The 2nd Annual Sing Into Spring!

ARTIST BIOS
Melanie DeMore (Oakland)
Melanie DeMore is a 3-time Grammy nominated singer/composer, choral conductor, music director and vocal activist who believes in the power of voices raised together. In her presentations, DeMore beautifully brings her participants together through her music and commentary. She facilitates vocal and stick pounding workshops for professional choirs, community groups as well as directing numerous choral organizations across the U.S, Canada and beyond. Melanie is a featured presenter of SpeakOut!-The Institute for Social and Cultural Change, works with everyone from Baptists to Buddhists, and was a founding member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir. She became Music Director for Obeah Opera by Nicole Brooks as part of the Luminato Festival in 2019. She is a charter member of Kate Munger’s Threshold Choirs and conducts song circles with an emphasis on the voice as a vessel for healing. In her own words, “A song can hold you up when there seems no ground beneath you.”

Colin Connor (Ben Lomond)
Colin will lead us in collaborative vocal improvisations that support dynamic multi-part group singing - making spontaneous music together with our voices and bodies - in the spirit of the work of Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, and David Worm. Most recently, his studies with Musica do Circulo and The DownBeat in Oakland deeply inform his passion for guiding vocal improv. He trained at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music and has performed internationally as a dancer and accompanist. Colin says, "Now, more than ever, we need contact, connection and community building that go beyond our typical habits - collaborative vocal improv does exactly this with freedom, joy and abandon!"

Amber Kingery (Monterey)
Singing and dancing have been lifelong passions of Amber’s, and she’s explored both in many different settings over the years. In 2016, she discovered oral tradition singing through Lisa Littlebird's Wholehearted Chorus, which opened up a new world. Soon after, she joined the inaugural cohort of Lisa's Flight School - a training program for songleaders. For the past two years, Amber has had the privilege of songleading regularly in Monterey with fellow Flight School graduates, and is deeply grateful for the opportunity to connect, heal, and build community through music. Amber says, "I believe that coming together to create beauty has the power to uplift spirits and strengthen hearts, and it's especially potent in times when the world feels divided and uncertain."

Michael Eagle Song (Carmel)
Michael is a songwriter, social activist, actor, and community song carrier.
His Invocation:
There is a light which seeks you
Through the coastal fog
There is a light that searches for you
Combing the cobwebs of your stirring dreams
That light is your voice
And for you to come to it
Is as steady and real as your birth
So come – embrace the light
Come, and sing
Michael says, "It is a thrill and honor to participate in the 2nd Annual Sing Into Spring!”

Antonina Beyea (Santa Cruz)
Producer of this event, Antonina is a singer, songwriter, lover of vocal music, community song leader and choral enthusiast. Musical as a child, Antonina ceased making music at age 15 and enthusiastically rekindled it in her 30s. These days you might find her leading Song Circles in Santa Cruz & Merced, singing with Heather Houston's Yala Lati women's choir and Lisa Littlebird's Wholehearted Chorus, and directing ad hoc choirs. She has released 2 albums: Notes from Nature (2002) and Heart of All That Matters (2020). Antonina says, "I am a fervent believer in the healing power of song and that singing is everyone's birthright. In these difficult times, may we lift ourselves and each other up and weave a strong and vibrant tapestry of song and love and hope that holds us even in the dark times."

Host or Publisher Antonina Beyea