"She is beyond amazing! It was the most therapeutic thing I'd ever done in my life so far. She is so cool and wonderful. Thank you for the experience. Would love to do that again. Very beautiful, too. The best!"

chiaracortezblog
- Sep 6, 2020
- 0 min read

Why Circlesinging?

Chiara's Ongoing Music Journey

Born in Rome, Italy, from Filipino parents and educated in international schools, Chiara Cortez has been immersed in multicultural and international environments throughout her life. This is also expressed in her musicality and her musical interests. Her musical journey started with ten years of violin studies, but Chiara was soon attracted by singing, songwriting, and vocal arrangements. Her experience as vocalist and arranger in the world music a cappella group Talisman (where the repertoire mainly consisted of traditional South African songs) during her studies at Stanford University in California, shaped and informed her musical tastes and sparked her interest in extemporaneous composition and circlesinging. In Italy, she became part of the all-female ensemble The Sessions Voices, with whom she performed in various radio and TV programs and with whom she recorded two albums, “Songs of Freedom” (2011) and “Tender You Back” (2017). As a songwriter, she has collaborated with various artists and written and sung for major soundtracks: Beata Ignoranza (Massimiliano Bruno, 2017), The Place (Paolo Genovese, 2017), Il Premio (Alessandro Gassman, 2017), the TV series Immaturi (2018), Non ci Resta che il Crimine (Massimiliano Bruno, 2019), Domani è un Altro Giorno (Simone Spada, 2019). She has been running and managing the improvisation community “Circlesinging Roma” (co-founded in January 2015 on the seeds of inspiration planted by Laura Montanari and Rhiannon) alongside colleague Daphne Nisi. Over the last few years, she has dedicated herself to the study of improvisation and circlesinging, having had the privilege of taking courses and workshops and studying with many master teachers in the field (Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, Roger Treece, Joey Blake, Judy Vinar, David Worm, Christiane Karam, Zuza Goncalves, Keith Terry, Albert Hera, Oskar Boldre), but the mentors whose work she has followed most closely are Rhiannon and Roger Treece. She is a member of the Italian improvisation collective “ElectroCirclesongs”. She has been studying Non Violent Communication since 2017 and exploring ways of uniting her passion for Empathy with collective music-making.