Feast of Losses – A Communion of Grief and Gratitude

Loretta welcomes spoken word artist Kim Rosen, and composer and cellist Jami Sieber!

Kim Rosen, spoken word artist, and Jami Sieber, composer and cellist, have created a transformative convergence of music and poems that emerge from the heartbreak, gratitude, and wake-up call of this moment in our lives and in the life of our world. The words of Langston Hughes, Stanley Kunitz, Marie Howe, Ellen Bass, Lucille Clifton, W.S. Merwin, Deena Metzger, Mark Nepo, Yehuda Amichai, and Mary Oliver, spoken by Kim, rise and fall in the evocative waves of Jami’s original music.

This unique creation, born of 21 years of collaboration between Jami and Kim, masterfully merges the power of evocative music to melt the heart with the medicine of poetry to open the mind. The result is a transformational listening experience like no other. The spoken voice moves through multiple layers of music to create an utterly immersive soundscape at once, entrancing and awakening. Musical artists Hans Teuber, Nancy Rumbel, Sean Woolstenhulme, Greg Campbell weave their gifts into the soundscape of Jami Sieber’s cello in tracks to carry the listener from heartbreak to humor, from contemplation to irresistible, foot-stomping celebration.

Jami and Kim have been facilitating explorations of the difficult, necessary themes of aging, death, and waking up for many years. This offering is a culmination of their shared love of the realness, rawness, and intimacy that arises when we turn towards all levels of letting go.

In this moment in history, every one of us has been touched and changed by the personal, societal, and planetary changes we are undergoing. Feast of Losses is a balm and a challenge to the growing population of those consciously turning towards aging, death and letting go. In the last few years there have been lively conversations, conferences, and a veritable plethora of publications – catalyzed by the pandemic and the world situation and by the multitude of Baby Boomers approaching their later years and wanting to create a new way of meeting the challenges and blessings they bring. The magic of Jami’s immersive, layered, evocative, and at times, orchestral music in resonance with the poems offer a portal of healing, inspiration, and awakening.