Elise Witt

You are here: Home / Articles, Interviews & Radio

Articles, Interviews & Radio

IMMIGRANT SONGS: Elise Witt incorporates music in teaching English

IMMIGRANT SONGS: Elise Witt incorporates music in teaching English

We are all the kin of immigrants or refugees — if you go back far enough. In the past three to four decades the sociopolitical upheavals in other countries have created a need for sanctuary and asylum for millions of people, many forced to leave their homeland due to violence, terrorism, oppression, and extreme poverty. As the need for support services in the US has increased, Clarkston, Georgia has become a safe and welcome haven for many of these refugees. However, basic housing and social support only scratches the surface of need.

A BREATH of SONG takes a deep dive into “Song Deep in Your Bones”

A BREATH of SONG takes a deep dive into
“Song Deep in Your Bones”

I met creator Elise Witt online during the pandemic, when we were both in a course led by the extraordinary improviser Rhiannon… I was honored, because I already knew of Elise as a composer of unusual choral work that I had explored doing with my community chorus. In fact this piece was conceived as a choral piece, and Elise very generously let me excerpt a bit of it to be a pocket song.

Elise’s GVP STUDENTS WRITE, CREATE, REMIX NEW MUSIC IN SONGWRITERS’ CLUB

Elise’s GVP STUDENTS WRITE, CREATE, REMIX NEW MUSIC IN SONGWRITERS’ CLUB

How do we deal with the many feelings we experience while stuck at home and living through a pandemic? For some GVP students, the answer is through songwriting. A new student-led Songwriters’ Club has flourished at GVP as a unique space for students to explore composing their own songs and remixing others’. Students meet weekly via Zoom to workshop original lyrics and share their latest creations with peers. They swap techniques for using GarageBand, a digital music creation studio available on their iPads. And the finished products are impressive: as STEAM Coordinator Danielle Ereddia says, “It’s not only that students are writing lyrics, they’re writing melodies and using loops, voice filters, and instruments on GarageBand to construct multi-layered songs…with up to 14 different tracks on one song.”

ArtsATL - Elise Witt

ArtsATL: Elise Witt uses Her New Songbook to Invite the Whole World to Sing

Ever since Elise Witt moved to Atlanta in 1977, the acclaimed folk singer, educator and activist has made it her duty to foster community through song.
“This is the body of work,” Witt says. “Everything I do is extremely eclectic. There are songs in the songbook you can sit at home and play on your guitar, songs you can sing with friends on the front porch and songs you can sing with a choir.”

Creative Loafing - Elise Witt

Creative Loafing: Elise Witt Celebrates a Life of Music

Few contemporary artists come close to matching Witt’s impact on the number of communities she has become a part of in order to help them through her deeds and music. From her modest Pine Lake home to countries the world over, Witt reaches people everywhere with her determined sense of social justice and equality for all and her commitment to advocating for the neediest among us.

MusicGuy247 Interviews Elise WItt

Musicguy247’s Interview with Elise Witt
A celebration of people involved in music

Elise Witt – An interview with the singer, composer, educator, recording artist and community activist. “I wanted to contribute to change and connect to people through my music.” Elise Witt is a person who is driven to make the world a better place through music and the performing arts. After being born in Switzerland and spending her early childhood in upstate New York, Elise was raised in the southern U.S. state of North Carolina and since 1977 has made Georgia her home. Her mother used to sing in a choir in Switzerland and Elise carries on that singing tradition. Her main interests through her school years were languages of the world. She would study this in college and is fluent in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English.

Elise Witt – Using Song in All the Best Ways by Barbara McAfee

Elise Witt – Using Song in All the Best Ways by Barbara McAfee

I met Elise Witt years ago when she came to Minneapolis to lead a singing workshop. In that afternoon together, I learned songs from her that I am still singing today. It was also the beginning of long, deep and inspiring friendship, fostered by my frequent visits to Atlanta. What a blessing that she lives in the same town as my brother and his family! We have sung a number of concerts together and always cherish the way our work – like our voices – intertwine.

CoNNeCTioNS The Newsletter Of Music For People features Earbone and Improvisation

CoNNeCTioNS The Newsletter Of Music For People features Earbone and Improvisation

The idea that sound goes on forever, and that any sound we make is in the universe forever, is something to deeply consider in these controversial times.

