How do we express aliveness and honesty through our voices? How do our relationships with moving, interruptions, and presence help in the journey of finding authenticity through the sounds our voices make?

I feel blessed to record this conversation with Marisa Michelson. Marisa has been building a body of work that examines singing through the multidimensionality of the human being / becoming. When I first found Marisa's work, I was stunned that someone has not only asked the questions I grapple with at various points in my journey, but has sincerely explored them with the devotion, love, and skill they deserve. 

In this conversation, we discussed Marisa's process with composing music, teaching, and exploring the voice in service of freer singing, healing, self-growth, sexuality, and spiritual inquiry. We explored non-verbal expressions, feeling saturated with life, the connections between limitation and liberation, and the practice of presence.

To connect with Marisa:

• Marisa's website
• Listen to Marisa's music Sappho Fragments and Tamar of The River.
• Vocal De-Armoring Community Weekend on Oct. 25-27th, 2024 in Ancram, NY
• The Vocal De-Armoring Channel on Mighty Networks
• Join Marisa's newsletter at the bottom of this page to hear more about her upcoming workshop on Primal Screaming

Here's Marisa's bio: 

Marisa is a multiple award-winning composer of music-theatre, musicals, oratorio and choral works, and was the founding director of the psychedelic vocal performance ensemble Constellation Chor | an immersion in voice, movement, and spirit which performed throughout New York City and international for seven years, debuting a new music composition with the NY Philharmonic at Lincoln Center in 2018. Her musicals have been produced off-Broadway, her oratorio was performed many times in NYC and in Salt Lake City, and you may hear some of her music wherever music streams. 

Marisa has been obsessed with all the magic that is the singing, voice-giving, expressive human for over two decades, exploring the uniqueness of solo, ensemble and multiply interweaving voices as a composer, a performer and a sought after somatic singing teacher. Somehow, voice-giving and its relation to the body, spirit and psyche has continued to call her forward - no matter the musical genre, and beyond any binary between performance and healing, composition and improvisation, process and product. 

After almost two decades of devotion to the Libero Canto School of Singing (a primary lineage of hers), she created the School of Vocal De-Armoring, a somatic and holistic approach to working with singing and voice-giving in a way that connects us more intimately with the layered dimensions of Self. Vocal De-Armoring is not focused on particular aesthetic sound outcomes, though aesthetic improvement - which is subjective - is an important byproduct, but, instead, on self-connection and on learning to sing from a place of honesty. At the same time, Vocal De-Armoring practices help a person develop musical and vocal mastery. Vocal De-Armoring is also about de-conditioning, and Human-ing from a place of Truth. 

Marisa lives, works, plays and teaches in Ancram on Mohican land in upstate New York.

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This podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jonathan Koe. Theme music is also composed by me! Connect with me through my newsletter, my Instagram @jonathankoeofficial, and my music. For podcast-related inquiries, email me at [email protected].