ANDREA GALE GOODMAN, singer, author, teacher, healer and Priestess, lives on Barter's Island on the coast of Maine, since 1989. She moved there from New York City where she had a wonderful fourteen years of performing, teaching, and touring. She came to Maine to have a family in a nurturing environment and has stayed to make her home into Ruby-Throated Spirit.

 

Andrea is a vocalist /composer of visionary, metaphoric music. She sings intuitively the river of sound connecting many dimensions. Andrea was a principal performer with the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble, 1974–1991, including world-wide theater and concert touring, and her voice, which can be heard on five of Monk's albums, has been likened to listening to “... an entire jungle of Amazon birds ...” (Newsday). She is the composer and lyricist as well as actress/singer for Nightingale by Figures of Speech Theatre. Other original works include the CD, Divine Doorways with percussionist Gerry Hemingway and her solo recording, The Moon's Daughter & Other Song Stories.

 

Also an author, her book, Lightning Holds My Hand, A Woman's Journal of Guidance, published in 2008, has been called "A beacon ... to illuminate the dark night of the soul," (Donna Henes). Her essay, “A Path Like Water,” appears in the collection, Spell Breaking, Remembered Ways of Being, An Anthology of Women's Mysteries, edited by IONE, 2013, and three of her poems are included in Stepping Into Ourselves, An Anthology of Writings on Priestesses, published by Goddess Ink, 2014.

 

She is the founder of Ruby-Throated Spirit, Sanctuary, Voice Studio, and Labyrinth in Boothbay, Maine, where she offers voice lessons, sound-healing, Cosmic Harmony Class, astrology and tarot readings, sacred ceremonies, blessings, and retreats. Ordained as a High Priestess/minister of the Ministry of Maåt, which she co-founded in 1997 with Reverend IONE and Pauline Oliveros, she considers all aspects of her work to be her ministry.

 

Since 1974 Andrea has been performing at the forefront of theater and music. As an original member of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble for 17 years, she performed in numerous concerts, multi-media theatre productions, films and recordings, touring worldwide, singing mostly without words in a universal language of sound. She is heard on five of Monk’s albums: Songs From the Hill/Tablet on Wergo Spectrum, Dolmen Music, Turtle Dreams, Do You Be, and Book of Days, all on ECM.
 

During her years in New York, she also appeared in theatre works of Lee Nagrin: Sky Fish, Bird/Devil, Whorl, and Bone Orchard. Andrea composed scores for Bond St. Theatre and the choreography of Jeannette Stoner, and appeared as Sappho, singing in Ancient Greek, in Maiden Songs, by the New York Greek Drama Company.

 

Composing music since 1985, Andrea has created Song-Stories, stories told as much through sound as through words, self-accompanied on bandura, an Ukrainian instrument with 55 strings. These are on a recording made in l991, The Moon’s Daughter & Other Song-Stories.

 

She composed the songs for and performs in Nightingale, since1994, with the Maine-based Figures Of Speech Theatre. An award-winning puppet piece, Nightingale played on Broadway during the 1996 International Puppetry Festival. Also with Figures Of Speech, Andrea composed music for Festival Of Light in 1994, and performs as narrator and singer in their 2001 production, She-Who-Loves.

 

Andrea has received four grants from Meet the Composer to perform new compositions, including one for Vocal Magic, performed at Deep Listening Institute, Kingston, NY. DLI and the Ministry of Maåt also presented Opening of the Mouth Ceremony.

 

Andrea performs her music in Maine, New York and elsewhere, often collaborating with other musicians and dancers, including dancer Vicki Tansey in Breath and Marrow in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in September, 1998, dancer Pamela Wiley in 2007 and with flutist Carl Dimow and trumpeter Mark Tipton as The Resonance Residence Trio in concerts of jazz improvisation in 2003- 2009. Andrea and Anna Dembska, long-time friends and collaborators, currently perform Music of a New Frequency, a vocal duo.

 

Working with the language of symbol and metaphor as a professional astrologer, she composed Planet Songs, expressing the essence of each planet. Her work since 1985 with the Voyager Tarot and using intuitive, channeled singing for healing brought her to the concept and creation of Divine Doorways, Soundings on the Sacred Voyage of the Wheel of Tarot, her CD with drummer Gerry Hemingway, released on her own label, Ruby-Throated Records. Goodman and Hemingway met in 1996, performing together as guests of dancer Daria Fain in a concert at the Foundation Cartier, Paris, France. They gave duet concerts in Portland, Maine, and in New York City in November, 1998.

 

In April, 2001, Andrea sang the lead role in a new opera, Io And Her And The Trouble With Him in Madison, WI, at the University of Wisconsin. The opera is written by author Ione with music by composer Pauline Oliveros.

 

Andrea has been teaching voice since 1979, privately and in classes and workshops. She teaches experiential mythic astrology and mystical voice work on journeys and retreats with Rev. IONE, including travels in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2012 to Egypt and in 1998 to Hawaii. Recordings from the trips to Egypt will comprise a forthcoming CD, Return To Egypt.

 

Since 1985, Andrea has been working with vocal sound-healing, intuitively using the vibrations of her voice to assist the free flow of energy, soothing, relaxing, energizing, and releasing tension. She also teaches others to use their voices for their own and others’ healing in her Cosmic Harmony Classes in Maine, New York, and Connecticut.

 

Ordained as a Priestess/Minister of the Ministry Of Maåt, in 1998, Andrea considers all of her work as performer, teacher and astrologer to be her ministry. The mission of the Ministry of Maåt is to nurture the concept of world-wide harmony and balance. Maåt is the ancient Egyptian Divine embodiment of cosmic truth, harmony. balance and justice who orders the Universe and is its heart. Andrea creates and conducts tailor-made ceremonies for weddings, commitment ceremonies, funerals, naming, coming of age, birthdays, and blessings for homes, boats, or new ventures.

 

In 2003, she opened Ruby-Throated Spirit, Sanctuary, Studio, and Labyrinth, at her home on Barter’s Island, Boothbay, Maine. In addition to her teaching, sound-healing, astrology and tarot readings, she offers ceremonies, workshops and retreats for individuals and small groups.

 

Andrea has one daughter, Rose Beverly, born in 1992.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgements

“I am grateful to my teachers and mentors who have guided me throughout my career: John Devers who taught me voice, Allan Wayne in dance, Alethea Worden in astrology, Wendy Ashley in mythic astrology, the Rev. Ellen Resch, the Rev. Ione, Meredith Monk, Lee Nagrin, and Henrietta Weigel.”

Rev. Andrea Gale Goodman