Raison D'Etre

Promo image by Brad Puckett of BP Photography, Mobile, AL. http://www.bradpuckettphotography.com

Raison D'Etre plays a sampling of all of our styles at every concert plus our award-winning original songs. Our one and two-set concerts work particularly well for cabaret settings, performance halls, concert series, and libraries. Historic venues, museums, festivals, and retirement communities might find our specialty shows a better fit. See details on this page. Roberta offers music residencies to schools, community groups, arts centers, and senior centers including empowerment drumming and songwriting.

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 The Swing Canaries--Bertielou, Vickie Lynn, and Violet Rae--are actually the women of the folk trio, Raison D'Etre: Roberta Schultz, Vickie Ellis and Violet Rae Downey. While Violet Rae and Roberta are siblings and have sung together for most of Violet's life, Vickie joined the musical family almost two decades ago, becoming a sister-in-song. And as Violet Rae always says, "Mom likes her best!" The Swing Canaries were born on the 50th Anniversary of D Day celebration at the Cincinnati Museum Center's exhibit, "Cincinnati Goes to War." Learning the songs made popular by harmony groups such as the Andrews Sisters, the Dinning Sisters, the King Sisters and the Girls of the Golden West has given the women of this vocal trio a whole new sense about the way music weaves golden threads of memory into life's tapestry. So, if you once danced to these tunes, heard your mom sing them, or just love some good songs from a powerful era in music, the Swing Canaries invite you to take a "sentimental journey" of your own. Sample Set List: 1. Sentimental Journey 2. Moonglow 3. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? 4. Lullaby of Broadway 5. In the Mood 6. Rum and Coca Cola 7. Buffalo Gals 8. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy 9. Java Jive 10. You are My Sunshine 11. Love Letters 12. Pennsylvania 6-5000 13. Buttons and Bows 14. I'll Be Seeing You

Raison D'Etre is a sister act(since Violet Rae and Roberta are sisters.) "Sister Acts" includes songs made famous by singing sisters including Clooney, Andrews, McGuire, Lennon, King, Webster, and Dinning. A sample set includes: Sisters In the Mood Moonglow Buffalo Gals Sentimental Journey Lullaby of Broadway You are My Sunshine Buttons and Bows Sugar Time Rum and Coca Cola Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Home on the Range Java Jive I Will Always Love You Good Night, Sweetheart

Raison D'Etre plays songs of the Old West(with a few songs about the Old West thrown in for fun.) A sample set includes: Buffalo Gals I Ride an Old Paint Git Along Little Dogies O, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie Buttons and Bows Hard Times, Come Again No More Wait for the Wagon Soldier, Soldier Single Girl The Yellow Rose of Texas Aura Lee Red River Valley Down in the Valley Don't Fence Me In Home on the Range Happy Trails

Long before there was a play by that name(featuring sisters, wouldn't ya know,) Raison D'Etre strolled through the streets of many a(n) historic site singing carols. Their recorded version of that experience is called "Christmas Belles," and you can also book a set of our well-rehearsed carols for your event. 

Roberta Schultz has spent most of her life performing in music ensembles, including the harmony folk trio Raison D'Etre, who sing intricate three-part arrangements of traditional folk, swing, Shaker, and original songs. Adjudicated since 2000 into the Kentucky Arts Council's "Performing Arts on Tour Directory," this trio sings at many venues throughout the tri-state like Hoover Auditorium, Lakeside, OH, Concerts at Lakeside, Guntersville, AL, Cincinnati Music Hall, Tall Stacks Art, Music and Heritage Festival, The Midland Theatre, The Singletary Center for the Arts, Richmond Area Arts Council's Celebration of Women in the Arts, and KET's "Mixed Media" and "In  Performance at the Governor's Mansion."

From 1999-2006 Schultz coordinated a concert series for the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, KY. The series, entitled "The Coffee Cup Concert Series" was designed to bring a neighborhood of culture to Northern Kentuckians as well as providing a viable venue for performing artists. The series featured diverse music genres that reflect the evolving heritage of Northern Kentucky. Schultz booked local, regional, and national acts for the series along with handling press releases, committee work, and hosting duties. The series featured such headliners as Christine Lavin and Bill Miller.

