"Everyone should have a chance to experience the musical magic that happens in a circle singing workshop — there is a deep spiritual connection experienced individually and collectively through shared breath and song. In these times, making space for beauty is essential to our survival. Francisco's workshops are surely one way to make that happen."
My story
How I got here.
I grew up in a house where someone was always humming. My grandmother in the kitchen, my uncle on the porch, my mother in the car between errands. None of them would have called themselves singers. They sang anyway. That's the singing I grew up with — not the polished kind, the alive kind.
I trained formally — voice, composition, conducting. I sang in choirs and on stages and in studios. I learned how to make sound technically beautiful. And the entire time, what I kept missing was the kitchen.
Twenty-some years ago, I led my first workshop almost by accident. A friend running a nonprofit in East L.A. asked if I would do "something musical" for her staff retreat. I had no script. I led them in a couple of simple rounds, listened to what was happening in the room, and made the rest up. At the end, half the room was in tears and the other half wanted to know when we could do it again.
I've been doing it ever since. In schools. In hospitals. In libraries. In tech companies and law firms and city halls. In Spanish, in English, in a dozen languages I cannot speak. With grandmothers and teenagers and CEOs and toddlers — sometimes all in the same room.
I called it Withness because that's what I'm actually trying to make. Not a concert. Not a class. A few minutes of being with each other, fully, while making something beautiful together. Everything I offer is some version of that invitation.
I'd love for your community to be next.