Amanda Witman

Music is for everyone. It’s as essential to healthy life as air and water. When people make music together regularly across age, class, and ability level, it makes their communities stronger.

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Amanda Witman smiling and holding an English concertina at the 2018 Northeast Squeeze-In — Photo Credit: Stewart Dean

About Amanda

Amanda Witman is a singer, song leader, instrumentalist, and event organizer in Brattleboro, Vermont. Her love of harmony infuses her singing and playing. She helps facilitate welcoming, community-based music opportunities where players, singers, and listeners at all levels are encouraged and supported.

She leads the monthly Brattleboro Pub Sing and helps organize local pub sessions and the annual Northern Roots Festival. She sings with Vermont-based quartet Big Woods Voices, performing detailed, original art arrangements of poetry and world music; sings informally around town with friends; and occasionally performs solo. Amanda plays English concertina and guitar, and is working on several ongoing projects.

News from Amanda

The Daily Antidote of Song is an absolutely wonderful longstanding zoom-sing (4 years old and counting) that brings a variety of interesting song leaders together with singers around the country and across the world. Everyone is welcome, participation is free, everyone matters, and it’s a full half-hour of connection and song. Right up my alley! I had the opportunity to be part of the April 9th, 2024 Daily Antidote along with a lovely set of Brattleboro neighbors. Many thanks to Jo Rasi and Carpe Diem Arts for keeping this gem active!

Last fall, I started teaching a Traditional & Folk Singers’ Workshop at the Brattleboro Music Center on Thursday evenings during the school year. There’s room for a more if you are interested in joining us! I’ve also started offering one-on-one support for those who want encouragement in developing their confidence in their singing. Contact the BMC for more information.

In March 2024, I hosted the first of annual twice-yearly installments of the Brattleboro Ballad Sing , held at the Brattleboro Music Center. We heard some fabulous ballads, and I am looking forward to the next one on Sunday, November 17, 2024 from 1-3 pm.

The Northern Roots Festival on the last weekend of January 2024 was amazing. What a treat to perform this year! If you missed it, you can catch it on YouTube: Northern Roots Festival 2024.

RiverJam Romp planning is underway, and registration will open soon! The 3rd Annual RiverJam Romp will take place from Friday, September 6 through Sunday September 8, 2024 at beautiful Potash Hill (the former Marlboro College campus). This event is close to my heart, as I’m one of the founders, along with Peter Siegel and Louisa Engle. There will be singing, jamming, dancing, workshops, connections, amazing food, and (of course) quite a lot of romping. Check out the website for information on 2024 staff and other exciting details.

Peter and Louisa and I also manage a new nonprofit, Southern Vermont Music and Dance, which not only makes RiverJam Romp happen each year, but is now proudly co-sponsoring The Village Dance with New England Dancing Masters. We plan to expand to other types of events over time. Please join SVTM’s mailing list and join us for a future event!

My a cappella quartet, Big Woods Voices, released a new CD in 2022! Called “Poetry in Harmony,” it features poetry beautifully arranged for our quartet in original compositions by Will Danforth. You can stream it on Spotify, or purchase it on Bandcamp or direct from us if you’re local.

Big Woods Voices also has a few concerts in store this spring! See our website for details to come, and join our mailing list for announcements.

The Brattleboro Pub Sing has resumed on third Saturdays from 3-5pm beginning in March 2023. After a devastating fire at McNeill’s Brewery on 12/2/22 that took the life of our friend and supporter Ray McNeill, the dream of resuming our sing in our beloved pub was over. Now we are singing across the street at the lovely, welcoming Collective Lounge & Bar (55 Elliot Street).

Mount Holyoke College’s Folk Music & Dance Society had Samuel Foucher and me co-lead a Pub Sing last February. It was so much fun, they’re having us back to lead another one on April 25th. More info to come.

If you’re lucky, you can sometimes catch me singing informally on Sunday mornings with Shawn Magee and Peter Siegel at the Fire Arts Cafe on Route 30 in West Brattleboro. (Have a little crooning with your coffee and croissant?) Bring your musical self if you want to join in. Time varies, but you can often catch us warbling and jamming sometime between 9-11.

Sadly, after Tony Barrand and I spent the better part of a decade co-leading the Brattleboro Pub Sing and three and a half years as a Vermont Folklife Center master-and-apprentice team, our time together ended when Tony passed away unexpectedly on January 29, 2022. I am very grateful to the VFC for their continued support of our work. Tony’s mentoring was unfailingly gracious and encouraging. He shared much with me, and I look forward to passing it on.

We’ve sung together many a time, and so will we yet.