Community leader and musician Melanie DeMore uses her voice as a “weapon of mass connection.” What does that mean? She describes it as the power to “bring people together through song and voice.”
DeMore believes we’re living in a time and world where everything is set up to keep people separate from each other, and she’s not about that. She’s about finding ways through collective voices to be connected.
“I like to write songs that anybody can sing anywhere,” she says.
She also knows how to build connections. One example is her collaboration with VocalEssence, a choral group based in Minneapolis, which has been happening since 2014. Together, they’ve built an entire community program around DeMore’s song, “Leading With Love.”
The program is all about showing compassion to one another through love, peace and nonviolence. DeMore unites public servants with community members and puts them all on equal footing through music. In the finale to their collaborative program, VocalEssence and DeMore invite 300 members of the community onstage to pound Gullah sticks.
DeMore is a unique artist who uses her voice to bring people together through song and voice, and a few Gullah sticks!
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About Rhapsody in Black
Where we turn up the voices of Black artists in the world of classical music, with host Vernon Neal.
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