Sound Nourishment Founder and Facilitator Renée Benmeleh brings over 20 years of world music and vocal performance experience to her workshops and team building events. Renée launched her vocal music studies with the late choir leader, pianist and vocal teacher Lucy Kinchen in 1991 at Laney College in Oakland. She holds a B.A. in music with a specialization in Vocal Performance from Mills College in Oakland, CA. While at Mills, Renée had the pleasure of studying with and being mentored by San Francisco’s grande dame of song the late Faith Winthrop, Molly Holm, and, soon after, with Ledisi at The Jazzschool.

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Renée has studied composition with Pauline Oliveros, Jacqui Hairston, and Molly Holm; Afro-Brazilian and North African percussion with ritual Brazilian Bateria leader and percussion instructor Bruce Silverman; East Indian Raga with Rainey Eastman-Gannet; Neo-Soul singing with Trewlany Rose; and Middle Eastern vocal technique with Rachel Valfer-Sills.

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Renée is the founder and facilitator at Sound Nourishment, and a certified Music Together teacher who has been joyfully leading adults, children, teams, and families in facilitated musical experiences since 2001. She is an enlivened drum circle facilitator trained by Arthur Hull of  Village Music Circles. Renée was honored to be a music facilitator at the Oakland Children's Hospital cancer unit between 2006 - 2008, and she is currently a member of the National Organization of Arts in Health.

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In addition to a multi-culturally diverse vocal repertoire, Renée is a skilled and growing multi-instrumentalist, a practice that developed out of her natural curiosity, and was further supported by her studies acquiring a Certification in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. She has thoroughly enjoyed being mentored by Ancestral Sound Curator, Musician, and Curandero Tito La Rosa.

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Renée was the the lead singer of The Orpheus World Music Ensemble, and a member of Project Vox, an 8 piece Vocal Improv ensemble. She has facilitated ritual through song for 20+ years in the Lakota-Sioux ceremonial tradition and in the Jewish Renewal community. She has had the pleasure of facilitating private rituals including birth, coming of age, spiritual connection, death, and other ceremonies that assist members in the process of being held by community.