Jefferson Awards

Last year I had the honor of being a 2011 winner of the Jefferson Award for my service to the Bay Area. I have been directing The Anything Goes Chorus for over 30 years and have brought singing to thousands of people, both students and audiences. The Jefferson Awards are a prestigious national recognition system honoring community and public service in America. They began in 1972 to create a Nobel Prize for public service and are presented on two levels: national and local. 

http://www.jeffersonawards.org

Last night I attended the Jefferson Awards Ceremony at Herbst Theater in San Francisco. The octet that I direct, Girlfriendz, sang in the lobby as people arrived and added lovely a cappella singing to the evening. Among the presenters in the ceremony were Kate Kelly and Sharon Chin from CBS Channel 5 and one of the founders, Sam Beard. It was truly an exceptional event. There were movies about the winners and also personal presentations by several of them. Hearing the stories of these wonderful people and seeing them in person was incredibly moving.  It was a thrill for me be on the stage with all 52 of the Bay Area winners (one for each week of the year). I had no idea I would get a medal, and such a lovely one. For me to be in the company of so many ordinary people doing extraordinary things was both humbling and uplifting. It was a wonderful night and it brought a much needed hopeful message to all who attended, and more than compensated for our daily onslaught of dismal news.  

So to all my students: I hope you understand that each one of you is actually making a difference in our community by sharing your voice. Making music, sharing it with each other and bringing it to people---these are powerful and positive forces for good. Thank you for being my students and for letting me lead you in song. I feel blessed that I have this gift to share. I could not do my work without you.

CD News!

I've always wanted to fly and here I am doing just that. 

OK, so I'm only a few feet off the ground. But it counts! 

Speaking of flying...

CD NEWS!

This year I performed at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley

with my very talented quartet: 

Murray Low, Sam Bevan, Kristen Strom and Dan Foltz. 

We recorded the show and I just finished mixing and mastering. 

The new live recording is called "Don't Wait Too Long" 

and will be released in 2012. 

Stay tuned...I'm very excited!

What a year...what a life!

It's been an incredible year for me professionally!

I celebrated 30 years as founder and director of

the Anything Goes Chorus(San Francisco & Oakland)

with a gala concert in March,

which included three women's ensembles I direct:

Girlfriendz, Swingshift Singers and Treblemakers.

At this concert I was presented with commendations

from Senator Barbara Lee

and also from the City of Oakland.

Then to top it off---in June I was given a Jefferson Award!

Watch it here:

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/06/01/jefferson-awards-delivering-the-healing-power-of-music/

It is such an honor to be recognized in these significant ways

for doing this work I love.

I started teaching at the Jazzschool in Berkeley last fall:

a Jazz Singing class and also a Chart Talk workshop

for vocalists to learn how to prepare music for their band or pianist.

In the area of performing, I am thrilled to have found

some fine new venues

where I can sing with my quartet:

the Piedmont Piano Company in Oakland

and the brand new Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.

(Now I have performed at all three locations.)

The show at the Freight was recorded live

and I started mixing yesterday.

Very exciting! This is my third project

and will definitely be my best so far.

I plan to release this CD in 2012.

I am looking forward to a well deserved

and much needed vacation in August

to hike in the Eastern Sierras and visit friends back East,

to have some time to relax in nature and be in the quiet,

and also enjoy the space to just chill out on my own.

Ah.....

It has been a jam packed Spring filled with music, music, music!

The Anything Goes Chorus performed the 29th Annual Spring Concert combining SF and Oakland choruses at the First Congregational Church in Oakland.

I returned for the second year to Yoshi's Jazz Club in Oakland with my quartet and sang my heart out for an enthusiastic audience that filled the house once again.

Girlfriendz had two concerts in one weekend in San Leandro Library Theater and the nonet delighted the crowd both nights with their vocals and choreography.

Treble Makers had a triumphant concert at Avonova in Oakland singing for family and friends and the quartet put on a full evening of entertainment.

Coming up next month will be a production of West Side Story by the Stagebridge seniors at the Ashby theater in Berkeley, and later in June a recital by my jazz vocal students at the Jazzschool.

Whew!

Then I will take a well deserved vacation this summer and spend some time in my beloved Eastern Sierra mountains. This will be followed by a trip back east to Cape Cod to visit old college friends, hang out at the Atlantic Ocean, soak up some sun and rest up for the fall and more music, music, music!

View from 2010

Communicating in mere words is incredibly difficult and often just plain inadequate. A quote from Paula Underwood Spencer, an American Indian writer, offers a possible method for dealing with the challenge: "If you want to be truly understood, you need to say everything three times, in three different ways. Once for each ear and once for the heart. The right ear represents the ability to apprehend the nature of the Whole, the wholeness of the circumstance, the forest. The left ear represents the ability to select a sequential path. And the heart represents a balance between the two."

This is why I'm a musician. I aim for both ears and the heart---all at once.

Ellen Robinson at Yoshi's

Here are some wonderful live photos from my sold out gig at Yoshi's taken by my friend and fabulous photographer Anna Kuperberg. It was such a blast...enjoy! Yoshi's, 5/12/2009

A lucky so & so...

I am a lucky woman! I get to do the thing I love and make my living at it. This fall 2009 I am starting my 29th year directing the Anything Goes Chorus, 11th year with Girfriendz, 8th year with Swingshift Singers, 7th year with Treble Makers, and finally my 2nd year with Stagebridge. In an economy that is struggling and floundering and laying off people right and left, my students and all those people who are hooked on singing understand the power of lifting your voice and your spirit in song with other like minded vocalists. It is magical alchemy that enables you to become more than just yourself---the harmony morphs you in to an integral part of a musical tapestry that only exists in that moment. Those who have experienced it just don't want to live without it in their lives. Bodies vibrating together in vocal ecstasy...OK, maybe that is a bit much, but we all do get high from singing, legally. It's just pretty great. Period.

In addition to that, I am so excited to continue to make fabulous music with my dream band consisting of Murray Low on piano, Sam Bevan on bass, Bud Spangler on drums, and Kristen Strom on sax. We have a new venue coming up in November: an intimate house concert setting that will bring the audience up close and personal---just the way I like it!

And last but hardly least, what literally gets me high is backpacking at 11,000+ feet surrounded by 13,000+ foot mountains. Yes, it's true: for my 60th birthday this summer I was able to hike up in to the Eastern Sierra again. Truly another blessing to be fit and strong and have good knees that will take me up...and down again. It nourishes my soul, renews my energy and shows me that anything is possible, so I can come back and lead hundreds of singers for yet another year.

And so it is.