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What's getting in the way of your best performance?
Chances are, it has nothing to do with bad technique or laziness.
Maybe you love music more than anything but struggle to find time to sit down with your instrument. Maybe you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of learning there is to be done. Maybe you feel shame for not being “good enough” and get nervous to perform. Maybe you're conforming to someone else's aesthetic (maybe a teacher) and don't have the critical listening skills to know exactly what role performance plays in our life.
Studio work provides a space for imperfect practice. With enough space, we can discover how caring for the body, nourishing the mind, and having a life outside performance can help us reach our artistic goals and better communicate with the world around us through our creative work. We focus on developing conscious practice, building routine, nourishing individualism, and finding our collective voice.
About Miranda (Randi)
Randi is an actress and singer from Billings, Montana. She began her classical vocal training at age ten and has studied several styles since, including jazz, musical theatre, choral, and contemporary. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Montana, where she practiced several types of performance but fell in love with Shakespeare, opera theatre, jazz vocals, and clowning.
Because yoga has been so valuable in her own creative practice, Randi received her 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training certificate in order to better serve her voice students. She is certified in vinyasa and yin yoga. She is currently pursuing a clinical Master's in Social Work at Walla Walla University, and her research interest focuses on creative practice and quality of life. She hopes to spend the next ten years teaching music, performing and directing Shakespeare, facilitating group therapy, and building a career in artistic leadership.
When she’s not in the practice room, she might be guzzling down white tea while listening to a blue note album, exploring Missoula in search of the perfect breakfast burrito, or watching The Sound of Music for the billionth time.
About Sofe
Sofe Christena Wasden Johnson was a talented pianist who used performance as an opportunity to cultivate community, foster spirituality, and spread joy.
I'm honored to be a part of the legacy my Grandma Sofe established. Her carefully recorded story has acted as a guiding star, teaching me that a humble dedication to music is a wonderful thing on its own, regardless of the fame and status it grants us. This is the relationship to music that gets lost in our busy world today: music that fosters community and helps us find our sense of self.
From Sofe's Life History:
"One day when I was about five the furniture in the Big Room was rearranged and the organ was placed against the west wall near the front window. It was beautiful with its tall top and fancy scrolled shelves and hard-to-get-at corners. But my chief concern was what I could make the organ do. Ah, the wonderful sounds I could pump, peck, and wheeze out of it. Only one could take lessons at a time and David, being eldest, should have the lessons. That wasn't too bad, for any way, I had ears and eyes. I hung about when Mr. Lord was giving David his lesson, asking questions and being a general pest until David protested that he would not take another lesson while I was in the room. So I was banished to the bedroom at lesson time. But that wasn't too bad, either. I still had eyes and ears. By looking at the lesson before the teacher came and then listening carefully as the lesson proceeded."