About

   Singing is for everyone. For all of human history, across every culture and land, people have sung together; sung for joy, for creating and preserving culture, to tell important stories, to enliven social movements, to remember, to grieve, to celebrate, to share.

 

Something inexplicable happens when we join together in song. Something powerful and ancient, stirred into being. In a world of visionary diasterdom, singing is an act of resistance, an aural science fiction that weaves new possibilities, new worlds.  

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Based in the traditional homelands of the Ho-Chunk, Kickapoo, and Menominee, Heartland Harmony is a hub for thoughtful and joyous singing that seeks to bring folks closer with one another, our ancestral lineages and wisdoms, and the land.

 

Our oral tradition choirs and roving workshops are run by community organizer and song sharer Annie Zylstra, a queer, plant loving, basket weaving community musician. Annie has taught workshops around the country and UK, and worked in collaboration with the National Prison Doula Project, Joanna Macy's Work that Reconnects, churches, high schools, nature connection programs, and a variety of community organizations and networks.

 

After Covid-19 closed the four weekly community choirs Anni had been running in Madison and Viroqua, they launched Ember, a hybrid online and in-person class for learning polyphonic folk music in the oral tradition. To learn more about the course or sign up, visit the Ember info page!