Silvia Nakkach

Education

She has graduated and holds degrees from the National Conservatory of Buenos Aires, Argentina on piano and voice performance. She obtained Masters Degrees in Psychology and in Music Therapy from the National University of Buenos Aires, and in Music Composition from Mills College, Oakland, California. In Argentina, she also has earned credentials in Psychoanalytic Psychodrama and Gestalt Therapy. Since 1982 she has studied raga singing and North Indian classical music with Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, in San Rafael, California.

Career

Nakkach is a recognized authority on the healing power of music, sound and the voice. She is a pioneer in the use and the integration of sacred sound with contemporary practices of transformation of consciousness in music psychotherapy and in health care. An internationally accredited specialist in cross-cultural music healing training, she has been involved in research in the areas of singing and creative uses of the voice since 1974. She has contributed an extensive body of therapeutic sound and vocal techniques that have become landmarks in the field of sound healing and music therapy in South America, Europe and the United States. She has created a music repertoire widely used in Palliative Care, Hospices, and Healthcare Centers for substance abuse and during pregnancy and delivery. Nakkach significant body of work has been integrated in an innovative curriculum of vocal principles, theories, and applications available through the Vox Mundi Project programs, archives and publications.

Travel

She travels extensively throughout the world facilitating seminars, training, lectures, offering concerts, and leading study groups in India, Spain, Hawaii, Argentina, and in Bahia, Brazil. Her interest in indigenous music cosmology and spirituality has led her to work with many traditional healers and master teachers of Indian and South American shamanic traditions.

Organizations

She is the founding director of Vox Mundi Project, an organization devoted to research, education, preservation, and performance of sacred vocal arts.

Recent work

Her recent work includes training and post-graduate seminars as a visiting Faculty in many prestigious institutions worldwide, such as New York University, Beth Israel Clinic in New York City, Arizona State University, the University for Expressive Arts in Barcelona, the Music Conservatory in Rio the Janeiro, the Alumine University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, among others. Since 2000, Silvia has been offering regular workshops through Public Programs at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where in 2006 she designed the curriculum and is the academic advisor for the successful Certificate on Sound, Voice, and Music Healing.

Collaborations

She has been a longtime collaborator of prominent artists and professors such as Ralph Metzner, Claudio Naranjo, Steve Goodman, Mayumi Oda, Tsultrim Allione, Luisa Teish, and renowned composers such as Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Braxton, Kit Walker, Paul McCandless, Christopher Eickmann, Miguel Frasconi, and David Darling.

Awards

As a singer and composer she has received many awards and commissions worldwide. Her major work, the opera Amazonia Insight has been performed in many countries. She have released six albums, her CD Ah, The Healing Voice, is widely played in healthcare centers to create a healing atmosphere before and after surgical interventions. Her last album, Invocation granted her an article in theUtne Reader where she was selected among a group of 40 international artists who will shake the art world.

Books

She is the contributing author for various books, including Music and the Human Process, Music in Human Adaptation, and Transpersonal Consciousness, and Music Therapy and the End of Life.

Silvia currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.