Urban Voices Project creates supportive community spaces with music to bridge vulnerable individuals to a sense of purpose and improved health.

Our Vision

Music wellness programming collaborates with healthcare and civic centers to co-create a vibrant caring community.

Our Mission

Urban Voices Project amplifies artistic expression through community singing to improve well being, strengthen social networks, and inspire individuals to be their own best advocates.

Our Values

Connecting Humanity

Belonging to Community

Expressing Voice

Cultivating Resilience and Agency

Support UVP

Donate

Help sustain UVP’s vital mission and programs with a tax-deductible donation.

Book our Choir

Add a participatory performance to your next event by booking our choir!

Volunteer

Support our programs and events by lending your time and talents.

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Merchandise

Rep Urban Voices Project with colorful merchandise, delivered to your address.

Programs

Neighborhood Sing

An immersive music workshop including participatory singing and wellness activities to improve mental health, amplify self-expression, develop social and emotional acuity, and build community.

Weekly Occurrences

Mondays 4pm-5pm @ Little Tokyo Branch Library

Tuesdays 2pm-3pm @ North Hollywood Branch Library

Wednesdays 2pm-3pm @ Joshua House Clinic

Thursdays 12:30pm-1:30pm @ Pico Union Branch Library

Thursdays 2:30pm-3:30pm @ Central Library

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Music Wellness Lab

Address mood, concentration, stress, pain, fear, and more through music using your own voice and body as an instruments to settle your nervous system

Weekly Occurrences

Tuesdays 12pm-1pm @ Central Library

Fourth Fridays 12:30pm-1:30pm via Zoom

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Music Education Lab

Music education workshops led by professionals to develop specialized music disciplines for the Skid Row community, tailored to all levels of experience.

Weekly Occurrences

Mondays 1pm-3pm @ The People Concern Studio 526 On Pause

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Family Sing

An interactive music class that engages adults and young children in play-based activities to connect and communicate, explore the world around them, and create a nurturing safe haven in the joy of music.

Weekly Occurrences

Thursdays @ Lynwood LA Care Community Resource Center

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Buskfest

A pop-up, open mic-style jam session inviting all to engage with music and share their voice.

Occurrences

1st & 3rd Fridays 11am-1pm @ Skid Row Care Campus

Bi-weekly Sundays 3pm-4pm @ St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Tustin

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Performance Choir

A non-audition choir of artists from Skid Row that shares the healing power of music with audiences to raise awareness about the condition of homelessness, mental health inequities, socio-economic inequalities.

Rehearsal Occurrences

Rehearsals on Wednesdays 3:30pm @ Joshua House Clinic

More Information

The Urban Voices Project (UVP) Choir is composed of artists and performers from the Skid Row neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles, currently or formerly disenfranchised by the condition of homelessness. Throughout the year, they share music and its healing power with many audiences inside and outside the neighborhood of Skid Row. Through UVP Choir’s outreach, the group shares the stories and the successes of integrating music and community singing into a holistic system for combating the homelessness crisis. Founded by Colburn School Teaching Artist Leeav Sofer, who is recognized in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal’s “30 under 30,” directs the choir and UVP programs. His co-founder, Christopher Mack, also known as “The Urban Sage,” is a singing community outreach coordinator who has been walking the streets of Skid Row for Wesley Health Centers for the past 14 years. Kate Richards Geller, a music therapy consultant, advises the project and offers a strong foundation in healing and wellness across the organization. UVP has been recognized on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, NBC network’s Today Show and Dateline special and was featured on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. The choir has had the privilege to collaborate with many partners, including Street Symphony and its Annual Messiah Project, singing shoulder-to-shoulder with Los Angeles Master Chorale singers, accompanied by the LA Phil musicians.