weba garretson, m.m.
voice program chair
Weba Garretson is a classically trained singer with a wild streak whose music has moved in daring directions: From punk rock and performance art to Kurt Weill and avant garde jazz, Weba is able to bend her voice in many directions. With a deep knowledge of music and an eccentric nature, Weba has taken her voice to the far shores of the experimental world over an impressive career of nearly four decades.
Born in White Plains, New York, Garretson was seven years old when she began lessons on piano, clarinet, oboe and guitar but it wasn’t until she began singing at fourteen that she found her primary instrument. When Garretson arrived in California in 1979, the local music scene was dominated by influential punk and new wave bands. Her vaudeville performance “The Weba Show: A Lounge Act for the 80s” ran for 3 years in Los Angeles and she collaborated with many luminaries of the Los Angeles experimental art scene including SHRIMPS, Donald Krieger and Martin Kersels. In the mid-90s, Weba and her husband Mark Wheaton established Catasonic Studios a recording facility that has documented seminal artists as Nels Cline (Wilco), Chuck Dukowski (Black Flag), Carla Bozulich, and Brian Jonestown Massacre.
In 1997, Garretson was invited to perform in the Brecht Centennial and formed the Eastside Sinfonietta to create new arrangements of classic songs by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The group performed constantly through the Brecht and Weill Centennials and participated in a production of Happy End produced by the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Goethe Institute. When video artist Bill Viola saw Weba performing Brecht/Weill he invited to perform in his videos. She has appeared in over a dozen of his works exhibited through the world including the Getty Museum, the Guggenheim Museum in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Gallery of England and the Venice Biennale.
Her studio recordings include “Welcome to Webaworld” “Puttanesca” “Such Is Love” and “My Skin Craves Soil.” She is certified by the Institute for Vocal Advancement and received her Masters in Vocal Performance/Commercial Music from Cal State LA. Currently she writes songs and performs with her partner Ralph Gorodetsky.
California College of Music is proud to offer Weba’s expertise to students in our voice programs.
M.M. in Commercial Music Voice Performance, California State University Los Angeles
B.A. in Theater, Sarah Lawrence College