Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
I highly recommend Katy Taylor as a guest performer for any spiritual conference or training. I have worked with Katy on many occasions and find her to be not only a gifted performer but also an impeccable professional. Her music is mystical and reverent, adding beauty and wonder to any gathering, regardless of its particular spiritual orientation. People come away from her performances deeply moved and inspired but also profoundly quiet inside as if they had been engaged in prayer, which in fact they have. Katy and her music are just the healing medicine that our world needs during these turbulent times. - Gail Straub, Author and Executive Director
I highly recommend Katy Taylor as a guest performer for any spiritual conference or training. I have worked with Katy on many occasions and find her to be not only a gifted performer but also an impeccable professional. Her music is mystical and reverent, adding beauty and wonder to any gathering, regardless of its particular spiritual orientation. People come away from her performances deeply moved and inspired but also profoundly quiet inside as if they had been engaged in prayer, which in fact they have. Katy and her music are just the healing medicine that our world needs during these turbulent times. - Gail Straub, Author and Executive Director
Katy Taylor is a favorite here at Kripalu. Her celtic style and a capella arrangements fill our main chapel here gloriously. Not to mention her unique style in starting off all of her concerts. It seems to never fail....the way she brings tears to peoples eyes when she and Amy slowly enter the evening with a simple drum beat and voices of angels. She is dependable, flexible and mostly generous and loving. We not only reap the benefits of Katy’s talent and folklore, but also of the privilege of being around her beauty, thoughtfulness and power. She is a unique woman and welcome back here any time we can have her. She comes highly recommended here from the Kripalu Center. If I were to be asked to sum Katy Taylor up in a couple of words, I would have to say....splendid....Katy Taylor is passionately splendid! - Stephanie Campbell, Director of Evening Programs
Katy Taylor is a favorite here at Kripalu. Her celtic style and a capella arrangements fill our main chapel here gloriously. Not to mention her unique style in starting off all of her concerts. It seems to never fail....the way she brings tears to peoples eyes when she and Amy slowly enter the evening with a simple drum beat and voices of angels. She is dependable, flexible and mostly generous and loving. We not only reap the benefits of Katy’s talent and folklore, but also of the privilege of being around her beauty, thoughtfulness and power. She is a unique woman and welcome back here any time we can have her. She comes highly recommended here from the Kripalu Center. If I were to be asked to sum Katy Taylor up in a couple of words, I would have to say....splendid....Katy Taylor is passionately splendid! - Stephanie Campbell, Director of Evening Programs
The Clearwater festival was a wonderful success, largely due to the exciting and diverse music booked for this year’s event. For over 30 years, Clearwater has been holding a river celebration called “Revival.” Revival awakens us to remember we are not alone in our intent to create a healthy planet. Our festival has had a special environmental emphasis bridging its music, art, and entertainment with the honoring of the land. Nothing gives us greater balance than joining with others committed to the same purpose.
It is with deep gratitude to the talented performers who helped us all celebrate and inspired us to care for the earth, that we say “Thank you, Katy and Amy, for your participation at the Great Hudson River Revival 2002.
- Ron Aja, Director of Special Events
The Clearwater festival was a wonderful success, largely due to the exciting and diverse music booked for this year’s event. For over 30 years, Clearwater has been holding a river celebration called “Revival.” Revival awakens us to remember we are not alone in our intent to create a healthy planet. Our festival has had a special environmental emphasis bridging its music, art, and entertainment with the honoring of the land. Nothing gives us greater balance than joining with others committed to the same purpose.
It is with deep gratitude to the talented performers who helped us all celebrate and inspired us to care for the earth, that we say “Thank you, Katy and Amy, for your participation at the Great Hudson River Revival 2002.
- Ron Aja, Director of Special Events
Katy's music is as healing as it is beautiful. Not only does her voice touch our hearts and souls, but her gentle presence itself is a gift. She tunes into the specific needs of each group and works with the leader to create exactly what they want. Whenever Katy has sung for my women's circles, the women have talked about the experience for days. - Jalaja Bonheim, Author of The Hunger for Ecstasy
Katy's music is as healing as it is beautiful. Not only does her voice touch our hearts and souls, but her gentle presence itself is a gift. She tunes into the specific needs of each group and works with the leader to create exactly what they want. Whenever Katy has sung for my women's circles, the women have talked about the experience for days. - Jalaja Bonheim, Author of The Hunger for Ecstasy
Discography
Mirabilis: mystical & celtic chant & song
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Katy Taylor and Amy Fradon, vocalists, composers, and musicians perform under the name “Mirabilis” and compose together singing original and medieval chant and song that weaves celtic ornamentation with haunting, mystical chant and prayers. A capella and accompanied by medieval hurdy gurdy, flutes, and shruti box, Katy and Amy’s purity of tone and musical depth not only inspires and transports, but connects us to our deepest sense of God-Self.
Katy has been singing since she was a child, starting her career at school talent shows and singing in chorus, school musicals, and church choirs. She has a Bachelors from Alfred University (Alfred, NY) in Performing Arts with a voice emphasis, where she studied voice classically. Katy later lived in Vienna, where she immersed herself in music and studied voice and German. Singing with Anima, a medieval women’s group based in Vermont, introduced her to the music of 12th c. German mystic Hildegard von Bingen. This music made Katy feel like she had come home, into her body and voice as a channel for Spirit, and singing Hildegard’s music became her passion. A few years after this, she began composing her own devotional music, finding that when inspired spiritually, music often wells up within her. Since then, she has been composing and performing a blend of Hildegard’s music and her own celtic-inspired original pieces. Katy has participated in the recording of two medieval CDs and two Shape Note CDs, as well as one featuring her own devotional music, with a second on the way.
Amy started singing later in life, when she was in college at NYU as a dance major. She sang Neil Young songs in the stairwell and began to draw small crowds on the steps, which eventually spilled over into coffeehouses. She began teaching when she got a call from Omega Institute to lead a class in their summer program for staff. They wanted her to do sing-a-longs but Amy suggested sound and healing. Then in the late 1980's a woman called her up and asked Amy to teach her how to sing, which Amy agreed to try, and her career as a voice teacher was birthed. She finds helping others to midwife their connection to their voice, heart, and power to be one of the deepest and warmest, most inspiring journeys of her life. Since then, in addition to teaching voice, Amy has taught many workshops on singing and sound and healing, including starting a series of sacred space workshops called The Vocal Visionary Training, which include Vocal Visionary workshops, Building A Vocal Visionary Community: Sacred Performance Workshop, Finding The Voice Of The Feminine, and The Joy Of Harmony. Amy has penned and recorded numerous CDs in a wide variety of genres.
Katy and Amy are dear friends who love to spend time in each other’s company. Making music together is one of the ways in which they can express their friendship/love for each other, while at the same time finding connection to God / Spirit. Katy and Amy sing because to sing is to be alive and present and connected to Spirit. While singing can be just pure fun, it can at the same time be a vehicle for profound and deep transformation and unfolding of Spirit. They both feel it has been one of their greatest teachers and deepest spiritual practices. Their most recent collaboration is a Mass commissioned by the Foundation for Universal Sacred Music, soon to be published and recorded.
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