photo credit: Jane Feldman
JoAnne Spies (rhymes with trees) is a singer songwriter and visual artist who collaborates with her audience in rhythm and sound explorations. Works include ‘Karaoke Confession’ and ‘Trust’ at the Norman Rockwell Museum and ‘Survivor Tree’, sung at the 9-11 Memorial by the Survivor Tree to honor the tree and Jane Goodall as she received a peace award on International Day of Peace.
More than ever, the Survivor Tree stands as a master teacher and symbol pointing to ways we can collaborate with our environment and ‘Water our Roots with Love.’
Spies has headed the Art Cart program at Community Access to the Arts since 2001, bringing music, movement and poetry to six Berkshire Healthcare settings, including two memory care units. Since April 2020, she has brought her interactive sessions online virtually, and in Spring 2022 resumed in person.
Visit her ‘Now and New’ page to hear about upcoming performances and events and email spiesarts@gmail.com to sign up for ‘Moving Sound’ sessions or get on the mailing list.
Her CD's include 2x3, Me & Melville, North Avenue Honey, and Ecstatic Dances.
JoAnne is a graduate of the four-year MfP musicianship and leadership program in music improvisation and is a Remo Drum Health Rhythms facilitator. She has studied with drummer Arthur Hull and the Liz Lerman dancers in the MCC Elder Arts Initiative.
Awards include a composer and visual arts fellowship to the Millay Colony, a grant from the Westfield Watershed and Marmalade Productions to write songs for "Watershed Waltz," an eco-friendly production that premiered at the Berkshire Museum and toured the schools, and MCC grants for her CD, "Me & Melville," "Sounding Mohican Pathways," a collaboration with the Trustees of the Reservation, and the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire for a Bascom Lodge performance highlighting Melville.
~*~
Leading procession at beginning of "Sounding the River" at Pumpkin Hollow. pictured with Marafanyi, Jerome Edgerton, Lion Miles, Vikki True and audience. photo: Keith Emerling
procession down Main Street Stockbridge "Sounding Mohican Pathways" photo: Tammis Coffin
“We learn by going,
where we need to go...”
My Sicilian grandmother, Rosaria Dolce, urged me to "Sing, Giovanna, sing!" when in need of a remedy for any and all things troubling, or to find the best way to celebrate. I feel fortunate that the joy and healing power of singing has become the foundation of my life's work.
Walking or leading processions when I sing has become a favorite way to be a part of the music and find where it leads me. The rhythms in walking or dancing are a big part of the song and the singing together.
The elements around us lead us with their own sounds: our conversations with the river, wind, water, sun were our first music and can be discovered each day in new songs of listening. What do we hear? What do we want to say?
I like to call the audience the 'Elemental Orchestra.' As we find our own simple rhythms and songs, we recall what we are made of and feel more our belonging with the world around us, with others and with ourselves.
Here's an article about my work in the May 2017 issue of The Artful Mind. Thank you to publisher Harryet Puritzman Candee and photographer Jane Feldman for this interview.
Many of the words for ‘Look at My Hands’ came from stories I heard in my Art Cart work for Community Access to the Arts (CATA).
