Heavenly harmonies and hip hop with a purpose. Moira Smiley and NAKURY

Moira Smiley is a singer/composer who creates and performs new work for voices. A musical polyglot, and vocal shape-shifter, her voice – and composing – are heard on feature films, BBC & PBS television programs, NPR, and on more than 60 albums. When she’s not leading her own group, Moira Smiley & VOCO,  she tours with with groups like indie artist tUnE-yArDs, Solas, The Lomax Project and Billy Child’s “Laura Nyro Re-Imagined”.  Born in Vermont,  raised in Indiana and now living in Los Angeles, her musical foundation is harmony and traditional folk songs, but she has spread her talent, including serving as Musical Director for Shakespeare Santa Cruz , performing at the London Proms Festival, being featured on BBC3’s The Choir, and ABC Australia’s Books & Arts programs where her spare, vocally driven warped traditional songs, original polyphony and body percussion get rave reviews and audience love and keep her in high demand as a choral clinician, composer and arranger.

Costa Rican hip-hop artist NAKURY has been a model, a beauty queen, a dancer and a graffiti artist.  Now a rapper, hip hop poet and performer and – most important – an activist using music and art to stop violence against women and end a machismo culture that is toxic to women, men and families. Her music, including her new album Via, is captivating with smooth rap, emotional choruses Her videos burst with energy and dance, and her message of confidence and empowerment inspires women, not only in her native Costa Rica, but worldwide.  She has experience the abuses she singa about - she talkis to women and girls personally and to men through the love of their families.  NAKURY  is truly an artist larger than her art and she is making waves on tours, online and on recordings.