Diane Taraz
For decades Diane Taraz has been creating her own songs and breathing new life into traditional ones. She excels at a cappella singing, but also plays guitar and lap dulcimer, and on her many recordings has collaborated with a wealth of talented musicians.
Born in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, Diane taught herself guitar during long winter evenings, her feet perched on a wood-burning stove. She wrote her first songs in high school and began working her way through 100 English Folk Songs, a classic collection of ballads. She was captivated by the beauty and power of the melodies, and the way the words provide a glimpse into the past. After moving to the Boston area for college, Diane studied guitar with 12-string master Tracy Moore and polished her vocal skills at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge.
Diane has recorded nine CDs that feature her many compositions and her vivid interpretations of traditional songs from England, Ireland, Scotland, French Canada, and America. She is the director of the Lexington Historical Society Colonial Singers, and she presents historic programs that focus on specific eras, including the American Revolution and the Civil War. She often performs as a guest with the Gloucester Hornpipe & Clog Society, a traditional band that plays maritime, Celtic, and Colonial music. She also sings with Vox Lucens, a 12-member a cappella Renaissance choir, and the UUlations, a women’s a cappella group.
Sweet Honey In the Rock
Founded by Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1973 (with Mie, Carol Maillard and Louise Robinson) at the D.C. Black Repertory Theater Company, Sweet Honey In The Rock®, internationally renowned a cappella ensemble, has been a vital and innovative presence in the music culture of Washington, D.C., and in communities of conscience around the world.
The metaphor of sweet honey in the rock captures completely these African American women whose repertoire is steeped in the sacred music of the Black church, the clarion calls of the civil rights movement, and songs of the struggle for justice everywhere.
Rooted in a deeply held commitment to create music out of the rich textures of African American legacy and traditions, Sweet Honey In The Rock possesses a stunning vocal prowess that captures the complex sounds of Blues, spirituals, traditional gospel hymns, rap, reggae, African chants, Hip Hop, ancient lullabies, and jazz improvisation. Sweet Honey’s collective voice, occasionally accompanied by hand percussion instruments, produces a sound filled with soulful harmonies and intricate rhythms.
Liz Story
Liz began her musical training as a young child, mastering Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 11 by the age of 11. When her family moved to Germany during her teens, she added languages, philosophy, and poetry to her studies. She was classically trained, studying music at Hunter College and Juilliard in New York City.
She lost interest in a music career until she saw Bill Evans play one night at The Bottom Line in New York. She met Evans after the show and, at his suggestion, she began to study jazz piano with Stanford Gold. Evans remains a major inspiration to her and she has recorded a number of his compositions.
She later moved back to Southern California, where she studied at the Dick Grove Music Workshops in Studio City. During her studies, she took a job playing piano in a restaurant and was unexpectedly thrust into improvisations when she realized the piano she was to perform on had no stand for her music! Over several months these improvisations developed into compositions. When Windham Hill’s Will Ackerman heard a tape of these, he signed her to record her debut album, “Solid Colors,” in 1983.
Her musical style defies traditional description and has inspired countless musicians. With a dozen albums to her credit, her works cross many musical genres and paint a spectacular musical panorama.
For more information about Liz Story, contact Vision Quest Entertainment at 303-979-7011.
Bill Staines
For more than forty years, Bill has traveled back and forth across North America, singing his songs and delighting audiences at festivals, folksong societies, colleges, concerts, clubs, and coffeehouses. A New England native, Bill became involved with the Boston-Cambridge folk scene in the early 1960’s and for a time, emceed the Sunday Hootenanny at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge. Bill quickly became a popular performer in the Boston area. From the time in 1971 when a reviewer from the Boston Phoenix stated that he was “simply Boston’s best performer”, Bill has continually appeared on folk music radio listener polls as one of the top all time favorite folk artists. Now, well into his fifth decade as a folk performer, he has gained an international reputation as a gifted songwriter and performer.