I was born in Switzerland and came to the US at age 4. I was sent to a nursery school where all the children were communicating with each other in strange sounds that I had never heard.

Our Global Roots

Our Global Roots – Alternate Roots Artists Respond to Immigration in the Deep South

Elise and the Global Village Project, along with Ecuadoran/New Orleans performance artist José Torres-Tama,are featured in this article for Public, a Journal of Imagining America, exploring higher education and public engagement.

For the past 40 years, Alternate ROOTS has been a champion of, and resource for, artists, cultural workers, and progressive movement builders in the southern United States. In this article, Nicole Gurgel interviews two longtime ROOTS members—Elise Witt and José Torres-Tama—and explores these artists’ responses to the global challenges the Deep South is facing.

Good Vibrations with Pass it On!

Pass It On! the journal of the Children’s Music Network features Elise with Good Vibrations

In music, a tuning fork is a classic vibratory instrument providing true pitch, used as a guide to all other tonal relationships. In life, it is Elise Witt.

Born in Switzerland to survivors of Nazi Germany, raised in North Carolina, Elise makes her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Speaking fluent Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English and singing in more than a dozen languages, Elise’s passion for music and language has carried her around the nation and across the seas. “My work and my life are all about sound,” says the multi-instrumentalist and longtime member of the Children’s Music Network.

International Songstress Elise Witt Launches “We’re All Born Singing”

International Songstress Elise Witt Launches “We’re All Born Singing”

Lake Claire neighbors know Elise for her Impromptu Glorious Chorus™ community singing classes and workshops, which she has taught in our neighborhood since she moved to Atlanta in 1977 as a founding member of the Theatrical Outfit. Currently, Elise is teaching at the Candler Park Yoga Studio, and the next 6-week session runs Monday evenings 7:30 – 8:45 p.m., Oct. 12 – Nov. 23.

WABE Elise Witt

WABE – Atlanta Composer And Educator: ‘We’re All Born Singing’

“We’re All Born Singing:” that’s the name of a new CD and book from Atlanta-area composer and singer Elise Witt. It’s also her paradigm as a music educator. Witt will officially launch her album with a concert at Decatur’s Oakhurst Baptist Church at 7 p.m. Thursday, but she gave Amy Kiley a preview. Witt began by explaining how she herself was born singing.

A BREATH of SONG takes a deep dive into “Song Deep in Your Bones”

A BREATH of SONG takes a deep dive into
“Song Deep in Your Bones”

I met creator Elise Witt online during the pandemic, when we were both in a course led by the extraordinary improviser Rhiannon… I was honored, because I already knew of Elise as a composer of unusual choral work that I had explored doing with my community chorus. In fact this piece was conceived as a choral piece, and Elise very generously let me excerpt a bit of it to be a pocket song.

ArtsATL - Elise Witt

ArtsATL: Elise Witt uses Her New Songbook to Invite the Whole World to Sing

Ever since Elise Witt moved to Atlanta in 1977, the acclaimed folk singer, educator and activist has made it her duty to foster community through song.
“This is the body of work,” Witt says. “Everything I do is extremely eclectic. There are songs in the songbook you can sit at home and play on your guitar, songs you can sing with friends on the front porch and songs you can sing with a choir.”

Creative Loafing - Elise Witt

Creative Loafing: Elise Witt Celebrates a Life of Music

Few contemporary artists come close to matching Witt’s impact on the number of communities she has become a part of in order to help them through her deeds and music. From her modest Pine Lake home to countries the world over, Witt reaches people everywhere with her determined sense of social justice and equality for all and her commitment to advocating for the neediest among us.

MusicGuy247 Interviews Elise WItt

Musicguy247’s Interview with Elise Witt
A celebration of people involved in music

Elise Witt – An interview with the singer, composer, educator, recording artist and community activist. “I wanted to contribute to change and connect to people through my music.” Elise Witt is a person who is driven to make the world a better place through music and the performing arts. After being born in Switzerland and spending her early childhood in upstate New York, Elise was raised in the southern U.S. state of North Carolina and since 1977 has made Georgia her home. Her mother used to sing in a choir in Switzerland and Elise carries on that singing tradition. Her main interests through her school years were languages of the world. She would study this in college and is fluent in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English.

