The way of the artist

I must have been around three when I discovered my parents’ cassette player and their collection of tapes. I’d press the red button and record my voice over everything.

Later, when I was a bit older, my parents got me a mic. We set up a small system in the living room, right at the heart of the house. I’d come back from school and spend hours recording the same song over and over. I’m still surprised at how welcoming they were of all the repetition – and of being constantly shushed.

I did explore other avenues. I joined choirs, studied with a few teachers, and explored different musical styles, including dhrupad and other Indian forms. But none of it ever quite felt attuned to me. Some of it felt heavy or patriarchal, and I never found a teacher who truly connected with how I was using my voice. It always felt like I was over here doing something instinctive, and they were over there giving instructions that didn’t quite land. It left me feeling tense and disconnected from myself.

Eventually, I realised what I really wanted to do was to go deeper into singing folk songs from different parts of the world. I love the way different cultures develop different ways of using the expressive possibilities of the voice.

You spent a lot of time in Greece. Tell me about that.

I first heard Rebetiko, a rich Eastern-influenced urban folk music, one winter in Paris at a little Greek restaurant – and I fell in love. I knew I had to go to Greece. The next summer, I was there, and for a few years, I went twice a year and was warmly welcomed into the homes of musicians, where I’d soak the music in. Greece is a very interesting place for music, where the musical East and West meet.

I was drawn to the makam modal system and its unique way of improvisation, and the gorgeous ornamentation of the voice in Greek folk music. I also studied the accordion there – it was a wonderful journey dancing with the breath of the bellow – but I struggled with my body in connection with the instrument and never developed my playing enough to call myself an instrumentalist.

Then came COVID. That brought a natural end to that phase, and I began using my voice in completely new ways. During lockdown, I was processing some really difficult inner experiences. It was just me, in a small house, with my voice, my body, a mirror, and everything I was moving through internally.

The way I navigated it was by using my voice – intuitively, without structure, following my impulses from moment to moment. At the end of that period, I gave a concert for the first time, and my voice had completely changed. What was fascinating was that I hadn’t been trying to “improve” my voice. I wasn’t working on it technically – it was purely an inner journey. And yet, the aesthetics of my voice had evolved more than they ever had in my life.

I think that’s the essence of the work I do now: working with the voice without a fixed agenda, without trying to control it.

So that was a discovery that just happened?

Exactly. It was a beautiful and unexpected discovery – surprising and wonderful, and healing.

That discovery led me to start working with people quite experimentally. That was about five years ago. I found that even without having many tools or formal knowledge, I could offer meaningful support. It felt like there was some kind of gift to explore.

Support in giving people space to explore through their voice?

Yes, though the first person I worked with sang Indian classical music. So it began with singing – but not in the conventional sense of giving someone technique to “improve” their voice. It was about meeting the person fully, creating space for deeper explorations and shifts.

Since then, I’ve been very committed to studying voice in various ways – in order to have real knowledge and tools to offer, in addition to my own experience, my intuition, and my presence.

Can you speak of the approaches to voice that you have been studying? Because there’s so much richness in what you’ve explored.

I did a research-based postgraduate certificate in voice pedagogy, which was a year and a half long. It was mentored, and quite intense. My focus was on somatic approaches to the voice, so I studied many different ways to approach the voice, body, and emotional process.

One of my studies focused on fascia and the voice – how emerging understandings of the body, and of the connective tissue that holds everything together, can change the way we approach vocal work. That was absolutely fascinating. I was also given an introduction to a wide range of vocal methods during my studies. I’m constantly studying and learning from different people, and I love that so much.

Personally, I’ve recently been working with a teacher of the Estill method, which is a very detailed anatomical system of understanding the voice – you learn to focus on your sensations to create different vocal settings.

For a few years I’ve been collaborating with someone who created a very interesting form of voicework called Vocal De-armouring, based on a Hungarian school of classical voice called Libero Canto. Her work is very similar to mine – probably the closest alignment I’ve found. We’ve had an ongoing online collaboration for some years now, and I’ve written and offered online classes for her community. She’s based in New York.

I’ve also taken several online courses with bodyworkers who work with the voice. This last year I studied bodywork with Shari, and that is now an integral part of my work with the voice. And I went through a course in mindfulness-based listening which included components of psychotherapeutic modalities like focusing and parts work, which are also a part of my sessions.

Could you talk more about these sessions?

It’s really about meeting the whole person and what they come in with, so each session looks very different.

These sessions are not about fixing the voice or trying to sound a certain way, though that can come in as desire, and we address it. Broadly, we use the act of voicing – through songs or improvisations – as a container for discovery. I find that when you approach the act of vocalising with curiosity and care, many things surface, and can be felt, expressed, and moved.

Through gentleness, the person and their voice begin to open – often in ways you couldn't have tried to produce, because you didn’t know they were possible. In that sense, the aesthetic or expressive quality of the voice tends to shift – but not as a goal. It’s a byproduct of a deeper process.

