Circlesinging and CVI for Vocal Leaders, 4-day non-residential

London, April 3-6 2025

Throughout these 4 days, a group of song leaders will have a chance to explore together and deepen the understanding of different forms and models of collaborative vocal improvisation, including circlesinging. 

If you have already attended the four-day Training and would like to continue your learning, I’ll be offering a four-day follow up. the dates are: January 23 to 26, 2025.

Circlesinging and CVI for Vocal Leaders Training

Who is it this training for?

The course is designed for choir facilitators and vocal leaders wanting to bring vocal improvisation into their singing groups. But participants can also range from leaders of singing for wellbeing and holders of communal mind- body- spirit events willing to grow their skills and co-create a richer musical experience, to experienced vocal improvisers venturing into facilitation, musicians, music teachers and music therapists who use voice and improvisation in different levels and settings.

Why Circlesinging and CVI? 

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation and Circlesinging can be potent community building tools, and ways to help participants grow and expand in their musicianship, awareness and human connection. They also allow for the creativity and self expression of the facilitator to blossom. 

Every song leader will have the opportunity to lead and to be led by others, as well as acquire some fundamental tools to develop their own improvisational language and musicianship, and gain confidence in group-leading skills. 

What is the purpose of training in vocal improvisation?

The training is both practical and experiential.  There are the tools and techniques offered but most importantly,  the processes of implementation and sharing, and the experience of being in- the -moment at the receiving end of the work and feeling its effects in the individual and the collective. 

The main purpose of the training is for participants to start incorporating Vocal Improvisation and Circlesinging into their life, work and community:  school, nursery, retirement home, SEN setting, community choir, spiritual practice, or just in their personal practice or with a group of keen and adventurous friends.

It’s been proven that these music-making moments in community can be a useful way to integrate people, enhance communication and creativity in schools, courses, retreats, at the workplace… and to generate a flow of wellbeing chemicals in everyone's brain, and a sense of relaxation, warmth, belonging, Therefore they have the potential to become self- care/self enquiry practices as well as encourage wholeness and flow in groups . 

This training offers a deep experience of it, of the many ways of bringing people together and it offers participants the possibility to explore leading others and be led in spontaneous song.. 

What will be covered?

The core of this course is based around cultivating awareness of the personal, interpersonal and transpersonal dimensions, and learning many musical activities to encourage these three levels of awareness in the participants. 

• Circlesongs and CVI as ways to reclaim everyone’s innate musicianship and capacity to collaborate and co- create, and to transform individual and collective consciousness.

• Body, breath, movement. Silence, reflection, conversation. Humour and depth. Ways of bringing people together and into an open state.

• Circlesinging: making efficient patterns and developing them, conducting, form and process, circlesong architecture, adapting the material in real time, learning from participants. 

• CVI different models from free to groove- based. Cultivating mutual listening and space - vocal identity and styles - developing invented language - body rhythm and sound-

• Personal practice: ways to improve our own creativity and musical skills. A capella, and with looping devices. 

• Troubleshooting: group dynamics, -internal (inner gremlins) and external challenges. Self-care of the facilitator. Awareness, fluidity, responsiveness, the facilitator’s state of being as part of the invitation. 

What are the skills to develop?

The main skills to develop from my perspective are relational: exploring different ways to connect- respond, invite change, listen deeply, accompany…

There will be diverse exercises and games in the areas of rhythm, melody construction, use of invented language, harmony and tone quality. 

Also body work, breath, meditation and bonding activities. 

We will explore Circlesinging and many CVI propositions and techniques, with distinct and complementary objectives:

-to hold space for others in each person’s safe, supportive, open hearted and unique ways.

-to create and co-create strong, supportive, interesting structures  for singers to explore and develop their improvisational skills.

-To empower participants to create, orchestrate and conduct their own circlesongs and other forms of collaborative music.

-To develop everyone’s personal style, voice and presence as facilitators.

-To invite everyone’s personal development as facilitators, understanding what are each person’s needs, their natural or acquired strengths and the areas for potential growth. 

Who am I and why I’m offering this training?

My journey as a vocal improviser began when I was born and is ongoing. I love every part of it, including the challenges. A big part has been recognising and learning to shed what gets in the way of my natural self-expression, joy of sharing music with others and my sense of belonging, being a part of Earth and the Bigger Picture. 

I’m deeply grateful to Bobby Mc Ferrin, Rhiannon and all the teachers and inspirations I’ve met along the way. I’ve been sharing my love for collaborative vocal improvisation and circlesinging around the world as a teacher for the last decade.

I began to offer  vocal improvisation trainings back in 2016. In 2019 Anthropos: Songs of Humanity, was born, an a cappella improvisation ensemble reimagining ancestral musical practices. I believe in every human's innate musicality and potential to be a part of meaningful musical interactions.

I’m particularly interested in reclaiming a freedom and universality in our singing creativity that I believe we had in our ancestral past and often forget about. In the relationship between spontaneous singing, the wellbeing of the collective and individual bodies, deep listening, connection and transformation.

The invitation:

To remember our innate musical intelligence and capacity to share music and meaning with other humans. To sing our essential nature, deepening the quality of our listening. To feel at home within ourselves and let our inner confidence grow… so that we can embrace many ways to learn, in togetherness and by ourselves,dropping deep into the joy and wisdom and creativity that lays within each and every human being. 

PREVIOUS COURSES

PREVIOUS COURSES

Three follow-up modules for Vocal Leaders , Jan- Jun 2024

Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential. London, June 27-30, 2024

Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential. London, Feb 2-5, 2024

Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential. London, November 30-Dec 3, 2023

Circlesinging e CVI (Improvvisazione vocale collaborativa), 4 day non- residential. Torino, IT, Sept 13-17, 2023

Advanced Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential. London, June 26-29, 2023

Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential London, November 24-28, 2022

Advanced Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders. 4-day non- residential. London, November 12-16, 2022

Circlesinging e CVI (Improvvisazione vocale collaborativa), 2 day non- residential. Torino, IT, 25-28 Sept 22

Circlesinging e CVI (Improvvisazione vocale collaborativa), 2 day non- residential. Bologna, IT, July 20-24, 2022