Havilah Rand and The LifeSong Project with Bruce Hilliard

The LifeSong Project works to preserve the memories and experiences of our elders and their family and community members in a way that makes an indelible imprint on both the heart and mind. It also strives to acknowledge and honor the voices of our ancestors and their contribution to our rich American history and human experience. By being asked to recount life experiences and having these narratives translated through songs, the individual is given the opportunity to view and acknowledge their life as a purposeful and exciting story of challenges, successes, hardships and joys. The family and greater community of the elderly are benefited by reinforcing the memory and legacy of their ancestors through a modality that is emotional and artistic.

Havilah began her music career at the age of 6 when she began composing songs on an old piano given to her family by some friends. Heavily influenced early on by James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Rolling Stones, The Police and a wide range of other styles, Havilah's songs immediately took on an identity of their own. Havilah's soulful and passionate vocal style would lead her to Interlochen Arts Academy and then on to Manhattan School of Music where she would train formally in both jazz and classical technique. Songwriting remained her true love and she soon left New York City for Seattle where she fronted pop-rock band Wish before picking up the guitar and moving on to a solo career of touring and recording. Havilah's first three albums were recorded in the Pacific Northwest where she fell into a tight knit community of artists and musicians. After a years of touring regionally and nationally for over a decade, Havilah moved to Europe in 2006 where she was warmly welcomed in Ireland, the UK and Mediterranean. She departed Barcelona wistfully in 2007 to relocate to the Live Music Capital of the World Austin, TX where she now lives. She has earned herself a steady audience and a respected name in a town where the caliber of musicianship is nothing less than stellar. "A High Wave" is a compilation of original songs inspired by a life of walking the road less traveled and expressing the deepest of thought and emotion through music.