This artist can provide virtual programming for American Music Abroad.
Biography
Longtime collaborators and friends, Raining Jane and Natalia Zukerman bring a myriad of musical, artistic, and educational experience to the table while representing diverse identities and musical styles. The five women have performed and toured together in various configurations, including Natalia and two members of Raining Jane (Mona Tavakoli and Chaska Potter) as The Northern Lights in a 2017 American Musicians Abroad tour in Africa.
Based in Southern California, Raining Jane has been a band for over two decades. Mai Bloomfield, Mona Tavakoli, Chaska Potter, and Becky Gebhardt have released four albums, performed in 22 countries around the globe, and have generated a large catalog of songs with their longtime collaborator Jason Mraz. Vocal harmonies are a centerpiece of the Raining Jane sound, along with eclectic instrumentation including cello, cajon, sitar, lap steel, percussion, bass, and guitar.
Raining Jane co-founded the music education non-profit Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls Los Angeles which is dedicated to empowering girls and gender-expansive youth through music. At this camp and in other settings, Raining Jane has taught songwriting, vocals, bass, and drumming to youth and adults. Raining Jane has always aligned their music with causes they believe in, particularly around inclusivity and equality, women’s rights, and youth arts.
Raining Jane guitarist and cellist Mai Bloomfield speaks French, and has lived in Switzerland and France. She is a breast cancer survivor and has family experience with Alzheimer’s, disabilities, and cancer. Drummer Mona Tavakoli is the daughter of Iranian immigrants, speaks Farsi, and has hosted rhythm workshops across the U.S. Chaska Potter was a star volleyball player in high school and at UCLA, she plays all kinds of string instruments, and is trained to teach yoga. Bassist and sitarist Becky Gebhardt identifies as half Punjabi and queer. She studied North Indian classical music at UCLA, is comfortable using Logic and Ableton, has scored short films and has experience editing
podcasts.
Musician, painter and educator Natalia Zukerman grew up in New York City and studied art at Oberlin. She now resides in the Hudson Valley. She has released eight albums and has toured internationally as a solo performer since 2005. Alongside her touring career, Zukerman paints murals and portraits, illustrates children’s books, and designs and paints sets for plays. She teaches songwriting both privately and at various programs and festivals throughout North America. In 2018 she developed a multimedia one woman show “The Women Who Rode Away,” and in 2020 she produced an eight-week online music festival “Shut In & Sing” that brought financial relief to hundreds of musicians at the beginning of lockdown.