About Me
Music and song has been the clearest and most consistent throughline of my life. My father taught me that you never need a “reason” to sing besides the joy of it. Improvisational & expressive music spaces shifted my understanding of music from something to be witnessed to something to be experienced. Through songleading in social movement spaces, I saw how lifting our voices together can create unity, trust, and presence. Stewarding the Boston-Area Singing Circle community has shown the power creating music together has to build meaningful relationships, connections, and support systems. And an ongoing "apprenticeship" to grief revealed how song can guide us into and out of the depths of the soul.
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After years of study, practice, and experimentation as a vocal coach, sound guide, songleader, grief tender, and ritualist while balancing a 9-5 desk job, I am now excited to be launching my private practice and putting my full energy towards my deepest calling: using song as a tool for personal, collective, and spiritual liberation.
I believe...
...that while singing is a birthright of all humans, and that our relationship with our voices is sacred, western society's elevation of “music for performance” over “music for embodiment” has left many of us ostracized from our inherent musical selves. I seek to make singing a more accessible, enjoyable, and connective experience for all.
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...that while grief is our bodies deeply intelligent, natural, and necessary response to loss, we live in a grief-phobic society that has left most us without the appropriate tools and support to be with our grieving. I seek to create spaces of safety and bravery where all are invited to notice, feel, embody, and express their grief and all the emotions that accompany it.
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...that while all of us have ancestors who found power in collectively singing, dancing, honoring cycles, celebrating harvests, mourning losses, engaging the elements, and invoking spirit, our modern, post-colonial, hyper-individualized society has left many of us strangers to the language of ritual and the power found in joining a collective body. I seek to create ritual spaces where all are supported to be strong in their individual agency as well as invited to surrender to that which is beyond our understanding.
I commit to...
using my gifts in service of healing, liberation, and repair - on the personal, communal, societal, and spiritual levels
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honoring the lineages that have informed and inspired the work I do around communal singing, grief, and ritual - many of which are rooted in black and indigenous cultures (Dagara, Maya, Wampanoag, The Black Church, and more). Holding the complexity of both benefitting from these lineages and reckoning with the role my ancestors played in repressing them. Reaching not just for spiritual teachings and practices from far outside of my ancestral lines, but also seeking wisdom from European wisdom traditions & practices
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consciously navigating the complexities of offering “healing” work during late-stage capitalism, and balancing the need to financially sustain myself with a desire to be of service to those with limited financial access, especially those who have been impacted most by colonialism & racial capitalism
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cultivating deeper relationship with the land I call home, flowing with it's seasonal cycles, and listening for its' teachings and wisdom
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being mindful of my position as a young white man engaged in the healing arts, and the patterns of people who have held similar positions as me abusing and misusing their power, status, and the trust others put in them
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repairing any harm or hurt done in the line of my work, to the best of my ability, and strengthening my relationships with those who have the skills to step in as restorative mediators when outside support is needed​
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balancing a desire to both model transparency (an important basis for accountability) as a community leader, while also honoring my own need for privacy
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knowing and trusting my body’s intuition around what kinds of work and what kinds of spaces I can offer with integrity, and not leading anyone to a place beyond my ability to support them
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continually seeking training and mentorship from wise teachers who can help me learn, evolve my practice, and identify blind spots
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continually investing in my own healing and systems of care that support it, such that I do not overextend myself in my care for others
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personal spiritual practice that helps me relinquish unnecessary need for control and knowing, keeps me open to the call of spirit, and keeps me humble in the face of all that is beyond my comprehension
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cultivating compassion and grace for myself when I inevitably stray from these commitments
These are living and breathing commitments that I know I will falter from, and know that I cannot stay true to solely of my own will and awareness. I welcome your partnership in holding me to these commitments.
Thank you to...
all my ancestors known and unknown (from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and more, before arriving in America from the 1660s - the late 1800s), for the decisions you made that led to the miraculous, near-impossibility of my aliveness in this place & time
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the many teachers, friends, and community spaces who have helped me hold the complexity of holding gratitude and grace for my ancestors while simultaneously reckoning with their active participation & complicity in the horrors of enslavement and colonization
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my deceased paternal grandfather Ron Mudd for your commitment to accompanying people through grief and death as a hospice chaplain, your advocacy for structual changes in the medical system to better support the dying process, and your writings on what you learned I in turn have learned from
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my deceased maternal grandfather Williams Arant II for the ways your eyes lit up when you listened to jazz​, and for the many duets sung together
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my immediate & extended family for your abundant support of me, my gifts, and my calling over the years, especially
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my father Shannon for teaching me that you never need a "reason" to sing besides the joy of it​
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my mother Jenifer for your spiritual curiosity & fortitude
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my sister Savannah for your fiery & infectious spirit for justice
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my (two) Uncle Bills for inviting me to your band practices and encouraging my young musical spirit
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my grandmother Davalu Parrish for modeling care, determination, and a commitment to serving community
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the many mentors from my hometown of Phoenixville, PA who nurtured my potential, namely my choir and musical theater director Dr. Randi Carp and my many instructors at Vaughn's Dojang
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all those I learned from during my time at Brandeis University, especially
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professor Chad Williams for advising me through my Indepedent Study on "The Historical Construction of Whiteness," as well as my degrees in History and African & African-American studies
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professor Tom Hall of the Brandeis Improv Collective for teaching me that music is relational, and most powerful when it is experienced, not just performed
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all my mentors & elders in movement, healing, and ritual work - elena, Ukumbwa, Jen, Jon, lawrence, Rosalba, and more
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the climate and environmental justice movement, for waking me up to the profound shifts needed on all levels of society to return back to right relationship with the Earth and each other, and for my first experiences in oral tradition songleading
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the greater-boston men's work network for the many years of emotional accompaniment, accountability, community-building, and visioning, and for sharpening my understandings of patriarchy, masculinity, community accountability, restorative justice
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the boston-area singing circle community, which I have been co-stewarding since 2023, for believing in and affirming my calling as a songleader and ritualist
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the Hostel in the Forest, for the chance to experience deep relationship with land and "village" life, both as a returning guest since 2019 and during my month-long Artist-in-Residency during December 2025
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the Arnold Arboretum for the long walks, moonlit nights, sunrises and sunsets, and your beauty and teachings throughout all the seasons
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all the cultures​ who kept the traditions of embodied communal singing alive despite centuries of violence and cultural genocide, especially the african and indigenous communities of this continent of which I have been deeply inspired by
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all the musicians who have filled my life with song & inspired my musical craft - Amos Lee, Billy Joel, Jamie Cullum, Janella Monae, Esperanza Spalding, Maggie Rogers, Mountain Man, The Wailin' Jenny's, Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah, and many more
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all the writers, thinkers, and poets who have inspired me - Robin Wall Kimmerer, adrienne maree brown, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. le Guin, Tricia Hersey, Resma Menakem, Naomi Klein, Hafiz​, and more​​​​