“Bisan Toron’s voice is a door that opens out to mystery.” - Pir Zia Inayat-Khan
Photo by Erin Ellen Kelly
Bisan’s Story
I was led to my ‘Voice Creatures’ through a sort of sickness of the soul that could not be ignored. I had two academic degrees in music and experience as a performer, yet there remained a chasm between what I felt inside and what was actually coming out of the mouth as expression; a contrast between my inner sense of vastness and the small, limited voice that was coming out of me.
After training in classical western technique, I went looking to break the rules of my voice; to find its edges and boundaries. I joined a punk rock jazz band, travelled to the Middle East to live with Bedouins and record their music, and completed a Masters in Ethnomusicology, where I studied Persian and Bulgarian singing and specialized in the topic of Music and Identity. In retrospect, I suppose I was looking for my own musical tradition; a sense of home.
I didn’t know how to name or attend to this disconnect, I just knew it became more painful to sing than not to, so I retreated into silence.
There was an urgency to find a deeper connection to my voice - an unmistakable sense that I was going to be ill unless I returned to my voice, I left for France to work with the great Linda Wise of the company Pantheatre. She invited me to dig and recover the unchartered territories of my voice.
I also spent months sitting alone, feeling into the unknown, allowing aspects of myself I had long ago banished to emerge in my breath, my body, and, eventually, ripple through my voice. Guided solely by a desperate desire to heal and live, I practiced giving my body entirely to whatever wanted to live through it in the moment and allowing inner feeling to translate directly into sound: What is true? What wants to live through this body?
As I attended to the energies that were knocking wildly from the inside, I noticed they were very specific: a self-loathing donkey, a crow that embodied terrifying aloneness, a tender, desperate inside-out heart in search of an echo. These were my Voice Creatures.
Initially, witnessing these parts in me was repulsive and shameful. And yet, they pulled my curiosity. They were hairy, snot-ridden, wounded, messy, dark, downtrodden, and yet, somehow, beautiful in their truth. The more thoroughly I allowed these creatures to sing through me, to howl and let themselves be known, the more “pieced” together I felt. This band of outcasts began to sing me back to life. I was looking for an echo from the world to know myself, to feel my existence, and it was through sounding these forgotten parts that I found this echo--a way of meeting myself.
My work is to hold a flag for the marginalized parts in us--those parts we leave outside of God, which deem ugly and unlovable--and allow them to run amok and be expressed in their fullness. As they are anointed with the attention of our seeing, they are unlocked, re-known and re-newed. They are returned to life. And in this way, over and over again, we are made whole.
“In my opinion, Bisan Toron is a miracle worker. I don't think I have ever seen anyone teach with so much wisdom, clarity, and energy... She does more than teach music. She changes lives.”
— Justin Nielson, Founder, Sing Music Academy
Photo by Jane Feldman
“Bisan shows us how our concept of the voice causes us to hold to a fixed creative identity, and also to a certain personal identity. By guiding us to use our voice in new ways, Bisan helps us to let go of our habitual sense of self so that we can journey to being the artist and person we truly wish to be.”
— David Siegel, Student
“Bisan Toron is magnificent. Never in my life has my spirit been more moved and inspired than in the moments I have heard and felt the power and purity of her voice. She is a vessel of pure sonic wisdom, frequency, and wonder, touching the innermost regions of our humanness.”
— Frederick Johnson, Vocalist & Teacher
"Then... there's the magical voice of Bisan Toron, an artist who I love and respect so much. One of a kind. Bisan embodies and conveys music in the purest way. Her voice is a gift from God. She's a dream to work with, she perfectly translates every detail of my music from my mind to this planet in a tangible form: the love, the fear, the angst, the courage, the hope... Her depth is unreal. The most unique voice I have ever worked with."
— Simone Giuliani, Composer & Producer
Work with Bisan
With a vast background in classical voice and mysticism, Bisan helps her students reclaim the exiled, discarded, and silenced aspects of their Self, known as their “Voice Creatures”. Working on the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels, Bisan guides her students through what it means to become a vessel for their infinite nature to fully and freely resound through them.
Bisan offers in-person and virtual coaching sessions across any time zone.
Photo by Jane Feldman
Performances
Migrant Songs - Live Concert. Soft premiere of Migrant Songs Album w/Simone Giuliani & friends. Topanga, CA.
Invocations. Live concert w/Simone Guiliani. Pure Land Farms. Topanga, CA.
Castello a Mare. NYsferatu live performance. Palermo, Italy
GAMeC - Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. NYsferatu live performance. Bergamo, Italy
Invisible Essence: The Little Prince. Featured vocalist on documentary by Charles Officer. Toronto, Canada
Rome Film Festival. Featured live vocalist for NYsferatu. Auditorium Parco della Musica. Festa del Cinema di Roma. Italy
NYsferatu. Symphony of a Century. Featured Vocalist/Co-Composer for multi-media art project. New York, NY
You Are So Lucky. New Years Eve. Alder Manor. Yonkers, NY.
LEIMAY. HANASAKA: Inaugural Annual Benefit. The Cave. Brooklyn, NY.
Into Sunlight. Vocalist for original dance score for production by Robin Becker Dance Co. New York, NY
Overground Physical Theatre Company. Eccocentric. NY, NY.
Urs of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Delhi, India.
Dumbo Arts Festival. Amatria. Brooklyn, NY.
Zonta International. La Musique Adoucit les Moeurs. Benefit for the Committee Against Modern Day Slavery. Paris, France.
National Conservatory of Ramallah. Transit Performance Group: Fusion Jazz & Arabic Music. Israel & the West Bank.
Teaching
American University of Cairo. Voice for Actors Workshop. Cario, Egypt.
Yangchenma Arts & Music. Voice Creatures Workshop. Pure Land Farms, Topanga, CA.
American School of Dubai. Guest Artist. Dubai, U.A.E.
Zenith Sufi Summer Camp, The Movement and Sound of Love, Co-led workshop with dancer, Robin Becker. Ticino, Switzerland
Pantheatre ‘ACTS’ Voice Performance School, Classical Vocal Technique and Improvisation. Paris, France
N.Y.U. Master Class, Dubai, U.A.E.
FRESCO Arts Academy Master Class, Boise, ID
ESADIB (Escola Superior d’Art Dràmatic de les Illes Balears), Voice Professor, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Overground Physical Theatre Company, Music Director/Vocal Coach. NY, NY.
Masters Fieldwork Project: The Fusion Music of Ethnic Minorities in Port of Spain. Port of Spain,Trinidad
Masters Thesis: Beur Identity: The Local, The Global and The Search for Home in the Music of the Second and Third Generation Franco-Arab Community
Conflict Resolution Music & Movement Workshops, Co-designed and conducted workshops for Arab & Israeli women and children. Haifa, Israel/ Ramallah, West Bank
Recording a Bedouin Family’s Legacy. Fieldwork project to document music and rituals of the Abu Jrabat Tribe. Ma’daba, Jordan