about
ABOUT REBECCA MACK
Rebecca Mack is a musician and visual artist; teaching, living and working in the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington, Vermont.
New Choral Work: BODY
“Body” is a cycle of six songs for voices, cello and harp, with original poetry in Latin and English illustrating the life and death of biodiversity, impermanence and liminal spaces, rooted in the reverence of the human relationship with the ever-changing landscape. “Body” is as much about the earth, climates and creatures that surround us as it is about our beautiful humanity being situated in human bodies. It was written outdoors, indoors and in a semi-sheltered open air studio by Rebecca Mack; two songs were co-written with Stephanie Lynn Wilson. The composition of “Body” was funded in part by Vermont Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts in 2023. It received its world premiere November 4, 2024 under the direction of Rona Nadler, performed by One Equall Musick and Sapphonix Collective in Montréal, Canada at St. Stanislaus Kotska Church.
Mack is one half of Knit and Purl, a musical collaboration with John Thompson- Figueroa featuring voice, piano, bass, harp and turntables. Knit and Purl released Loop Gloss, Volume 1 in 2021.
Mack directs and performs with Amerykanka, a vocal ensemble which resonates with old vocal traditions while embracing newer tools to share a unique perspective on choral music. Amerykanka’s debut album, Snow, released 2018, is deeply inspired by our northern landscape, as well as by our ancestral cultural traditions.
Rebecca’s formal training includes vocal performance, music history, music composition, drawing, and photography. Independently, she has studied stop- motion animation, print-making, sound recording, turntablism and percussion. As a teaching artist, Mack works with adults and children with a wide range of abilities. Their approach to arts education employs mindfulness and a constructivist approach to creative learning.
Mack has been teaching voice in private lessons and workshop settings since 2017 and has been working as a teaching artist since 2012. Their pedagogical training includes Universal Design for Learning, with foci on accessibility and creativity across lifespan development.
Past residencies include visual arts with toddlers and preschoolers, singing and drumming with disabled adults, hip-hop and social justice with teens, street art for teens, sensory-friendly drumming for students with autism and their families, painting with infants, sound art and vocal music with elementary students, and professional development for early educators.
Mack worked at Inclusive Arts VT, teaching music to adults and children with disabilities, at Burlington Children’s Space in the position of atelierista: in- house arts educator and documentation support staff and at Swan Dojo (Burlington, VT) as a hip-hop dj, under the name DJ Mothertrucker, accompanying a regular hip-hop dance class with choreographer/teacher, Lois Trombley.
Mack feels that their work as an artist would be incomplete without their work as teacher; the creativity and inquiry of the students with whom she works is a constant nutrient of her own music and art.