Lis Addison

Lis Addison is a composer, vocalist, keyboardist, dancer and producer who writes electro-acoustic vocal music in the ambient, classical crossover, world, new age and electronic genres. In her words, "Songs are not just entertainment but maps to historical, emotional and beautiful places. They heal, they energize, they calm." She has composed and produced eighteen solo albums, along with soundtracks for film and dance, and runs her own record label and publishing company, All Aglow Music.

She has toured in Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Switzerland, Tanzania, the UK and the US. Her awards include recognition from the World Entertainment Awards, the Pacific Composer's Forum, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Global Music Awards. On her many trips to Kenya she makes nature field recordings, and she includes them in many of her compositions.

Lis created Kinetic Voice (KiVo), a vocal and dance program for health and wellness. It has helped thousands of students worldwide tune their bodies like instruments and connect with the wisdom of their voices. Its chakra chants grew from her album Song of the Tree. Her work also draws on a classical Indian raga singing background. Beyond the program itself, she offers vocal and movement classes and private vocal sessions, and trains facilitators to share the practice.

She is founding director of the Singing Tree Institute, a non-profit she established in 2013 with David Mutinda of Kangweni, Kenya. Together they have planted more than 8,000 trees, with a mission to help mitigate the effects of global warming, provide food for villagers and document the songs and dances of the Kamba community.

Lis holds a BA in music composition and an MFA in electronic music from Mills College. She has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Expressions Digital Arts College and the Globe Sound Healing Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was a Fulbright Scholarship finalist invited to teach electronic music at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.