Vanessa Torres

Holly Near: "Take a vibrant singer who has passion for music and poetry combined with her compassion for the world. Add energy, fun, intelligence, curiosity, and respect and it adds up to Vanessa Torres. Vanessa Torres can handle the generation gap. She knows from where she comes and brings it on full force while maintaining a loving relationship with the elders in her audience. Bridges are how we get across the river."

Hello! It has been a while since I took the time to give ya'll an update...and in that time many exciting things have come to pass in my world of music, and most especially in this country. Hooray for a new presidency, hooray for Barrack and Michelle Obama, and hooray for the New Year!

I want to take this moment to express my gratitude for all the gifts 2008 gave me, and to all of you who continue to share this journey with me. Your support and love makes the road a place full of adventure, magic and warmth.

It has been such an exciting last few months for me and my ever-lovely band mates. On a personal and a global level, there is so much to be thankful for, and hold dear. In the music realm, I have played shows all over the country including my first west coast tour, tours in the Midwest, activist gatherings in Ohio and Georgia, as well as an appearance at the Moab Folk Festival in Utah. 

I'm excited to share that I will be touring back from the National Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN again this year, this time with a number of wonderful new cities to visit and play. I will be sharing the majority of this tour with my good friend Putnam Smith, a lovely banjo pickin' Mainer. We are excited to be including a number of house concerts in the mix with lots of new venues.  I'm hoping I might catch the beginnings of a Southern spring...having been raised in Virginia, it might be what I miss most living in the Northeast. 

I am feeling so excited about this next year and all of the wonderful musicians I will be collaborating with, the workshops I am planning, new cities and towns music will take me to...and all of you that I will have the chance to see.

With much gratitude for your company and support on this journey,

Vanessa

SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA: Singer/songwriter and social justice activist Holly Near has organized SING OUT THE VOTE OHIO! – an 11-day breakneck tour of some of Ohio's biggest cities with the goal of encouraging early voting and Getting Out the Vote in the state.  Shows begin on October 18 in Toledo and end on October 28 in Dayton. 

To date, nineteen social justice singers and artists have signed on to join the tour as their  schedules allow. Not all the artists will be in each city or at every event. The line-up includes:  Holly Near, John McCutcheon, Laura Love, emma's revolution, Tory Trujillo, Poet on Watch, Wishing Chair, Colleen Kattau, The Prince Myshkins, Anne Feeney, Andre dos Santos Morgan, Vanessa and Tamara Torres, Roy Zimmerman, Deborah van Kleef, and Tracy Walker. Each of the artists and tour organizers are contributing their time and energy to this important election effort.

Events are scheduled in Toledo (10/18), Cleveland (10/19 & 10/20), Kent/Akron (10/21), Columbus (10/22 & 10/23), Athens (10/24), Southeast Ohio (TBA), Marietta (10/26), Cincinnati (10/27), and Dayton (10/28). Musical rallies will be held in churches, colleges, bookstores, arts centers, and parks to encourage early voting. As time permits, the artists will also visit campaign and GOTV headquarters to energize the hard-working canvass and phone teams – events to energize the energizers! 

Says tour organizer Holly Near, "We want to use our voices and songs to combat the hate and  fear-based campaign being waged against hard-won civil rights. This smear campaign has reached dangerous levels. We social change artists walk in a long tradition of confronting fear with song."

Download the event poster by clicking on the poster image above or from Vanessa's Press page.