Jason Shelton
The Reverend Jason Shelton is a composer, arranger, conductor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, workshop and retreat leader and Associate Minister for Music at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where he has served since 1998. His compositions have been performed in churches and concert halls throughout North America, and his workshops for choirs, musicians and ministers are helping to redefine music ministry in the liberal religious tradition for the 21st century.
Jim Scott
Jim Scott has brought his contemporary and multicultural music to more than 500 UU Churches over 27 years. His much loved Gather the Spirit and a number of others are included in the UU hymnbooks. Former Co-chair of the UU Ministry for the Earth, Jim was involved in creating the “Green Sanctuary” program. He was awarded a grant from the Fund for Unitarian Universalism to compile and arrange the Earth and Spirit Songbook, a collection of over 100 songs of earth and peace that has been acclaimed as a great resource for worship and RE programs.
In concerts and Sunday services, Jim speaks with passion on ecology, justice and peace, and often works with choirs, inspiring singers to new levels of expression. His lyrical poetry and stories are calls to action, full of hope and gentle wit. Though Jim is often brought in as the “speaker,” his services are always very musical. As song-leader he lifts joyous participation from congregations.
Jim Scott, P. O. Box 4025 Shrewsbury MA 01545, Tel. (508) 755-0995.
Dan Schatz
Dan Schatz has been playing folk music since his childhood in Kensington, Maryland. Nurtured by the active folk music community in the Washington, DC area, he has performed concerts, festivals and workshops since the age of 12. Since then, Dan has become a GRAMMY nominated singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and interpreter of traditional and contemporary folk music. He combines a strong voice with instrumentals that have been described as both “brilliant” and “yummy.”
Sally Rogers
Sally Rogers is a musician/educator with a big life and long history. She has been a performing and recording artist in the world of folk music for over thirty years, with fifteen recordings left in her wake, and many with national awards. She is a well-known songwriter whose songs have been featured in both the Unitarian Universalist and Quaker Hymnals as well as in both national music textbook series. Her children’s picture book, “Earthsong” was published by Dutton/Penguin, based on her song “Over in the Endangered Meadow.”
Since 2001, Rogers has spent more of her musical energy in the classroom rather than on the road. She taught PK-4 music at Pomfret Community School for 9 years, spent a year in a pilot arts-based literacy program in the Bridgeport, CT public Schools, and now is teaching K-2 music at the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley, MA. She is also an adjunct professor at Lesley University in their Creative Arts in Learning Master’s Degree program. Rogers has served as a Master Teaching Artist with the Connecticut Office of the Arts since 1997. She lives in Northeastern Connecticut with her husband, winemaker and musician Howard Bursen.
Suzzy and Maggie Roche
Suzzy and Maggie Roche have been singing together for over forty years. As founding members of The Roches they have made over fifteen recordings (along with their sister Terre), written music for TV and movies, and performed across the United States and Europe. Zero Church, an unusual collection of prayers, came out of The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University. Interested in the idea of how individual people pray, and what those prayers are like, Suzzy and Maggie asked people in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts for prayers, with no limits on what defines a prayer. They made those prayers into songs and the result is Zero Church. The project took on a life of its own, taking shape as one entire piece, although gathered from many individuals. Zero Church has been performed around the country.
Doug Robinson
A guitarist, bass player, singer and producer, Doug has had a lengthy career as a performer and studio musician. He has toured frequently in the US, Canada and Europe with the Burns Sisters Band, British acoustic guitar virtuoso Martin Simpson, ragtime guitarist Bob Brozman, latin bluesman Tino Gonzales and Austin songwriter Billy Eli. In 2003 he performed at Carnegie Hall with Johnny Russo’s East Hill Classic Jazz Group and has been featured in festival performances with European gypsy-swing guitarists Stochelo Rosenberg and Romane. He also performs frequently with the Ithaca-based “Djug Django” gypsy-swing band, the Molly MacMillan Jazz Trio, and singer Sally Ramirez.
