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.”
Lois Reitzes talks with Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Elise Witt about the “All Singing: The Elise Witt Songbook Release Concert.”
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.
hosted by Susan Lachmann
on WETS-FM, Jonesboro TN
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 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.