Bio

JoAnne Spies is a singer songwriter who collaborates with her audience in rhythm and sound explorations. Recent works include “Karaoke Confession,” “Trust” and “Courage,” 'guided tour' community performances created at the Norman Rockwell Museum over the past three years for the Berkshire Festival of Women Artists. Her song “Survivor Tree,” written in honor of the callery pear tree that survived the blast at Ground Zero, was sung in a ceremony by the tree with Jane Goodall officiating for International Day of Peace. 

Since 2000 JoAnne has headed up the Art Cart program at Community Access to the Arts, co-creating songs with elders and people with Alzheimer’s in six Berkshire Healthcare settings.

JoAnne grew up in Chicago influenced by Muddy Waters, John Prine, and a Sicilian grandmother who sang songs for every occasion. She has produced four CDs of original music: "2 x 3" with Jack Douglas; "Me and Melville," a one-woman show which has been performed at Dixon Place and venues throughout the northeast; "North Avenue Honey" with Todd Mack, and her latest CD, “Ecstatic Dances,” produced with Robby Baier, focuses on movement and meditation.

info about song and download

"RiverMASS," created in 2004, honored the Housatonic River and led to an educational and cultural exchange program called "Sounding Mohican Pathways," created in collaboration with Tammis Coffin, Education Director at the Mission House in Stockbridge. The goal was to build bridges between the Stockbridge community here in Massachusetts and the Stockbridge Mohican community in Wisconsin. 

JoAnne has written six songs for an interactive environmental program funded by the Westfield River Watershed Association and Marmalade Productions called “Watershed Waltz.”

She has brought these songs about protecting the river to students at Undermountain School in Sheffield, MA.

Honors include Massachusetts Cultural Council grants for “Me & Melville” and “Sounding Mohican Pathways,” and a composer and visual arts fellowship at the Millay Colony.

  Students play listening game on tank drum,   
a recycled propane tank

 Improvising with audience and Istvan Banyai                                                      illustrations for 'Zoom' at the Norman Rockwell Museum

             If

             'a line is a dot that went for a walk,' 

    a song is a sound that wanted to talk

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acoustic version of "Survivor Tree"