Moira Smiley is a singer and composer who travels the world as a soloist and musical director. She’ll be joining us at Voice Works – Centrum’s latest gathering of singers, June 23-28, 2015. Expect four days and five nights of intense fun, singing instruction, repertoire building, and merry music making with some top drawer vocalists like Moira. A musical polyglot, and vocal shape-shifter, Moira has been heard on feature films, BBC & PBS television programs, NPR, and on more than 60 albums. She tours regularly with her group VOCO and has sung with leading vocal artists around the world – including Paul Hillier’s Theater of Voices, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, KITKA and New World Symphony.

In 2013, Moira and VOCO performed at the TEDx Caltech: The Brain conference. Her set was riffed on the theme: Music for a Three-Layer-Brain:

1. REPTILE BRAIN:Self-Interest, Movement, Territorialism, Sex, Lust, Autonomic Functions…Breath, Temperature, Instinctual, Compulsion
“Steamplant Foundation Step” (by Moira Smiley)
“I Mor Fe” (traditional Bulgaria, arr. Moira Smiley)
“Bring Me Little Water, Silvy” (by Leadbelly, arr. Moira Smiley)

2. MAMMALIAN or LIMBIC BRAIN:Longing, Relationship, Loyalty, Attachment, Emotions, Parenting, Tenderness
“Makedonska” (by Moira Smiley)
“Wondrous Love” (traditional U.S., arr. Moira Smiley & VOCO)

3. NEO-CORTEX:Math, Music, Language, Politics, Abstraction, Racism, Thinking, Planning, Perception
“Silverlake” (by Moira Smiley)