Click here to download listing of honors and awards.

As a young girl Judith-Kate Friedman fell in love with acoustic guitar, roots music, folklore and people's stories as well as melodies from Baroque to Broadway and vocal music from ballads to Belafonte to the Blues.

She graduated from Oberlin College with studies in world music and a degree in folklore and poetry writing and she made her way to the San Francisco Bay Area, gigging as a singer-songwriter and exploring the meeting point of social activism, service and original songs.

After releasing and touring with her "Arc of Diamonds" debut album she took a series of 'day' jobs performing for folks in nursing homes. Their stories and the flame that lit when they heard old Yiddish, Celtic, and Mexican folk songs led Kate to wonder what writing together could spark.

She joined a California Arts Council team of artists at Artworks/SF's Institute on Aging, under director/mentor Robert Rice and started songwriting with homebound elders and older adults in day centers around San Franciso. Her background in heritage studies, consensus building, eliminating racism, and improvisation were a boon in this in-the-moment environment with three generations of folks diverse in culture, language of origin, age and ability.

For Judith-Kate, collective songwriting begins with listening and capturing the verbatim speech of every person in the room. In this way each song is a portrait of a community's imagination and concerns. Over time, these songwriting projects grew into the Songwriting Works™ process and principles around which the Songwriting Works Educational Foundation is now organized.

Friedman's credits include award-winning vocal performances, songs, and solo and ensemble recordings, major event productions, concert tours, grants, years as a public radio disc jockey and numerous conference and keynote presentations. As a teacher, she is beloved among students of all ages for her master classes in voice and performance, individual coaching and creative summits.

As a performer, Judith-Kate has toured solo and in collaboration with singer-songwriters, poets and storytellers for twenty-five years. In concert, she weaves her passionate life strands together with stories, eclectic and original music in a synthesis of vocal grace, acoustic groove and poetic truth that has been called "spellbinding...magical...and soul-satisfying..."

To learn more visit the pages on this website and www.songwritingworks.org
Artist CV

"You will play like the water rolls,
like the wind gets wild and the night grows cold
and heals the ground and the cracks of day,
comes out like a ray of the sun on fire."
© Judith-Kate Friedman from A Spider's Tale

Hear "A Spider's Tale" performance at Kulak's Woodshed, Los Angeles, June 2010