Our Board of Directors
Shannon Frediani
John Frediani
Beth Duff
Friends
www.capacitar.org
www.indygrief.com
www.cyprianconsiglio.com
www.songsofpeace.org
About Us
Shannon committed to be an instrument in service in 1993 when a friend was dying and she started singing daily healing prayer on his behalf. That led to singing inspired prayer without words for the healing of all, years later taking form as a non profit being called to offer the prayers to the institutionalized and prisoners of the world.
John co-founded The Voices of Angels Foundation and provides engineering and technical expertise in making live recordings in various sacred spaces. A proponent of the interface of modern technology to the arts and service work, he has helped facilitate the production of the recordings making them accessible to the isolated and underprivileged. An MIT graduate, he also uses his engineering skills to network and provide computer lab systems to Creative Minds Int’l Academy in Africa.
Beth is Vice Chair of Young Enterprise Grampian, a non-profit what encourages high school students to develop business skills. She has wide experience of working with groups from culturally diverse and international backgrounds. Her specialty is working with teams. In the UK she is the founder of Red Horse Speaks, the first equine assisted learning (EAL) program in Scotland, teaching leadership and personal development to clients and management teams of all ages and abilities, as well as troubled youth. Beth became involved with The Voices of Angels after meeting John and Shannon Frediani at an international conference for business leaders implementing ethics and service into work settings.
History
Voices of Angels began because of a calling, to offer healing prayers sung without words to those institutionalized. We started by recording some prayers on our first CD- ‘Into the Garden of Love’. We gave it a trial run in the Monterey County Jail in California, by having the chaplain of that facility, The Rev. Peggy Thompson, play it in various settings. Her words about how it impacted inmates there:
“I have found her music is well received by the inmates. They come to our religious programs from many different past faith experiences, yet all can relate to her music....As people enter the worship space from what is often a very noisy and stressful atmosphere and they hear Shannon’s music I notice that their bodies visable relax. Whenever I play the music both inmates and staff always remark how peaceful it sounds.”
Then we offered it to our nation’s chaplains serving in state and federal prisons, veterans and mental health facilities. Out of 1000 letters of introduction, initially140 responded and asked for the CD for use in their facilities. Since then, by chaplains sharing with other chaplains or by chaplains moving to different facilities we now have CDs in several hundred facilities.
"We find that the music provides inspiration and hope to many." -Prison chaplain 2002
There is a great need for music that meets the needs of gatherings of many faiths in institutional settings.
In addition to our national distributions of CDs Shannon began singing live in various CA state prisons and jails initiating our Emissaries of Grace Program. Shannon also volunteers regularly in the Monterey County Jail where besides praying and singing with inmates she shares the universal practices of peace common to all faith traditions. Our focus is to model and teach the peace practices of the various faith traditions and not to impart doctrine.
Chaplains appreciate the use of prayers sung without words to facilitate deep contemplative prayer.