Solstice
Founded in 1996, Solstice is a female vocal ensemble specializing in music written by women or for women's voices. Our music spans many different genres with an emphasis on world, classical, pop, and jazz. We are also committed to performing new works for women's voices and regularly compose, commission, and arrange new songs.
Solstice has performed in many Bay Area venues including Freight and Salvage, La Pena, the San Francisco Community Music Center, Music on the Hill, the Berkeley Arts Center, Trinity Chamber Music series, and Villa Montalvo. Solstice has also performed on KALW's Folk Music and Beyond On-Air Folk Festival. Solstice was a featured performer at the 2001 West Coast A Cappella Summit along with nationally known groups such as the Bobs and M-pact.
Solstice released our self-titled CD in February 2000, recorded at the Presidio Chapel in San Francisco. The CD includes music from eleven countries in nine different languages, spanning more than 900 years, and features original songs and arrangements. Primarily A Cappella called the recording "a thoughtful and intelligent debut." The album won critical acclaim and a Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award for Best Folk/World Song nomination for "Blood and Gold."
Our second CD, "Full Circle", released in 2004 and also recorded at the Presidio Chapel, has a wide range of material including the Macedonian folk song "Shto?Mi E Milo," the Cuban "Bossa Cubana," the powerful Bulgarian folk song "Ergen Deda," Tracy Nelson's blues tune "Down So Low," the soaring, tambourine-accompanied "A Chantar," an original arrangement of Chaka Khan's "You Got The Love," and the original wedding song by group member Sheryl Kaskowitz, "I Carry Your Heart With Me." Primarily A Cappella reviewed the album as having "complex, difficult harmonies, well-chosen, rarely-heard selections, sung with spirit and joy by these six very talented women."
Solstice includes members Emily Bender, Becca Burrington, Krista Enos, Mari Marjamaa, Kim Warsaw, and Sara Webb-Schmitz.
