joyful voices chorus
FALL ‘24 | weekly in San Anselmo + Big Sing
Sing in Community
Love to sing while you're driving? On a walk? In the shower? Then this joyful, soulful, uplifting community choir is for you! Our choir is:
Easy to join in and sing because singing experience is never needed, and, because all songs are taught by ear, line-by-line, call-and-repeat-style, there's no music to read!
Non-audition, non-performative, and anti-perfectionistic.
Welcoming, accepting, and inclusive. We create a safe, non-judgmental, collaborative space that's supportive for all, especially if you're feeling nervous about sharing your voice.
SO. MUCH. FUN.
JOYFUL VOICES CHORUS
7-WEEK community Choir on Unceded Coast Miwok Land
Starting October 16th, following on to our wonderful Summer ‘24 Joyful Voices Chorus season, we're doing a 7-week community choir in San Anselmo, which, although similar in most ways (including our Covid policy) to our drop-in song circles, brings you unique benefits that come from being part of a consistent group:
Some of our songs can be juicier, richer songs that take parts of 2-3 successive evenings to learn. So juicy! Like this one!
We get to co-create and experience a deeper feeling of community with each other!
Although there’s no need or pressure to practice the songs between sessions, practice tracks are posted so you can sing along with any part of any of our core songs at any time.
Choir membership (which is now closed for this season) includes our special open-to-the-community evening with the amazing Shireen Amini on October 16, AND our Big Sing during Week 7 on Sunday afternoon, open to the entire community, where we’ll teach and sing a few of the songs we’ve worked on (you’ll get to vote on which ones) and we’ll welcome the amazing Debbie Nargi-Brown to be our Guest Songleader for the rest of the day’s wonderful songs!
NEW! “Better Together”: Join us for our special drop-in evening of post-election singing and support, Weds 11/6, 7:00-8:30pm in San Anselmo!
sing with the amazing Debbie Nargi-Brown!
Didn’t join our choir this season? No problem! You can still sing with us at our community-wide Big Sing! Guest Songleader Debbie Nargi-Brown is a gifted community song leader, a dance teacher, and a talented songwriter; she offers her songs with love, compassion, and the hope of bringing joy and healing to others. Her lyrics and melodies are sung all over the world. She writes songs for the heart, healing, transformation, love, grief, and all that connects us as human beings. Come sing easy-to-learn songs with us!
So...what kinds of songs do we sing?
We sing short-form, non-religious, easy-to-learn songs mostly sourced from the modern community singing movement -- unison songs, chants, rounds, layer songs, and 2-, 3-, and 4-part harmony songs. With the occasional old favorite — even a sea shanty!
Songs are selected for their ability to rejuvenate, soothe, uplift and inspire! This season we’re singing songs of belonging, songs of healing, songs of hope, songs of joy.
Feel free to check out our YouTube channel for videos and audio of our choirs singing together, and our Song Library, which has every song we've ever sung so far (with links) -- and there will be a number of new songs this season.
72 amazing souls at our Spring ‘24 Joyful Voices Chorus’ community-wide Big Sing, singing Debbie Nargi-Brown’s Be Open!
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KIND WORDS from past Seasons
“I felt invigorated, connected, peaceful and nourished.”
“this kind of singing is my daily medicine to get through the hard stuff in life.”
“I felt a connection with a childhood love that I had lost touch with, and I felt joy, more openness, and a sense of community.”
“All my wife knows is that i come home Wednesday nights feeling better than when i left.”
“Marv’s style of teaching was one of the best things about the chorus: His ease that let me feel at ease about not having to get it right, his positivity, his play, his energy, and his effort to want things to work for us all.”
“I felt different feelings throughout: sometimes deeply touching my heart and soul, other times very playful!”
“sometimes I’m feeling kind of down and i don’t really feel like coming to choir, but i just know 10 minutes in, i’m already going to feel better.”
“It was very uplifting — we felt inspired and happier every single time.”
“I felt part of something larger — it was very uniting and spiritual for me.”
“It touched my heart and soul!”
Joyful Voices Chorus originates from unceded Coast Miwok land and we acknowledge we benefit from their displacement. To contribute to healing the continuing harms of the colonization of indigenous people, including through rematriating land, a portion of the proceeds are donated to Huukuiko, a local Coast Miwok organization stewarding 26 acres of land in ‘Etcha Tamal (aka Nicasio), land rematriated into Coast Miwok hands for the first time in Marin County history.