Today we’d like to introduce you to Naomi Griffin Self and Ann Strange.
Hi Naomi Griffin Self and Ann Strange, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
NAOMI: In my childhood, I regularly sang as part of a church congregation and in church and school choirs throughout my teens and young adulthood, and singing was an essential part of my life that I ignorantly assumed everyone experienced. After leaving organized religion as an adult, I no longer had an outlet for community singing. Still, I was aware of how much I missed singing when my family and I attended Family Camp at the Omega Institute in 2014. While sitting in the window of the Ram Dass Library wearing my then 2-year-old son, I heard the sounds of an angelic chorus wafting through the air from the 2nd floor of this otherwise silent building. Like a moth to the flame, I was drawn up the steps, where I found myself on the edge of a 60-person circle of people singing together. My body swayed with the music, and I joined the song. When they stopped, I quietly turned and, with tears in my eyes, made my way back down the steps, determined that I would find a way to be a part of that workshop the following year. For the next several years, while a stay-at-home mom and homeschool teacher to my three children, we continued to make the trek at the end of each summer to the Omega Institute for Family Week, where I participated in The Singing In The Stream workshop facilitated by Maggie Wheeler, director of The Golden Bridge Choir in Los Angeles, and the incredibly talented musician and drummer Emile Hassan Dyer.
At Omega, I fell in love again with community singing simply for the joy and delight of lifting our voices in song. It was incredibly liberating to be freed of choral music’s more technical, theoretical, and religious aspects. I grew in my capacity to play with making sounds simply for fun as I began to release the internal critic and noisy perfectionist that had long stifled my true vocal expression. Along the way, I became braver to say the hard things in my life and face with new confidence the things that I had thought were unspeakable. In short, singing became a doorway to self-empowerment and courage through which I gained so much through community, self-expression, connection to my breath and body, and opportunities for more expansion in my life. I began singing regularly with my children each morning around the kitchen table in our home as part of our curriculum. Eventually, I began to look around for non-auditioned, non-performative, non-competitive, non-religious singing opportunities in the Chattanooga area. Finding none, I started Chattanooga Singing Circle as a hobby in 2018 to create a safer space where people from any background and with any religious or political persuasion could drop the labels at the door and enter as human beings. It’s my experience that no matter how much we might disagree when we’re talking about things, it’s nearly impossible to hate someone when we are in a circle creating beautiful music with them.
In 2019, at Maggie Wheeler’s invitation, I went to SongFest in Los Angeles, where various song leaders led 100 people in song over 3 days. On the final day, I sat on the floor and wept as we learned and sang “You Are So Loved” by the incredibly gifted Heather Houston. Pieces of my heart that I had never accessed were cracking open through song; it was both a beautiful and terrifying reality. While in LA for Song Fest, I learned of Elise Witt, a gifted songwriter, facilitator, teacher, and performer in Atlanta, GA. That fall, hungry for more of this type of community singing that was unavailable to me in Chattanooga and increasingly convinced that I wanted to do whatever it took to create it, I drove to and from Atlanta each Monday evening for 3 weeks in a row to sing with and learn from Elise.
In the Spring of 2022, amid a personal crisis, I had the opportunity to attend a singing workshop on Ossabaw Island with Elise Witt and Gayanne Guerin, both from Atlanta. Then, I met Ann Strange from Knoxville when, at Elise’s suggestion, we carpooled together for the 7-hour drive to and from Savannah, GA. By the end of that magical weekend of singing and sharing, we were well-acquainted, and Ann mentioned that she had always wanted a singing circle in Knoxville. I was determining how to move forward with my singing circle facilitation, so I agreed when Ann invited me to Knoxville to lead a circle for a few of her friends. In June of 2022, I drove to Ann’s for the first of many months of a singing circle she hosted for her friends in her home in South Knoxville.
With the enthusiastic support of David Asbury, music minister and fellow songleader, Ann and I have arranged for Knoxville SINGS! to meet from 2-3:30 pm on the last Sunday of each month at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church near the UK campus for the foreseeable future with our first session there having happened in January of 2024.
ANN: My family included professional singers, so I was intimidated into not singing or learning music for most of my life. When I got to East Tennessee, I saw there was a shape-note group (called Epworth Old Harp Singers) in Knoxville, and you didn’t have to be able to read music to sing. They were very welcoming despite my nervousness, and over 20 years, I learned to sing the shapes, which helped with learning intervals. I still don’t read music well, but I am now participating in a Renaissance Madrigal group where the French words are easier to learn than reading the music!
