This is the second in our series of online vocal workshops for 2024, the first one (featuring Alash, Merrill Garbus, Elaine Mitchener, Ken Ueno and Maja Ratkje) is here. You don't need to take the first one to take this one - the two are non-sequential, and can be enjoyed independently of each other. And more importantly - you don't need to be an experienced singer to get the most from this workshop - everyone is welcome, and everyone can benefit.

Note: if you're signed up to Part 1, and you're thinking about adding Part 2, you might be interested in buying a bundle.

Aimed at all levels of vocal artists, from curious novices to experienced singers, this multi-tutor workshop gathers some of the most influential vocalists working today to present a diverse array of vocal techniques and practices. Across five intimate, interactive videocall sessions, we'll explore the voice as a fundamental form of human expression with Howlspace, aka Micaela Tobin (White Boy Scream) and Carmina Escobar; the Irish keening tradition with singer, songwriter and world renowned scholar of Gaelic song and culture, Mary Mc Laughlin ; North Indian Raga with Award-winning vocalist and champion of Indian Classical Music, Mahesh Kale ; meditative chant and laughter with ambient guru Laraaji ; and freedom of vocal experimentation with Feral Choir leader Phil Minton .

This unmissable series of workshops will expand your vocal abilities, your technical vocal toolset, your knowledge and understanding of a wide range of vocal styles and techniques, and your ability to sing comfortably, sustainably, and happily!

Howl Space, pioneered by Micaela Tobin and Carmina Escobar, is a community-based learning resource that reframes vocal pedagogy through holistic, process-based approaches to discover the multi-faceted possibilities of the voice and unveil the creative process. With over 20 years of experience working, performing and creating with the voice, sound artists and vocal experimenters Carmina and Micaela have united their unique praxises creating Howl Space, a laboratory for the voice.

Soprano and sound artist Micaela Tobin is best known for her project White Boy Scream - her most recent (and widely acclaimed) full length album BAKUNAWA (Deathbomb Arc) includes elements of sonic ritual, ancient myth, and ancestral memory. Micaela is on faculty teaching voice at CalArts. Carmina is also on faculty at CalArts, teaching voice technique, experimental voice workshops, contemporary vocal music, and interdisciplinary projects regarding the voice. She's an experimental extreme vocalist, improviser, sound and intermedia artist whose work has appeared at high profile festivals, museums, galleries, and theaters around the world, from Borealis Festival (Norway) and CTM Festival (Berlin) to the World Dada Fair (San Francisco) and MexiCali Biennial.

For our first session, Micaela and Carmina will present "The Spontaneous Voice: Releasing the Limits of Aesthetic" - a virtual vocal workshop/lecture of the Voice as an instrument/tool of texture and shape that challenges the status quo of traditional vocality and transcends the boundaries of subjective aesthetics of beauty. We'll start with a brief lecture on the ontology of the Voice as it relates to the fundamental form of human expression. Then, through the virtual space, we'll physically explore the mechanism of the Voice through body/breath work, body awareness guided meditations, and foundational warmups for resonators that lead to exercises to develop tools for finding vocal freedom through spontaneity and improvisation using a point of connection of the virtual space with graphic scores.

Mary Mc Laughlin is a singer / songwriter / teacher steeped in the Ulster Gaelic song tradition of her native Ireland. Over her career spanning 30 years of recording, performance and teaching an array of folk traditions, across multiple continents, Mary has honed her understanding and focus, at least in recent years, on the Irish Keen, and fairy song. She has released four solo albums and two teaching books, sang the theme song for the PBS special about the Titanic, 'Lost Liners', contributed to 13 compilation albums on major labels and had two albums, "A Gaelic Christmas" and "Sacred Days, Mythic Ways", nominated for the international JPF Indie awards. She specialised in the study of the mythological songs of Ireland during her academic time at the University of Limerick, on the banks of the Shannon River, where she completed her doctorate entitled "Songs Between Worlds: Enchantment and Entrapment in the Irish Otherworld Song Tradition."

For our second session, Mary will cover the history and context of the Keen, before diving in to learning some keening songs. We'll wrap up with a Q&A.

Mahesh Kale is an accomplished vocalist whose thrilling perfomances have positioned him firmly on the national and international radar of the North Indian Classical Music community. As a disciple of Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki, he became equally proficient at Thumri, Dadra, Tappa, Bhajans, Bhavgeet, and Natyasangeet. He was initiated into music by his mother Smt. Meenal Kale (a disciple of Smt. Veena Sahasrabuddhe) and presently continues to receive guidance from Shri. Shounak Abhisheki.

