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Event
The Night Bird Sings
Join Renee Benmeleh on vocals, Benny Watson on keys, Carla Kaufman on Bass, and Bob Blankenship on drums for Renee's return to the stage after many years developing new material. Bring your heart, your clapping hands, and your spirit to an evening of original compositions, jazz/world music, and poetry where the night bird sings...Can't wait to see you!
About Renee:
For the last eight and a half years Rene Benmeleh has been teaching music for children through East Bay Music Together www.eastbaymusictogether.com, for families as well as at Childrens Hospital in Oakland. She also facilitates childrens musical birthday parties, and assists an elder through her last years. In 2003 she put out a CD demo with three Jazz standards and a personal R & B composition, which were recorded at Mills College. After many years of exploring others music, she feels the call to refocus on her own compositions and has been performing her own work publicly in the Bay Area.
Rene has studied drum technique with Bruce Silverman, founder and director of the Sons and Daughters of Orpheus, an Afro-Brazilian, Caribbean, and Jewish Music ensemble for performance and ritual, and she is an experienced drummer on Djembe, Conga, Doumbek, and various Brazilian Bateria instruments. She continues to love and pursue music in ritual settings, with a personal focus on Lakota ceremonial singing and drumming in the last ten years, and in her own Jewish roots more recently as a vocalist at Chochmat Halev, a Jewish renewal Congregation in Berkeley, CA., www.chochmat.org.
She has taught the rhythms of Nigeria, Brazil, and West Africa for groups and is currently an enlivened drum circle facilitator, trained by Arthur Hull and Village Music Circles www.drumcircle.com.
She recently acquired a Certificate in Sound, Voice, Music, and Healing, from California Institute of Integral Studies which allowed her the delight of studying with pioneering 20th Century musician/educator Pauline Oliveros once again. Her final project in the class focused on music during gestation and birth, providing the opportunity to support a woman musically through her pregnancy and birth, which was one of the highest moments of her life! Rene is excited about the possibility of supporting a womans birth process through music in the future.
Following her recent studies on the Native American cedar flute with Suzanne Teng www.suzanneteng.com, Rene connected with Peruvian sound healer Tito La Rosa www.ayni.org to continue her sound-work studies, which also include a variety of native flutes, kalimba, shakers, and more recently, the Arabic Ney flute.
Rene is elated by the healing power that music has had on her soul and her life, and she is lifted by the sweetness of sharing this connection with her world community.
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LocationHillside Community Church
1422 Navellier St
El Cerrito, CA 94530
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 6 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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Contact
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