From October 20 to 30, 2026, I will be on the Greek island of Amorgos to participate as a facilitator in Vocal Odyssey – The Gathering, the international retreat created by Nessi Gomes, dedicated to exploring the voice, personal expression, and relationship through music.
It will be ten days of encounters, music-based experiences, and sharing, together with participants and professionals from different countries. I will bring my work on musical play, improvisation, nonverbal communication, and the development of musicality, within a journey that centers the voice and its expressive possibilities.
Vocal Odyssey: exploring the voice beyond singing
Vocal Odyssey is a project created by Nessi Gomes, a British-Portuguese singer-songwriter and vocal facilitator, known for artistic research that weaves together music, emotional expression, and awareness.
Alongside her concert activity, Nessi has developed an approach to vocal work that encourages people to rediscover their own voice, regardless of musical experience. Her research starts from the idea that singing is a human experience accessible to everyone and that through the voice we can connect with aspects of ourselves that we often struggle to express through words.
The Amorgos retreat, now in its eighth edition on the island, brings together people interested in exploring the voice through singing, movement, improvisation, and listening, in an environment that fosters experimentation and sharing.
The project is developed by Nessi together with Lino Hermesh, her collaborator in leading the Vocal Odyssey journeys.
My contribution: developing musicality through play
Within the retreat I will focus on a dimension that runs through much of my professional research: musical play as a tool for learning, communication, and relationship.
For many years I have worked with people who have very different musical experiences, often without any specific training. One of the things I continue to find most interesting is observing how quickly a group can develop musical and relational capacities when given the conditions to experiment freely.
Through improvisation activities, rhythmic and vocal play, movement and interaction, I will accompany participants in exploring their own musicality, working on listening, on the perception of time, on the ability to recognize and develop musical ideas, and on nonverbal communication.
I am especially interested in what happens when people begin to communicate through sound, gesture, rhythm, and gaze. When they learn to propose an idea, to welcome someone else’s, to modify their own intention in relation to what is happening in the group.
Play allows us to approach these experiences with curiosity, reducing the fear of making mistakes and allowing capacities to emerge that we often don’t even know we possess.
Ultimately, we all have a musicality to explore. We don’t necessarily need to become musicians to learn to use music as an expressive and relational language.
An international team of musicians and facilitators
One of the aspects that makes this experience particularly interesting is the opportunity to share the work with professionals from different artistic and training backgrounds.
Among the guests will be Tiago Grade, known as RIZUMIK, a Portuguese musician, performer, and improviser whose work spans beatbox, vocal percussion, movement, physical theater, and improvisation. Throughout his career he has collaborated with international artists and productions, including Bobby McFerrin, Cirque du Soleil, Mayumana, and The Voca People.
His research on rhythm and improvisation, together with the ability to integrate voice, body, and movement, represents an approach to music that I feel particularly close to my own. It will be interesting to compare our experiences and observe how different languages and methodologies can meet within the same journey.
With us will also be Sophia Efthimiou, a singer and vocal facilitator who works with collective singing, harmony, and practices of connection through the voice, and Patricia Lluvia, an artist and facilitator involved in the program.
The presence of professionals with such diverse experiences will offer participants the opportunity to explore music and voice from complementary perspectives, experimenting with different modes of expression and interaction.
Music as a shared language
In my work I use music in very different contexts: companies, universities, schools, festivals, communities, and personal development journeys. Each environment has specific characteristics and objectives, but I often find the same elements: the need to express oneself, to be heard, to feel part of a group, and to be able to communicate even when words are not enough.
Music offers the possibility of working on these aspects through direct experience. When we play or sing together, we are continuously called to listen, observe, make decisions, and adapt to what others are doing.
These are dynamics that belong to music, but also to daily life and human relationships.
This is why I consider it particularly meaningful to participate in a project like Vocal Odyssey, where people from different cultures and backgrounds meet to explore a language that all of us, in different ways, can share.
It will also be a valuable opportunity to continue learning. Dialogue with other musicians and facilitators has always been a fundamental part of my journey, and I believe that the possibility of sharing practices, experiences, and perspectives is one of the most stimulating aspects of our work.
I will bring to Amorgos the tools and methodologies I have developed over the years, but above all the curiosity to discover what will emerge from the encounter with others.
Vocal Odyssey 2026 will take place from October 20 to 30 on the island of Amorgos, Greece.
More information about the project and the retreat is available on Nessi Gomes’s official website.
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