CARA TREZISE - BIO

WEBSITE:        https://www.caramiamusic.com/

INSTAGRAM:   https://www.instagram.com/caramiamusic/

Cara Trezise is an accomplished and eclectic artist. A seasoned vocalist, performance artist, dancer, vocal coach and chef, Cara brings intention, humor, skill, ceremony and grounded wisdom to her work. She is deeply rooted in years of study and experience cultivating feasts of all kinds.

Growing up on a farm in New York, she cultivated a deep love for the natural world and an understanding that musicality is inherent to our human nature. Though trained classically in voice as a teenager, she pursued theater at Emerson College in Boston, receiving her BA in Theatre Studies in 2007 with an emphasis in Solo Performance.

Cara traveled to Ghana with Berklee School of Music’s West African Drum and Dance Ensemble in 2007 to study forms of traditional Ghanaian dance. She also trained and performed in a Boston based salsa and samba dance group. Cara worked with the Seattle-based youth empowering arts organization Power of Hope from 2009-2011.  In this time, she completed their intensive year long training in holistic leadership skills called The Heart of Facilitation.  She also worked extensively in integrating arts and music into the intergenerational, nature based program called the Art of Mentoring through the Vermont Wilderness School between 2007-2010.

In 2008, Cara did a deep dive into the improvisational work of Action Theater with founder Ruth Zaporah. A long time collaborator of Rhiannon, Ruth’s unique and brilliant approach to improvised movement and voice inspired Cara to move toward Vocal River.

In 2011, Cara began her vocal improvisation studies with Rhiannon, completed All The Way In by 2012 and had the honor of being a copilot for the 2023 cohort.  She worked as a sous chef and eventually stepped into being head chef for Rhiannon’s Hawai’i based workshops from 2012-2019. Simultaneously, Cara’s six year involvement in Martín Prechtel’s school Bolad’s Kitchen in New Mexico turned her into an avid gardener and forever changed her understanding of how seeds, food and music are anciently and inextricably connected.

Cara has been working internationally as a freelance musician and voice teacher for individuals and groups for over 15 years. She is a certified voice teacher from the Complete Vocal Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. She teaches private lessons online while traveling to teach in person groups throughout the US, Canada, Europe and South America.

Cara has also been traveling and performing in small pop up vocal improvisation ensembles all over the globe. She is a recurring performer in the Murmuration Project facilitated by Rhiannon and esteemed Canadian dancer Margie Gillis. Cara has also performed with many collaborative theater projects including Bread and Puppet Theater, Nightfires, and the Royal Frog Ballet’s Surrealist Cabarets. She is an artist to her core.

Cara believes deeply in the healing power of improvisational music. Whether performing or teaching, she is passionate about deepening the symbiotic connections of voice, body and nature altogether.

QUOTES

​"Cara’s expansive presence and indomitable energy make improvisational vocal work with her feel equally effortless and effervescent.  She has a gift for holding safe space while coaxing fun and joy in learning.   Her keen intuition allows her to guide students towards their freest,  most expansive, and most unbridled selves.  It is my honor to have had the opportunity of working with this gifted vocalist, creative teacher, and magnificent human being. - Echo Steers

Cara and Sofia both have so much skill, grace, and generosity-of-spirit, superb teaching abilities, endless Music flowing through them, and most importantly, they both have the essential *deep knowing* about the expansive, heartfelt, soulful, sacred integrity of Rhiannon’s work and its ability to shape and change us on so many levels. They understand the state we all enter into to explore our own voices and creative edges , and the collective beauty we create and explore together on our shared journeys.           
                              ~ Lori Derr

 

Cara is the kind of artist and teacher that gives you full permission to be your weird and wild, courageous and fully present, creative self. As a student, in her presence, it feels safe and exciting to step IN, to explore the unknown and to set yourself free.  Cara has been a massive inspiration to me.  She walks her talk.  She is able to serve in such an authentic and free-spirited way because it is who she IS.  She’s the kind of master teacher that will draw you out and lift you up with such a fearless ease that you’ll find yourself in places you didn’t even expect.  She is the real deal. I am so glad to have learned and played with her.    - Diana Grove

​Cara brings such a joyful and soulful energy to this work. She is connected, curious and inclusive and creates a safe space for exploring and finding out what we are truly capable of doing. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to learn from her.
- William R. King in Vancouver
 
 

Cara is a delight. She is so positive. As she led our group, she was easily able to see each individual while maintaining a sense of what the group as a whole might need. I loved that she brings her work with Ruth Zaporah into the Vocal River. Cara is a model of creativity and spontaneity. I look forward to working with her again!
            ~ Celeste Niehaus

New to the Vocal River methodology and community, I am so grateful to have experienced Cara’s teaching and vocal leadership.  She is joyful, creative and generous of spirit.  She is silly and rigorous, fun and no nonsense, and brings so much love to the community and craft of improv singing. She made me feel totally welcome, inspired and daring in a way I have never felt before as a singer.  I can’t wait to sing with her again.
              - Shawna Wakefield