The CD Release Party was a SMASHING SUCCESS! -- see photos on the right -----> Antoine Bonsorte's Design Gallery in Santa Monica was filled with a good-sized eclectic crowd, and the beautiful DVD "Illuminated Manuscripts" by John Banks and Fritz Heede was being projected on the wall.

Wonderful volunteers from the non-profit Arts organization Nine Muses had the food, drinks, sales, signups and announcements under control (thank you Pythia, Xia, Zach and Mel!), and on the spur of the moment we asked the gifted Miranda Rondeau to open up the evening's festivities with a chant and a dance as she accompanied herself on frame drum. It sent shivers up everyone's spines!

Next Sigute Miller and I started from the audience with an old Lithuanian folkloric song -- these songs were the way the wisdom of a culture was passed down before there was written language. The words were about a mother crying to her daughter that when she is gone, her daughter will forget the songs. One audience member later commented to me that the opening was truly the voice of the feminine, the goddess expressing herself!

After two more Lithuanian folk songs, we were joined by Fritz Heede on electric guitar (sporting his new "hairdo" -- or lack of one!), Barry Newton on upright bass, Gilbert Levy on ethnic drum kit and Molly Pasutti on backup vocals with Sigute for the song "In My Dreams". Suzanne Teng joined us on flute for "Everything" and we wrapped up the evening with a rousing jam on the song "Rise", accompanied by the multi-talented Bill Dumas on shaker!

We were just going to take a short break before we opened it up for jamming, but people kept coming up to me with their enthusiastic responses and greetings, so it was quite a while until Antoine suggested we do one last jam before he had to close down for the night. We did a satisfying half-hour jam with Shannon Terry and me trading vocal lines before calling it a very exhausting evening!

Thank you to everyone for coming and supporting me and purchasing the CD! I love hearing from you about how you use my CD and how my music has affected you , so if you'd like to add to my testimonials page, email me at:

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