Our Global Roots

Our Global Roots – Alternate Roots Artists Respond to Immigration in the Deep South

Elise and the Global Village Project, along with Ecuadoran/New Orleans performance artist José Torres-Tama,are featured in this article for Public, a Journal of Imagining America, exploring higher education and public engagement.

For the past 40 years, Alternate ROOTS has been a champion of, and resource for, artists, cultural workers, and progressive movement builders in the southern United States. In this article, Nicole Gurgel interviews two longtime ROOTS members—Elise Witt and José Torres-Tama—and explores these artists’ responses to the global challenges the Deep South is facing.

WABE Elise Witt

WABE – Atlanta Composer And Educator: ‘We’re All Born Singing’

“We’re All Born Singing:” that’s the name of a new CD and book from Atlanta-area composer and singer Elise Witt. It’s also her paradigm as a music educator. Witt will officially launch her album with a concert at Decatur’s Oakhurst Baptist Church at 7 p.m. Thursday, but she gave Amy Kiley a preview. Witt began by explaining how she herself was born singing.

WABE Elise Witt

WABE – Atlanta Composer And Educator: ‘We’re All Born Singing’

“We’re All Born Singing:” that’s the name of a new CD and book from Atlanta-area composer and singer Elise Witt. It’s also her paradigm as a music educator. Witt will officially launch her album with a concert at Decatur’s Oakhurst Baptist Church at 7 p.m. Thursday, but she gave Amy Kiley a preview. Witt began by explaining how she herself was born singing.

CoNNeCTioNS The Newsletter Of Music For People features Earbone and Improvisation

CoNNeCTioNS The Newsletter Of Music For People features Earbone and Improvisation

The idea that sound goes on forever, and that any sound we make is in the universe forever, is something to deeply consider in these controversial times.

I was born in Switzerland and came to the US at age 4. I was sent to a nursery school where all the children were communicating with each other in strange sounds that I had never heard.

Elise’s GVP STUDENTS WRITE, CREATE, REMIX NEW MUSIC IN SONGWRITERS’ CLUB

Elise’s GVP STUDENTS WRITE, CREATE, REMIX NEW MUSIC IN SONGWRITERS’ CLUB

How do we deal with the many feelings we experience while stuck at home and living through a pandemic? For some GVP students, the answer is through songwriting. A new student-led Songwriters’ Club has flourished at GVP as a unique space for students to explore composing their own songs and remixing others’. Students meet weekly via Zoom to workshop original lyrics and share their latest creations with peers. They swap techniques for using GarageBand, a digital music creation studio available on their iPads. And the finished products are impressive: as STEAM Coordinator Danielle Ereddia says, “It’s not only that students are writing lyrics, they’re writing melodies and using loops, voice filters, and instruments on GarageBand to construct multi-layered songs…with up to 14 different tracks on one song.”

Good Vibrations with Pass it On!

Pass It On! the journal of the Children’s Music Network features Elise with Good Vibrations

In music, a tuning fork is a classic vibratory instrument providing true pitch, used as a guide to all other tonal relationships. In life, it is Elise Witt.

Born in Switzerland to survivors of Nazi Germany, raised in North Carolina, Elise makes her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Speaking fluent Italian, French, German, Spanish, and English and singing in more than a dozen languages, Elise’s passion for music and language has carried her around the nation and across the seas. “My work and my life are all about sound,” says the multi-instrumentalist and longtime member of the Children’s Music Network.

Your workshop was totally inspiring!
Joanna
New noise theatre, new orleans lA
Elise teaches great ways to access your deepest, most authentic, most beautiful voice.
Leila
Atlanta, Ga
Elise is a master at guiding voices and opening hearts.
Chorus Manager, WomanSong
Asheville, NC
You don't know how much I needed exactly what you gathered and offered - musically and spiritually.
Lynn
Decatur, GA
You help create positive, transformative experiences for people of all ages.
Outreach Director, LEAF Lake Eden Arts Festival
Black Mountain, nc