate to create an experience that both heals and celebrates. Our work is deeply and implicitly feminist. We offer strong and healing female voices in the service of creating a kind, just, and joyous culture.
In addition to poems and songs for a single voice, the group often arranges poems for multiple voices providing echoes and accents for each other. The result is polyphony, but with each voice distinct. Philadelphia writer Scott Tucker describes their work "an unusual and inventive blend of spoken and sung words. These voices have unforced strength and clarity, and there is both heart and mind in each one." Painter Sara Steele offers this description of their sound: "Like a good line drawing their work is simple, intricate, clear. The voices of these women are full and generous--very nourishing." And singer-songwriter Ysaye M. Barnwell says simply of their new CD, "a lovely experience."
Founder Susan Windle describes the ensembles recording this way: "The tone is sometimes deeply contemplative, even mournful, at other times playful and whimsical. Like the four seasons we celebrate, You Know My Name evokes a wide range of human experience. Like good jazz, it is best listened to with full attention, again and then again."
A Little History of Our Group
In the spring of 1991 poet Susan Windle, with a growing hunger for artistic collaboration and a new-found love of ensemble work, invited three friends and sister artists-poet Ellen Ford Mason, singers Annie Geheb, and Barbara Solarz- to form a performing group. Within the first two meetings in Susan's living room, our group found a name, taken f
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