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Current Work
Margie is well known as a performer and a recording artist. Her recent activities include:
March For Women's Lives - Margie was one of the speakers/entertainers who joined a coalition of 1200 organizations including NOW, NARAL, ACLU, Black Women's Health Imperative and Latina Institute of Reproductive Health.
In Sickness & In Health - Mautner Project Event - Margie was co-host of this first-ever west coast MP event held to raise visibility and funds for this important national organization focused on lesbians and breast cancer.
Outstanding Berkeley Women Awards Ceremony - Margie was honored for her "outstanding work and unique community/professional contributions on behalf of the citizens of Berkeley."
Wedding Reception for Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon -Margie serenaded Del and Phyllis with "Goin' to the Chapel" along with friends, Linda Tillery, Vicki Randle and Melanie DeMore at the LGBT's community wedding celebration.
Women's Building 25th Anniversary Gala - Margie performed at the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the San Francisco Women's Building.
The Avalon Project - Margie is also heavily involved with The Avalon Project, an organisation which aims to fuse culture and community. Through the Avalon Tour, the project celebrates and galvanizes feminist awareness in music lovers across the country.
The Avalon Project and Veriditas, The World-Wide Labyrinth Project, have presented a number of events called "At the Edge: A Conversation Between Seeker and Activist with Music and the Labyrinth." The collaboration between Margie and Lauren Artress, the founder of Veriditas, is an effort to explore the intersections of personal growth and community involvement. These events incorporate conversation, story-telling, songs and discussion with an open labyrinth walk. Margie accompanies the walk with her solo piano music and improvisation.
Response to Margie's work with the labyrinth has been exciting and also very interesting. People's expressed curiosity along with their support have prompted her to write a letter to her fans and friends sharing her thoughts about this new direction for her artistic and activist work.
Margie believes that the labyrinth can be an important resource for the peace and justice communities during these times when standing on solid spiritual and psychic ground is so important for effective activism.
Currently, Margie is working in partnership with the Berkeley schools and community members to introduce the labyrinth to middle school children. In August, 2003, the East Bay Labyrinth Project painted a 35-foot labyrinth on the blacktop of the Willard Middle School to make the experience of walking the labyrinth easily accessible to everyone in the area, while building support for the permanent installation process. |
Short Bio
Margie Adam was born in Lompoc, California and started playing the piano as soon as she could climb up on the piano bench. She began her performance career in 1973 at an open mic session at Kate Millett's legendary Sacramento Women's Music Festival. In the following years, Margie participated in the definition and expansion of women's music as an art form, a political force and an industry.
A fifty-city tour to promote her first album Margie Adam, Songwriter on Pleiades Records culminated at the historic National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977 where Margie performed We Shall Go Forth! with 10,000 women singing three-part harmony. The song is now in the archives of the Political History Division of the Smithsonian Museum.
In 1980, Margie released Naked Keys and uncovered an enthusiastic audience for solo piano music that continues today. The same year, the National Women's Political Caucus sponsored Margie on a national tour to raise funds for feminist candidates.
The leadership of 80 women's organizations attended Margie's concert with Sweet Honey In the Rock and Malvina Reynolds at Constitution Hall. The event coincided with the July 1, 1982 ratification deadline of the Equal Rights Amendment. It also marked the release date of her live album We Shall Go Forth.
After releasing Here Is A Love Song, a collection of her love songs, Margie came off the road in 1984 for a "Radical's Sabbatical." In the intervening years, she studied piano and voice and worked in the field of chemical dependency. In 1990, she released The Best of Margie Adam on Olivia Records (recently re-issued on Pleiades Records).
To the surprise of everyone, particularly Margie Adam, she began to write music again in 1990. As she developed this new repertoire, she made the decision to perform again. The 1992 national tour which resulted led her to gather together a group of women musicians to record her sixth album, Another Place.
In 1996, she recorded Soon and Again, her second solo piano recording, which inspired the THREE OF HEARTS tour with solo pianists Liz Story and Barbara Higbie.
Margie gave her musical support to feminist bookstores in a 1998 tour organized to help draw attention to the indispensable services these women's businesses provide.
Adam's eighth recording, Avalon, was released in 2001 on her label, Pleiades Records. In order to fully explore the intention of each song, she gathered a complex mix of jazz, pop and folk players and vocalists for the effort. This collection of vocal and instrumental music is her most revealing and contemplative work to date, with her passion for community taking center stage.
Margie has said, "Avalon is for those of us who continue to believe in the possibility of compassion and justice and who cup this flame with our hearts and hands."
Margie's interest in documenting women's history and in particular the contributions of feminist lesbians, led her to join with WomanVision Films to become associate producer of Radical Harmonies: A History of Women's Music, which premiered to enthusiastic audiences in Summer 2002. She is also associate producer for the film-in-progress No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon which opened in San Francisco in February 2003.
Most recently, Margie has launched a new collaboration with Lauren Artress, founder of Veriditas, The World-Wide Labyrinth Project. The two debuted "At The Edge: A Conversation Between Seeker and Activist with Music and the Labyrinth" at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California in Fall 2002. This complex mix of conversation, song, story-telling, piano improvisation, labyrinth walk and discussion was presented in various venues across the United States in 2003 and included a day-long workshop when possible.
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Contact
Pleiades Records
P.O.Box 7217
Berkeley, CA
94707
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Artist Location
Berkeley, CA
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Type of artist
Performer, Writer
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General Themes
Feminism/Gender Issues, Activism/Social Justice |
| Last updated on May 24th, 2004 |
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