interesting article in Scientific American:
The Power of Music: Mind Control by Rhythmic Sound

Friday, December 13 at Hevreh

Thanks to everyone for a great gig !

Turn to the Light 
Poetry and Song 
with JoAnne Spies and Rosemary Starace
Friday, December 13     10:45 AM 
Hevreh of Southern Berkshire 

More info here:
Facebook link

Vicki Richards improvisation on violin

Saturday October 5th, 8PM

 

go to Facebook page 

Sunday, September 22nd

                        

 Bascom Lodge
 atop Mount Greylock, 6 p.m. Free.

                                            

 Wind and Rain: 
An Evening of Poetry and Song 

Celebrate the elements and the fall equinox atop Mt. Greylock for an evening of songs, poems and stories with poet Rosemary Starace and singer-songwriter JoAnne Spies, as they trade art forms.Guitar, dulcimer, accordion, flute and chimes will accompany original and familiar pieces spoken, chanted and sung.

        Stay for dinner! Reservations strongly recommended..

For reservations and information call: 413-743-1591, or email: mail@bascomlodge.net

creating a culture of peace

 

 

Water our Roots with Love 

youtube video from International Day of Peace with Jane Goodall  

 

click here : Dennis Kucinich on war and peace

Performances

Saturday, August 13
Great Barrington Bandstand
JoAnne Spies 3:30pm 
Highland Band and others tba

to benefit GB Cultural Council

~Bandstand is across from the Mahaiwe Theatre~

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SATURDAY, JULY 27 

Great Barrington Library

Centennial Celebration

                        Looking forward to celebrating 100 years of the Great Barrington Library  
                                                      Join me inside the library at 1:00pm 
                                         with special guest Rosemary Starace on dulcimer

                                                            231 Main Street

                                                            Great Barrington, MA
                                                             Mason Library on Facebook

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Storytelling
'Telling Tales'
with 
JoAnne Spies
Saturday, August 3

Norman Rockwell Museum 

1:30 - 2:30

for kids of all ages

Come listen to all kinds of tales and songs and make up a few of your own

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

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D o o d l i n g   and   Creativity

Workshop 
w/JoAnne Spies

Saturday, June 22

Norman Rockwell Museum 

2:30 - 3:30

for kids of all ages

Let's move ! make a sound !  doodle!

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Improvising all together with Istvan Banyai illustrations for 'Zoom' at NRM

Saturday, April 20

Exploring Shape and Sound 

 at the Rockwell Museum

 If ...   a 'line is a dot that went for a walk'
    a song is a sound that wanted to talk

Join singer songwriter JoAnne Spies on a journey exploring the different shapes and sounds of music and how our point of view can make a song talk in different ways.
Saturday, April 20th

2:30 - 3:30

The Norman Rockwell Museum 

9 Route 183

Stockbridge, MA

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 Community Access to the Arts

CATA's Annual Performance and Fundraiser 

at Tina Packer Playhouse
Shakespeare & Company  Lenox, MA

May 11 and May 12

   

                                                    

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                       Two Events Created for Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Facebook Listings for All BFWW events 

Friday, March 22nd at 2:30 pm                                    at the Norman Rockwell Museum                                

TRUST                                                                                               a collaborative and interactive performance created by JoAnne Spies, with songs and poems on the theme of trust, in a guided tour of the Rockwell Museum.

Other 'tour guides' at performance:
(surprise guests expected too!)
Mari Andrejco
Barbara and Graham Dean
Jan Hutchinson
Rodney Mashia
Pooja Prema
Eric Reinhardt
Natalie Shiras
Nathan Smith
Teresa Thomas

 TRUST at Norman Rockwell Museum

visit Facebook Page

                                                                                                                               

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Wednesday, March 27 
Wind and Rain: Poetry and Song 
Rosemary Starace, JoAnne Spies  and the Elemental Orchestra     
                                                

The Lichtenstein Center, 28 Renne Avenue, Pittsfield, 7 p.m.
Suggested donation: $5
“Let me fly away with you, for my love is like the wind.” Enter an elemental landscape that celebrates love, wildness, and all that wind and rain conjure. Poet Rosemary Starace and singer-songwriter JoAnne Spies trade art forms and collaborate with each other and the elements in this interactive performance. Guitar, dulcimer, drums, melodicas, accordions, rattles, and chimes will accompany original and familiar pieces spoken, chanted, and sung. 
visit on Facebook    
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Sunday, April 7    2013
Mountain Road School Fundraiser 
 from 1pm - 5pm 
at the Richmond Congregational Church
515 State Road  ~ Richmond, MA

Divintress 
JoAnne Spies

Linda Worster

Paul De Jong

The Mountain Rodents

Chris, Nico, and Max

Mountain Road Children's Ensemble

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This week my Art Cart session with an Alzheimer's group of about twenty artists was rhythmic to the extreme. 
Three people were rocking full out to the rhythms we created together and you could see feet tapping, heads nodding, smiles forming and fingers lifting in time to the beat all around the room with folks who had limited mobility.

One of the more expressive movers told me afterwards that it was a special session.
 'How so?' I asked.
'You touched the corners where I don't usually meet people,' she said as she smiled.
What an eloquent way to say where music leads us!

"Music touches the corners where we don't usually meet people."
                                                  ~ an artist with Alzheimer's


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"To hear something asks very little of us. To listen places our entire being on notice."
~Terry Tempest Williams

more from interview..

...to listen is to survive

Yes, but it’s no longer about survival of the fittest, but survival of compassion. I think about the desert tortoise and all it is up against in the Mojave desert of St. George, Utah, where development is rampant. If the desert tortoise survives, it will not be because of its capacity to survive, but our capacity to care. Do we have enough empathy to allow the tortoise to live alongside us with enough land protected for its own use, not ours? 

Do we have enough insight to restrain our own appetite for more instead of less, 

which means more for other species?