Moksha Sommer

Moksha Sommer

Moksha Sommer is a full-time artist who is active in Music Performance and Composition, 2D and 3D media, Interdisciplinary Intermedia Studies and Practices, Arts Production, Performance/New Genre Art, Feminist Art and Theory, and Social Activist Art. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA from Montreal’s Concordia University; both received with Great Distinction. She has received several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and one from the Kentucky Women’s Foundation. In the last year she has been working with a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts on several collaborative video and music pieces that will be released in 2024. Her work utilizes immersive, multi-sensory, multidisciplinary experience as a means to blur the boundaries in relation to art as ritual and ritual as art and the intimacy and surrender that can be experienced in the state of acknowledged unknowing.

In 2020, Sommer wrote and performed the score for 'This Holding'; a collaboration with visual artist Jana Harper and choreographer Rebecca Steinberg that received an NEA Grant and was presented through OZ Arts. It received a Writer’s Choice award for “Best Move From Live Performance to Video” AND a Readers' Poll tie for “Best Streaming Event” through NASHVILLE SCENE.

Sommer's primary and ongoing musical project is ‘HuDost’. Electric-Folk, Americana, Global-Groove ensemble, HuDost, performs with refined wildness and their latest album reached #4 in the Canadian National Folk/Roots/Blues Chart and #9 in the US Folk Radio Charts. HuDost’s last album received rave reviews and as an independent release reached #24 in the BILLBOARD SALES CHARTS for Folk/Americana and won The Independent Music Award for Social Action Song. They have been fortunate to have incredible performance opportunities throughout the years and have toured internationally since 2006 collaborating with wild, astonishing, and respected artists, musicians, dancers, and activists. HuDost are committed advocates/activists for ONE (non-profit organization). Their performances are “…enchanting, moving, wild, and inspiring while infused with totally Canadian humor!”

Highlight performances include Bonnaroo, FloydFest, Blissfest, The ARK, Vancouver Island MusicFest, the Salvador Dali Museum, The Levitt Pavilions, WoodSongs, Nashville’s Bluebird Café, Music City Roots, Tim Robbins’ WTF?! Fest, The Montreal Folk Festival, Hillside Festival, LEAF Festival, Stan Rogers Folk Fest, BhaktiFest, World Café Live, Alex Grey’s CoSM, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, headlining The Islands Folk Fest (Vancouver), and many more. Highlight collaborations and opening slots for other artists include Ani DiFranco, Philip Glass, Jon Anderson (YES), Snatam Kaur, Steve Kilbey (The Church), Ramy Essam, California Guitar Trio, Bell Orchestre, Neko Case, Jim Lauderdale, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Mercan Dede, and many more.

website: mokshasommer.net

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Moksha Sommer
  • Art is a Healing Tool: A Conversation with Moksha Sommer

    Moksha Sommer of the band HuDost sits down with Avi Gordon and discusses musical performance as a practice, the beauty of collaboration, and learning to laugh when things go wrong.

    Learn more about Moksha Sommer