I had new song come through in January: “We Are Not Afraid.” I've taught it to groups at a couple marches down at the ICE facility here in Portland and it has helped many of us stay courageous and rooted in love as we stand for justice in the face of authoritarian violence. I was interviewed about the song as part of Northern Spirit Radio's series, Songs of the Minnesota Uprising. Listen to the program here.
I'll be leading a song to close this interfaith silent march to protest ICE's brutal treatment of our community and those across the country. This is a powerful event that has been happening monthly and is usually about an hour or a little less. Every way we show up in resistance to injustice matters.
We're excited to be part of the Risk/Reward Festival! This is a kickoff show for an October tour of our production of AN ILIAD.
Seats are limited, so reserve yours now!
CLICK HERE
FOR TICKETS
I'm honored to be playing instrumental music for this event, as well as bringing a message (through song) on behalf of my Quaker meeting:
Announcing the 8th Annual
Transgender Day of Remembrance Interfaith Vigil
Sunday, November 19th 4pm
First United Methodist Church
1838 SW Jefferson St, Portland OR 97205
https://fumcpdx.org/
https://www.facebook.com/tdorinterfatihpdx
Gather with us in person for an interfaith service featuring local spiritual leaders, public officials, music and a candle lighting ceremony for the fallen. This TDoR service is open to the entire community and is being hosted by transgender and interfaith allies. We invite all people, transgender or cisgender to join us in this reverent observation. There will be a reception after with the opportunity for socializing with light refreshments provided. For more information, please contact Emma Lugo at transpositivepdx@gmail.com or 503-756-5801. Sponsored by First United Methodist Church.
Tell your friends! Go to the shows page for details….
Quakers from all over the US and Canada (and beyond) are gathered together by Friends General Conference for a week of worship, workshops, and community. This year, gathering is in Monmouth, Oregon, July 2nd - July 8th and I will be making this offering for attenders:
Meeting for Worship for Lament
With our feet on the earth and circled by trees, we will use the music ministry of Friend Anna Fritz and the container of Meeting for Worship to make space for embodied grieving. Friends have the need to actively mourn the legacies of patriarchy, colonization, and racism being enacted on all of our bodies and the body of the world. Anna will offer her Spirit-gifted songs to help us touch and lift up the pain we are carrying. There will be music (cello and voice), singing together, and a time for wailing and keening, followed by a return to waiting worship to hold our personal and collective grief in the Light.
Actor Paul Susi and I are remounting An Iliad! We're giving a free invited performance on Saturday May 13 at 7 pm, at the West Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Donations gratefully welcome to fund a return to the prisons we originally visited with this work before the pandemic.
We were inspired and commissioned to remount the play by the brave 6th graders at West Sylvan Middle School, who have been studying the Iliad as a response to the traumas and upheaval they've been experiencing this school year (private performances are happening for them at their school library that week!). Join us for the May 13th performance at WHUUF: 8470 SW Oleson Rd, Portland, OR 97223.
**AN ILIAD is a modern retelling of the ancient epic by Homer written by Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare, performed by Paul Susi and Anna Fritz with an original musical score composed by Anna Fritz.**
I'm delighted to be playing a solo show at St. Catherine Episcopal Church in Nehalem. The north coast is a dear place to me. I used to live in Arch Cape years ago and now spend a lot of my writing/composing time in Manzanita. There is an old Sitka spruce tree there on Neahkahnie Mountain that gifted me a song that I will surely sing with you this night. Excited to connect with community at the ocean!
I'm honored to be providing cello music again for the Interfaith Vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance here in Portland, Oregon. I'm so grateful for the unique brilliance of each of the trans and nonbinary people I've had the privilege to love, witness, collaborate with, and know in my life. Mourning the loss of those taken from us and recommitting to fighting for justice is an important practice for me and I'm grateful to do it in interfaith community. I hope that you'll join us in person, online, or at your own TDOR event locally.
Saturday, November 19th, 2022
4:00pm
(gathering music begins at 3:40pm)
First Unitarian Church, Eliot Chapel
1211 SW Main St.
Portland, OR
Gather with us in person or virtually for an interfaith service featuring local spiritual leaders, public officials, music and a candle lighting ceremony for the fallen. This TDoR service is open to the entire community and is being hosted by transgender and interfaith allies. We invite all people, transgender or cisgender to join us in this reverent observation.
There will be a reception after with the opportunity for both indoor and outdoor socializing with light refreshments provided.
MASKS ARE REQUIRED for in-person attendance. Click here for more info and livestream details.