I met Elise Witt when she came to the Laurel Theatre as part of the Small Family Orchestra. She sang in several different languages, and with my love of French and Spanish, I was captivated. Over the years, I attended workshops and week-long camps where she teaches singing by ear. She calls her music Global, Local, and Homemade Songs (https://elisewitt.com/web/). Because of Elise, I learned to overcome my fear of opening my mouth and my joy of singing with others.
I attended one of Elise’s workshops on Ossabaw Island in 2022 and met Naomi Self when we carpooled together to Savannah. When I heard she was a song leader, I told her I always wanted to have a Singing Circle in Knoxville. Naomi was starting her business as a song leader, and I am fortunate and grateful that she has driven from Chattanooga to Knoxville one Sunday a month for the last 18 months. I invited my friends to my house, which has been very successful. It’s a welcoming environment where participants are encouraged to have fun and enjoy the community spirit. In 2024, we are growing by having our Singing Circle at TVUUC on the last Sunday of the month. It is an exciting change, and we are hopeful to share our love of singing and community with the greater Knoxville community so they can love what we love.
Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
NAOMI: After several years of meeting once a month for drop-in community singing from 2018-2019, I was ready in early 2020 to figure out how to make facilitating singing circles a viable part-time business. I took a business class from January to March to do just that. We had our final night in that course the Wednesday before the city shut down that weekend due to COVID-19. Of course, singing was one of the greatest dangers for spreading germs, so I pivoted to some online singing, but I did not find it very satisfying to sing online. I helped other song leaders get their groups up and running online. Still, I was overwhelmed with the added component of technical details in addition to the business aspect of getting started in Chattanooga, so I continued to sing with my small group of singers outdoors as we were able during the pandemic. Still, like so many people during COVID-19, my life was unraveling in ways that made everything unbelievably challenging. Singing in the community became even more of a lifeline during dark and difficult times. Community singing has helped me grow my self-expression and confidence and soothe my spirit during some of the most challenging days of my life. Using songs, chants, and mantras to hold my own heart has been a significant part of my healing and growth, and I am grateful to be able to offer these community song experiences to others in the Southeast.
ANN: My biggest problem with singing was that I needed to be more encouraged and brave enough to try anything with music. I am very sorry about that now and wish I had been pushed to learn piano. My grandfather was head of the music department at Hastings College in Nebraska for 50 years, and I was intimidated. I stopped myself from trying. I love to sing like everybody loves to sing! I wasn’t good at choirs because I couldn’t read music. Only when I learned to sing by ear and was taught to sing by ear did I realize I could sing in a harmonious group, and it was fun! It has taken years for me to feel comfortable singing in a group, and my greatest joy has been overcoming fear and learning to relax and have fun with a group of people who are just like me- brave enough to try.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
NAOMI: I graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with BAs in English Literature and Humanities. Since then, I have worked in human relations in the business world, taught English as a foreign language in Central Europe, been a nanny, and taught water aerobics at the YMCA. Mostly, I have delighted in mothering my three children and homeschooling them for most of their lives until recently. I needed more support during Covid. I am a certified Life Coach, and this past fall, on my path to more community singing facilitation, I completed Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria, British Columbia. I am humbled to be allowed to guide others into the joy of community singing as I begin my own business and continue to learn and grow alongside those with whom I sing!
ANN: I have a BA in French and a minor in Spanish, and I love languages and travel. So that qualified me to be a waitress and secretary all my life. I moved around until arriving in Knoxville 40 years ago. Since then, I’ve worked at the University of Tennessee, non-profits, businesses, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory until I retired two years ago. Now, I have the time to do the things I love, including hiking, concerts, travel, books, music, friends, and singing in the community.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
NAOMI: As a child, one of my favorite memories was playing Jax with my mom on the dining room table in the evenings. We had a set of the old-fashioned metal Jax that is now obsolete as a safety hazard. Occasionally, Mom would let me get close to beating her, but she had a quick hand and eye, and I remember practicing during recess at school in the hopes that I’d eventually get good enough to beat Mom!
ANN: My grandparents hosted music recitals in the college and their home. My mother played classical music at home and took me to concerts and the opera. In my early teens, I discovered Peter, Paul, Mary, the Kingston Trio, the Beatles, the Mamas and Papas, Jefferson Airplane, Elvis Presley, etc. In my 20’s, I discovered Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Doobie Brothers, etc. Then, I was in California with the hippies and discovered folk music, including Cajun, Jazz, R&B, singer-songwriter, Blues, Country, etc. Always a listener and lover of music. But I only sang much older!
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