Dear Friends,
Welcome! Thanks for coming to visit!
Sometimes we were angels.
Sometimes we were not.
Sometimes we knew we were living in glory
Sometimes we forgot
But we were always cherished
Like the morning loves the dove
Like the ocean loves the thirsty river
We were always loved.
 I wrote these lines a few days ago. I am spending this month in Holden Village, a beautiful retreat center high in the Cascade wilderness. As the Creative Resource Resident Artist, my job here is primarily to write songs! What a gift this is! I’ve proposed that I will create a dozen new songs, primarily for singing at the bedside of those who may be seriously ill or dying. I’ll also be offering workshops, a concert, and weekly song circles. So it is a busy time, and a delicious experience.
I recently stepped down as the Director of the Bellingham Threshold Singers, and am now Director of a new group, Women with Wings. My intention for this new choir is that we will bring our singing circles of women into various facilities around our community, to bring comfort, some laughter, and companionship for those who may be isolated, suffering or ill. As always in my life, one door closes and another opens. It is a new way to bring together my passion for healing music with the needs of our community. I continue to offer my workshop, Voices of Compassion: An Introduction to Therapeutic Singing at the Bedside. Please let me know if you’d like to bring me to your town!
After a delightful tour to California with my dear friend and mentor, Frankie Armstrong, I am encouraged to begin again to offer Natural Voice workshops, and concerts. And I continue to bring the story of the struggle for the vote for women as women of the West celebrate 100 years of Suffrage. My multi-media presentation, Here’s to the Women!, has been presented in 32 towns, so far, in three states. It highlights the silencing and the raising up of women’s voices through their stories. You can hear the songs on the new CD of the same name, Here’s to the Women!, available here on my web site (preferable), on I-Tunes , CD Baby, Amazon, and the National Women’s History Project web site.
In these pages you can hear songs, see the lyrics, read old newsletters, learn more about workshops, see old photos, and see where I'll be next. You can sign up for my email newsletter, which I send quite sporadically. It may contain recipes, bits of wisdom, poems, song bits and reminiscences.
Thank you, again, for checking out these pages. May you find peace and hope in these uncertain times.
With love,
Linda |
 PRESENTATION:
Here's to the Women!
Songs, Stories & Images Of Washington's Women;
Presented by Linda Allen
Washington State is celebrating 100 years since the passage of Women's Suffrage. Linda has prepared a special program, highlighting both the silencing and the empowering of women's voices in Washington State. Linda's power-point, musical presentation features songs, stories, readings and images, with a special emphasis on the fifty-year struggle for the vote. Concerts and workshops are also available on the theme of women's history.
 PILGRIMAGE:
Journey to the
Heart of Israel and Palestine
In 2006, Linda was invited to visit Palestine and Israel with the Peacebuilders program to sing for school children. When she returned, she created a recording of songs to be used with the educational curriculum being developed, and she created a power point/musical presentation to share her experience. At the heart of the presentation are children's drawings from the Palestinian Child Arts Center. Please click on the poster for more information. For photos of Linda's journey, click here.
 TOPICAL SONGS
“We Are The Rainbow Sign”
Written for Al Gore's Climate Project.
A song on global warming.
LISTEN (mp3 file, 2.1 MB)
“Nobody Came”
A lament for New Orleans
LISTEN (mp3 file, 5.6 MB)
ABOUT LINDA ALLEN . . .
Linda Allen is a passionate and engaging performer whose songs are rooted in tradition and honed by years of commitment to an art that both informs and transforms. Her songs are bold, poignant, funny, informative, insightful and best described in a review from Folknik which called her music "·good holistic medicine for the spirit." She’s released nine CDs of original music.
Her passion, as a songwriter, presenter, choir director, and educator, is to help people find their physical, creative, and spiritual voices. Her songs also give voice to those whose voices may have been silenced.
Her songs have been sung and/or recorded by many artists including Rebel Voices, Seattle Women's Ensemble, Kulshan Chorus, Wisconsin Women's Chorus, Cindy Mangsen, Joe Jencks, Frankie Armstrong, Judy Small and many others. They have appeared in publications such as Sing Out! and Broadside, in books and song collections, and have been used for numerous film, radio and television programs.
Her albums and CD's have featured outstanding artists including Margie Adam, Betsy Rose, Frankie Armstrong, Alison Brown, Geof Morgan, Cary Black, Julian Smedley, Philip Boulding, Nina Gerber, Tracy Spring and her own talented daughters, Jen and Kristin Allen-Zito.
A prolific writer, Linda is also a song collector. She was Resident Songwriter for the State of Washington's Centennial Project; she also worked extensively with the Washington Women’s History Consortium, the Washington Women's Heritage Project and the Washington Grange Music Heritage Project.
Linda teaches classes, retreats, workshops and keynote presentations, serves as an artist-in-residence and enjoys going into schools, communities and conferences to give customized workshops on history, singing, songwriting, and creativity. Linda has organized two community folk centers and is a recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship. She is also an ordained interfaith Doctor of Ministry, and offers sermons and presentations for various spiritual communities and retreat centers. Her doctoral thesis was “The Bridge Between the Earth and Sky: The Spirituality of Voice”.
In 2007, Linda founded the Bellingham Threshold Singers, whose purpose is to sing at the bedside of those who are seriously ill or dying. She is now the Director of Women with Wings, bringing women’s song circles to those who may be isolated, ill or suffering. She is a Certified Clinical Musician, and presents a workshop, “Voices of Compassion: An Introduction to Therapeutic Singing at the Bedside.” Linda was recently inducted into the Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame for her work. |
Linda Allen sings the songs that tell of the lives and the work, the hopes and the dreams of people everywhere. Her interest in songwriting has grown out of her love for traditional music as well as her interest in our collective history. She has a talent for reaching into the ordinary to find the profound, setting it to music and singing it home.
MOVIE!
THE POWER
OF VOICE
Offers clips from Linda's vocal workshop, songwriting workshop, and keynote address, along with participant's comments.
Clark College Women's Conference, 2003
To Watch - Click Here
(7.8 MB, Quicktime Movie)
For booking information, comments,
or to sign up for our email list
Contact October Rose Productions:
Email Linda
Copyright ©2011
October Rose Productions,
2224 Utter St. Bellingham, WA
98225 USA
|