There’s a reason there’s been little news to report here for many months: I’ve been deep in the process of writing a dramatic work that incorporates theater, music, and projections of visual art called The Antigone Cycle. After bringing it into the light for an initial read through of the script with music cues in May, it required some rest, some breathing room. As the season turns, I’ve put some writing retreats on the calendar to edit, re-draft, and start making a plan to workshop the play.
If you’re curious, you can hear an excerpt of the score for solo cello, read more about the project, and support the writing process here:
My Patreon Page.
That’s what makes this all possible!
Me with Neahkahnie Mountain, my direct supervisor.
November 20, 2021
5pm - 6:15pm (pacific)
hybrid (online with limited in-person attendance in NE Portland, Oregon)
Honoring and remembering transgender people around the world whose lives have been lost to anti-transgender violence. This observance is open to the entire community and is being hosted by transgender and interfaith allies. The event will include music, speakers, and a candle lighting ceremony by interfaith leaders.
I'll be playing instrumental cello music (my own compositions from theater productions in Oregon prisons) to open the event and during the candle lighting. Click here for more information, to register to attend in person, or to attend online.
First live performances in the time of covid....
August 27th, 28th, and 29th at Multnomah Friends Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
This series of mid-day offerings will involve prayerful performance, singing together, and silent worship in the style of Friends (Quakers). It is with unending gratitude that I hold this space for us to return to the use of song to reach for the holy. Through the resonance of the cello and the power of our raised voices we will celebrate and give thanks, grieve and lament, and plead for help in these difficult times.
Those who attend will need to be vaccinated and masked. In order to limit the number of people in the garden, a reservation will be required for attendance. Request a reservation by emailing anna@annafritz.com with the number of people and the date you wish to attend (Friday August 27th, 12:30pm - 1:30pm; Saturday August 28th, 12:30pm - 1:30pm; or Sunday August 29th, 12:30pm - 1:30pm). You will receive a reply either confirming your reservation or letting you know the event is full. There is no cost for this offering, but there will be an opportunity for attenders to make donations as they are led.
Photo by Mulysa Melco
Painting by Reeva Wortel
I’m offering this song to my people - all people - for free. It is medicine, and all who need medicine should have it, especially in the midst of pandemic.
If you have the means to offer something in return, you can set your own price. Or, if you want to help see me through this time when it may be a year or more before I can return to most of the work that I do, my Patreon page is a way to offer a monthly gift automatically.
I pray that you are well.
I pray that your beloveds are well.
I pray that we can move through our lives knowing that we are all one great heart beating.
It was a huge honor to be interviewed and play some of my music for QuakerSpeak. This is a video project of the publication Friends Journal, based in Philadelphia. The work I do as a songwriter, singer, and cellist was named by my Quaker meeting here in Portland, Oregon as a ministry in 2016. You can learn more about what that means to me and how my spiritual life has changed the way I approach my work:
Actor Paul Susi and I got to talk about our experiences bringing our production of AN ILIAD to prisons across Oregon. We were interviewed for the October 17, 2019 episode of this great new podcast that focuses on artists using the power of their work for positive, progressive change. It was a deep and moving conversation with Douglas Detrick (executive and artistic director of Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble) and it's beautifully curated for the podcast. Enjoy hearing an in-depth account of this work, and check out the other episodes - conversations with other great Portland artists working for change.
I wrote a score for solo cello for this modern interpretation of Homer's Iliad. We toured it to eleven prisons, two schools, a homeless shelter, and two public venues last fall. This month we are remounting the show, offering performances at colleges, prisons, houses of worship, and Portland City Hall.
This project is focused on knitting together disparate audiences, using an ancient text that examines the cycles of violence, trauma, and rage that continue to affect us today. Every performance involves a conversation with the audience immediately afterward: a moving way to deepen the experience of the work and to bring together the splintered pieces of our communities, on either side of the prison walls. All shows are either free or by donation with no one turned away.
Thank you to Judy Lackey for beautiful poster design!
It's about the spiritual struggles of self-promotion as an artist, from my own Quaker-cello-wielding-activist-folksinger perspective. You can read it on my Patreon page (just click on the images below) and, if you're so inclined, pitch in to support what I do.
I'm excited to split a bill with Mirabai Peart for the debut of her solo project in Portland! She's an incredibly talented musician I've had the pleasure of playing with on many recording sessions. I'm delighted that we'll get to experience her original compositions for viola and voice in such a perfect intimate setting. Advance tickets highly recommended!
In her solo project debut, Mirabai Peart gathers her many folk influences and her curiosity for dark and complex harmonies to see how a viola and voice can weave together. Some textures and melodic inflections are reminiscent of Bjork while the dynamic lyricism of other moments may recall Joanna Newsom, two major influences. Her songs are deeply personal and explore the subjects of creative journey and discovery, grief and loss along with hope and determination to live honestly and fully in these times.