Mahesh has performed extensively in India, USA, Europe, UAE, Southeast Asia, and has been playing the central character in the popular Sangeet Natak musical "Katyar Kaljat Ghusli", for which he was honoured with an award by the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Natya Parishad (2010). He maintains an open outlook towards music to reach out to new generations, while retaining traditions. He has performed with world famous percussionists including Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu and Sivamani, and instrumentalists like Pedro Eustache and Frank Martin, in fusion and collaborative works, ably demonstrating his versatility as a composer and singer. In an effort to spread awareness and education about Indian classical music in the western world, Mahesh gives lecture-demonstrations in various universities in the USA (including Stanford and Harvard University) and was also profiled as Artist of the Month by Harvard Sangeet in 2008.

Mahesh will start from the basics of singing raga, before introducing ideas of improvisation, and the application of melodic development and improvisation to musical composition.

Laraaji is synonymous with ambient music, meditation and cosmic energy - his Laughter workshops, deep listening performances and yoga tours have become a program highlight at some of the worlds finest arts institutions, festivals and clubs. Awakened to mysticism in the 70's, Laraaji bought a second hand zither and began busking around Manhattan and Brooklyn - he was playing in Washington Square Park when Brian Eno heard him, resulting in Laraaji recording the third release of Eno's seminal "Ambient" series. Forty years and almost fifty albums later, Laraaji is at the forefront of deep listening and ambient music - he has collaborated with Bee Mask, Ela Orleans, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, Blues Control and Sun Araw, released on Stones Throw subsidiary Leaving Records, produced Boiler Room sessions and toured worldwide.

Laraaji's session will be an idyllic immersion into ambient music, meditation, laughter and deep listening. A condensed version of his full CAMP workshop happening in 2025, the sesison will explore Laughter meditation (the health and relaxation benefits of heavy laughter), and Chanting our light body (intuitively guided call and response chanting for inviting expanded light body awareness and integration).

For most of the last forty years, Phil Minton has been working as a improvising singer in groups, orchestras and situations, touring and performing worldwide. Composers frequently write pieces that especially employ his extended vocal techniques and improvisations, and he works in ensemble situations with Veryan Weston, Roger Turner, John Butcher, Audrey Chen, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Guylaine Cosseron, Hugh Medcalfe and Szilard Mezei. Since the eighties, his Feral Choir, where he voice-conducts workshops and concerts for anyone who wants to sing, has performed in over twenty countries. A review of his 2015 album "A Doughnut's End" on Tinymixtapes summed up his practice: "Utilizing a number of unorthodox techniques — utterances, gasps, belches, whistles, etc. — Minton has forged an alternative lexicon, one that seemingly forgoes the constraints of tradition and language".

For our final session, Phil will welcome us into his his Feral Choir - normally a series of vocal workshops with non-professionals, leading up to performances. It originated in the late 1980’s when Phil was asked to do some workshops with ‘non-singers’ in the Musik Centrum Stockholm. The success of these led him to develop the idea further. During the sesion, Phil will encourage participants to take a vocal leap and explore all vocal possibilities through exercises and improvisations.

Phil sums up his passion for the Feral Choir: "My recent experience of working with singers, many of whom think they cannot sing, has strengthened my conviction that the human voice is capable of so much more than is generally understood. In the workshops I have encouraged participants to realise that anyone who can breathe, is capable of producing sounds that give a positive aesthetic contribution to the human condition and many of these contributions are without any cultural influences or references."



WHERE AND WHEN?

This is an online course, but it involves realtime sessions and contact time with your tutor - it's not a "download these videos and watch them at your leisure" type of thing - it's a real workshop with live lectures, individual tuition, assignments and feedback sessions. We've tried to make this remote session as close as possible to the experience of an onsite workshop at CAMP. The course starts on 01/12/2024 and ends on 18/12/2024. The schedule for sessions is as follows (all times are CET):

• Session 1 - Howlspace: 01/12/2024, 19:00 - 22:00 CET
• Session 2 - Mary Mc Laughlin: 05/12/2024, 19:00 - 21:30 CET
• Session 3 - Mahesh Kale: 08/12/2024, 19:00 - 21:00 CET
• Session 4 - Laraaji: 12/12/2024, 19:00 - 21:00 CET
• Session 5 - Phil Minton: 18/12/2024, 19:00 - 21:00 CET

HOW TO BOOK

To book your place on the course, click the button in the green section above. You won't pay anything right now - we'll send you a booking confirmation email with everything you need to know next. Your place is reserved without payment for three days.

You'll find a payment link in the booking confirmation email - follow the link to make a payment (either in full, or the first payment of a 2 month payment plan). In the latter case, a monthly payment plan will be put in place, so your card will be charged 1/2 of the fee today, and 1/2 each month (on the same day) for an additional 1 months. All card payments are handled by Stripe, and are extremely secure. We don't store any card data ourselves - all of this is handled securely off-site by Stripe. If you have a discount or grant code, you will be able to add it when you follow the payment link in your confirmation email.

Once you've made a payment, you'll receive another email containing your receipt, links to resources, contact information and access to our group chat to discuss the workshop with other participants.