As a performer, teacher, and songwriter, Schultz believes strongly in the power of community. This energy led her to make Native hand drums at the Carnegie Art Center's Drum workshop under the leadership of activist, Dennis Banks. During the five-year run of that workshop, she guided students and adults in the craft of Native drum making and singing while learning for herself the value of patience, collaboration, and tradition. That community arts experience led Schultz to develop one of the pilot high school humanities courses entitled "Celebrating the Creative Spirit" in which students created art, studied cultures, and wrote about their experiences in an anthology. She and fellow teacher, Karen Martin, presented their course concept and resulting student work at The National Council of Teachers of English Convention in Chicago and again at Kentucky Council of Teachers of Language Arts in Louisville.

Here is a listing of residencies Schultz has conducted for the Arts Academy Follow-up and Kentucky Arts in Education Program:

Residencies:

Elements of Music/PD for Frakes Elementary School

Early American Song Styles/PD for Middle Fork Elementary School

Students worked on elements of music as they apply to Early American song, including Appalachian ballads, Native American chant and call/response songs.

Image Songs: Writing Songs About Visual Art

TIP Project with Doug Groneck at Walton Verona High School

Students wrote songs and poems about their own visual art pieces to include in a multimedia presentation for their art opening.

Songs from Literature, Songs about Literature

 PD for Sandy Hook Elementary In preparation for a visiting children's author and musician, students learned music elements included in that author's songs. They also prepared a performance of one song to honor the visiting author.

Songwriting as Creative Response to Literature

TIP Project with Karen Martin at Dixie Heights High School

Students in an AP Literature class prepared for their upcoming AP test by creating original songs inspired by literature(SIBLs.) They performed their individual and collective pieces at a culminating "Coffee House."

Music Across the Ages--Our Lady of the Mountains School, Paintsville, KY

Students from pre-school to eighth grade worked on elements of music as they apply to the Western Tradition. Pre-schoolers drummed out rhythms to favorite songs, first and second graders learned to read basic rhythm notation and sang simple melodies, third and fourth graders learned about historic songs and wrote plainchant, while the upper grades learned about the major music periods in Western music as they incorporated rhythm, melody and harmony in their performances. A culminating concert for parents took place in the school's ballroom on the last day of the two-week residency.

Schultz's songs appear on Raison D'Etre recordings, on"Eva the Diva Kangaroo," a children's CD produced in 2010 by the Cincinnati Ceilidh Group, on "Isn't it a Wonder?"--a children's album produced in 2008 by the Ceilidh Group, on the first compilation of SouthernArtistry.org, and on the 2007 Tri-State Womanfest Compilation which includes songs by Katie Reider, Robin Stone, blues sensation EG Kight, Kerrville Winner, R.J. Cowdery, and Italian songbird, Anita Camarella.

In 2010-2011 Schultz presented songwriting workshops for Motes Books Summer Gathering at Grailville featuring award winning authors, Anne Shelby, Jason Howard, poet Pauletta Hansel, and songwriter/publisher, Kate Larken, served on a songwriters' panel at Grailville's Third Sunday Poetry Series, and led a songwriting workshop for the first-ever Berea Festival of Learnshops. She received an Artist Enrichment Grant from Kentucky Foundation for Women for writing songs about how women and girls face aging in our society. Schultz toured in 2007-2008 with the Appalachian Women's Alliance performance piece Mountain Women Rising that is based on real writings from real women published in the Appalachian Women's Journal. In June 2009, she became a trained HealthRhythms® Facilitator and has been leading wellness and empowerment drum circles in the Greater Cincinnati Area for Creative Aging, NKADD, ArtsWave, and for Berea's Festival of Learnshops.

Her song lyrics, "January Thaw" were published in Motes Books Anthology Motifv2: Come What May, 2010.

"The Papers," Schultz's song about her great grandfather who was indentured while traveling with a Wild West Show, appears on Raison D'Etre's 2011 recording, Golden Girls of the West. Lyrics for the song are published in Motif v3: All the Livelong Day, Motes Books, 2011.

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