About me
In 2022 I was awarded funding by Arts Council England’s “Develop Your Creative Practice” scheme, which supports artists who want to make a step change in their career. The fund enabled me to take part in two trainings which were invaluable for my practice:
Natural Voice Leader training – a week-long course with Frankie Armstrong.
Advanced Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders with Guillermo Rozenthuler.
My development plan also included receiving mentoring from Emily Marshall, acquiring a shruti box and building this website!
SONG COLLECTOR &
Holly Taylor-Zuntz is a voice leader, song collector and multi-disciplinary artist from Oxford who has been living in Georgia and studying Georgian songs for the last five years.
Her practice involves embodied voice work, exploring how the voice resonates in different parts of one’s body, and how that resonance can create a fuller ensemble sound.
Holly’s singing workshops are full of joy! In Georgia and the UK she leads open-access community singing workshops and pop-up choirs, including Georgian polyphony, singing for wellbeing and mindful voice practice.
Holly spends half her time based in Oxford, UK and the other in Tbilisi, Georgia.
She is one of the founders of Voices of the Ancestors, a podcast and theatre show about Georgian polyphonic songs, the women who sing them, and how they came to be loved in the UK. For more info go to: www.voicesoftheancestors.co.uk or click the social links below.
ABOUT
2017:
Training in musicality and mutuality at Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices, Poland. The Georgian seed was planted when we sang Asho Chela.
First trip to Georgia studying folk songs and chants in villages of West Georgia with Malkhaz Erkvanidze
Joined Maspindzeli Georgian Choir in London
2021:
Wild Harmonies with Helen Chadwick
2022:
Natural Voice Leader training – a week-long course with Frankie Armstrong.
Advanced Circlesinging and CVI training for Vocal Leaders with Guillermo Rozenthuler.
WHERE I LEARNED
Having ‘grown up’ in community folk choirs, she went on to train at drama school in Musical Theatre (Oxford School of Drama, 2013-14), Theatre in Education (Peer Productions, 2014-15) and then European Theatre (Rose Bruford College, 2015-18). Her physical theatre training opened up a world of embodied voice practice, leading her to Poland and ultimately Georgia. Along the way she has learned from composer Helen Chadwick, vibrational expert Frank Kane, and director Anna-Helena Mclean, as well as many prominent ethnomusicologists in Georgia (Nino Naneishvili, Malkhaz Erkvanidze, Nana Mzhavanadze).
In 2021 I was commissioned by the Old Fire Station, Oxford to create a film about my female ancestors.
Don’t Forget Us is a celebration and exploration of female lineage and creativity. Working with visual artist Lydia Markham, I imagine what advice my ancestors would give me and what I would say to them, if I could. Pianist Tim Smith and soprano Megan Strachan help recreate the music that has echoed down the branches of my family tree.