A good example is a day when I had three sessions – each completely different. They really show the range of the work. The first was with someone I’ve been seeing for two years now. Her intention is never technical – she doesn’t bring in pieces or repertoire. Her focus is self-expression and using the space to process what’s alive in her.

That day, she came in with an inquiry about her heart. As she walked around the room, I noticed – something I’ve observed often – that she holds her spine in a very particular way. I’d never brought it up; it felt too invasive. But this time, it felt right. There’s an intuitive element to this work. So I gently asked her about it – what she knew, and if she was open to exploring it.

That opened something. She shared that when she holds her spine that way, she sees an image of it as a rigid structure around her heart – as if her heart is stuck to her spine. We explored, through touch and imagery, what it might be like for the heart to be free - not caged by a rigid spine.

She ended by singing to integrate what she’d touched. It was an improvised song – about how frightened her heart was to be free. Her voice came effortlessly. It was incredibly moving.

The second session was with someone I’d worked with for a year. He always came in with songs, but carried a lot of vocal tension. We’d explored it in many ways – slow, meditative, body-based. After a break, he returned, and something had shifted. His voice was relaxed. Old patterns had fallen away.

This time, we worked technically – on tuning, scales, musical phrasing. He could now approach these without tightening. When tension arose, he could release it – something he hadn’t been able to do before. It was a purely musical session, and very beautiful.

The third session was with someone completely new, and it was all bodywork. This woman was very sensitive, and the moment she tried to sing, a lot of emotion would arise.

We began lying down, working with her hand, then arm through the fascia. As we moved, she began vocalising. Her body led the way. She felt pressure in her chest, so we brought touch there, then to the throat. Tears came. She completely guided the process; I simply followed and supported.

At the end, I asked how she’d like to use the last ten minutes – to integrate. She said she wanted to sit up and sing. She did. Her arms lifted; she said there was a surge of energy through them. Then she sang – a song in Spanish, her voice wild, resonant, filling the space as her arms trembled. We both wept.

Sometimes I feel like it’s beyond me. I’m just there, witnessing, full of awe and gratitude that this is the work I get to do.

Why is it so fulfilling for you?

Because I know it in my own body. I’ve had patterns in my singing that didn’t shift through effort or technique. Trying to fix them only created more tension. But when I found this sensory, body-based, agenda-less approach, it gave my nervous system the safety it needed to change.

Singing from that kind of safety is deeply transformative – not only musically, but emotionally, and at the level of the whole person. And while the aesthetic quality of the voice does shift, this change comes in ways that are beyond control. It happens on a timeline that cannot be predicted, and in directions that could never have been planned for.

What is so beautiful is that this isn’t just limited to my own personal process – it’s something I get to offer others, and witness its impact. I’m moved every single day. And I get to keep learning, all the time.

What is this work like in groups?

As with individual sessions, participants in workshops come with a range of goals – some are exploring their singing voice for the first time, others are professional singers who want to find more ease, self-connection, or meaning in the use of their voice.

Workshops include a significant amount of individual vocal and somatic work, but I think the true gift of group work lies in the relational aspect of the voice. Vocalising with a partner offering supportive witnessing and touch allows the voicing partner to experience the effects of co-regulation on their nervous system, and in that safety, inner tensions and blocks can soften, allowing the voice to transform.

Environments that are gentle, lovingly held, and where all experience and expression is welcome, offer the space for moments of deep emotional or energetic process and healing – this is one such space where these things can unfold, and here they are integrated with vocal expression.

And music and aesthetic beauty – what does it mean to you in this context?

What moves me most is music as an expression of aliveness – of being human – rather than music as a product to be perfected.

When we hear someone sing, what are we really responding to when we call it “beautiful”? Yes, there’s tone, pitch, texture – sonic elements that touch us. But I think we perceive more than sound.

We feel where someone is singing from. We notice tightness or freedom, effort or abandon. Their honesty moves us. The voice is a mirror – it reveals so much.

Being honest with the voice, rather than chasing perfection, feels profoundly meaningful.

And you’re recording an album at the moment. Tell me about that.

The Road of the Wild Lily is a project that is three years old now – a collaboration with a powerful Indian singer, Shruthi, whom I met here in Auroville. It’s become our response to the world: a way of holding its pain with softness, and exploring the deep threads of connectedness, of longing, and of home.

The songs we’re recording include a deeply evocative Persian poem set to music by an Iranian woman in exile; a Turkish song by a woman dervish, speaking of spiritual yearning; the heart-wrenching Palestinian poem If I Must Die, which we’ve set to music; a folk song sung across the border in both India and Pakistan; an Azerbaijani love song; an Afghani lullaby, sung to a child of war; and a pairing of two strong feisty women: one from Greek rebetiko, the other voicing a bold commentary on caste from Maharashtra.

Recording has been an immense learning curve for me. I feel like such a beginner on this path, and at the same time, I’m deeply grateful – to be working alongside such powerful, experienced musicians, to keep learning and growing, and to be meeting my own edges with gentleness.