Based out of Santa Cruz, California, Zambra sings glorious global music with a radiant harmonic blend. Whether singing Sephardic laments, Scots Gaelic walking tunes, Italian wedding songs, Swedish lullabies, or southern Appalachian hymns, our sound is consistently beautiful and engaging, with most material arranged specifically for our voices by members Kathleen Loveless and Kathryn Veditz. Zambra typically performs a capella, but sometimes uses traditional accompaniment such as frame and hand drums, fiddle, guitar or dulcimer.
The members of the all-female vocal ensemble Zambra are: Kathryn Veditz: A resident of Ben Lomond who arranges songs for the group, Kathleen Loveless: From South County, who arranges songs for the group; Janet Herman and Laura Reeve: Members of the trio; Kathryn Hopkins: A singer whose husband, John, is a multi-instrumentalist who accompanies the group: Connie Hernandez,Susan Krivin, Ann Louise Wagner, Audrey Nickel, Jennie Siegmund, and Nancy Niles: All members of the group. Therese Johannesson founded Zambra in 1994. The group’s members are friends who are drawn to songs from around the world sung in their native languages.
Equally at home in the stage, sanctuary, or home setting, Zambra is available to sing for public and private functions throughout the Bay Area. Zambra also offers special holiday programs of seasonal vocal music for corporate, community and family parties.
Zambra has a wide range of performance experience, having opened for feminist speakers Betty Friedan and Angela Davis, serenaded elementary school children, and provided intimate music for healing and hospice. Other past performances have included the Cabrillo Music Festival’s Church Street Fair, “Choreocopia” dinner shows with India Joze master chef Jozseph Schulz and MoveSpeakSpin, Calvary Episcopal Church’s annual Santa Cruz Community Caroling night, First Night Santa Cruz, First Night Monterey, concert series of The Monterey Museum of Art and Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Santa Cruz Accapellafest, Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, Voices of the People, Songfest for Prostate Cancer Awareness, and numerous other events. Zambra provided live music for productions of Mosaic: Dances of Peace, Justice, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East by the MoveSpeakSpin dance company under the direction of award-winning choreographer Karl Schaffer. In 2014 Zambra had the privilege of studying and performing Moroccan village song with master Tamazight musician Fattah Abbou.
Besides being a performing ensemble, Zambra is also a close group of long-time friends bound together by their love of singing. The group, founded by Therese Hall Johannesson in 1994, began as a larger bilingual women’s choir. It has since evolved into a smaller group of singers sharing the tasks of musical and logistical leadership, with an expansive repertoire encompassing many languages and cultures.
