Before that, I was angry and broken, struggling with many wounds. As a queer, non-binary, gender expansive Korean American adoptee, I have struggled to speak my truth, much less sing or make sound. Instead of imploding, I decided to start a punk band at age 30 and began the lifelong process of freeing my voice and sharing my story.

Along the way, I completed a 3-year movement-based expressive arts training program at Tamalpa Institute in 2014 that helped me re-inhabit my body and find home in it. I also completed Level 3 of the LoVetri Method in Somatic Voicework™ in 2019 that helped me with functional and technical aspects of the voice. I have also studied vocal improvisation and circle singing with Rhiannon, Bobby McFerrin, and Zuza Goncalves since 2019. In 2024, I became a Certified Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework® after completing a 2-year training that released body tension so that my whole instrument can resonate more fully and focus the sound through my focus line.

I love learning, and it has been a natural progression to share the tools and practices that helped me free my voice with others. Some other modalities I draw on include: breath work, meditation/mindfulness, yoga, qigong and tai chi, somatic & drama therapy, vocal, theater, and performance improvisation, dance and movement, embodied storytelling, and sound healing. I am deeply informed by Buddhism having spent months living at Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village and doing many mindfulness retreats, Barbara Ann Brennan’s energy and healing work in Hands of Light, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and Taoist and Yogic models of the body/chakras/qi. I have studied ancestral healing with Daniel Foor, shamanic journeying with The Way of the Shaman, and psychodrama and drama therapy with Armand Volkas. I am on faculty at the Wheat Institute and teach an expressive arts course called The Art of Solidarity. I also am a mindfulness and dharma teacher at Spirit Rock and East Bay Meditation Center. I teach Free Your Voice at conferences and universities around the world including Embodied in Color Conference, Mental Health at the Intersections, CIIS, UC Berkeley, and more.

I have spent most of my adult life healing around adoption trauma and from estrangement from my adoptive mother. This has meant reconnecting with ancestors (of blood, spirit, land, and care), and re-parenting my inner child in inner parts work (internal family systems) with large doses of compassion practice to integrate all these parts and make peace/feel whole. Psychotherapy and Buddhist practices around ways to end suffering underpin my work. I’ve worked on gender dysphoria and accepting/celebrating my sexuality after growing up in a very religious household. I am so grateful for all the teachers and guides and practices and support that have helped me on this journey.

As a vocal coach, expressive arts facilitator, ritual artist, writer, mindfulness teacher, and healer, I believe the body holds our deepest wisdom and healing. By learning to trust it and listen, I have been able to express my soul song. I love to create spaces where you can show up exactly as you are, and with my loving witnessing and tools/support, you can grow and transform. I specialize in working with people who want to explore freeing their voices and working on creating boundaries and safety; folks who need help parenting their own wounded children; people who want to work on adoption/race/gender/sexual trauma; people who want to make profound shifts in their lives (work with anxiety, depression, rage, frozen parts, etc) and come into their power.

My mission is to help you free your voice and life. I am here to help you to connect more deeply with yourself and others in a playful, supportive space as you explore voice work, grief, ancestral healing, adoption wounds, creativity, music, sound healing, and more. Reach out if you want to be free and create a life aligned to your highest joy and creative expression.

In love and freedom, Phoenix Song

I have been performing since 2004 and was featured in San Francisco Magazine’s Best of the Bay for yoga music in 2009. As a Third Culture Kid who lived in Korea, Nepal, India, Liberia, Peru, and the SF Bay Area, my musical influences and style can best be described as world fusion, a hybrid of global eclectic sounds & beats. Performance highlights include:

• Chuncheon Mime Festival, Korea, 2006
• Border Out, Queer Arts Festival, SF, 2008
• Esalen Yoga and Music Festival, Big Sur, 2008
• SF International Arts Festival, 2009
• Wanderlust, Squaw Valley, 2009
• Empowering Women of Color Conference, Berkeley 2009
• Mixed, Blended & Whole, Queer Arts Festival, SF, 2012
• Grace Cathedral Labyrinth Yoga, since 2014
• Sowing and Sewing Solo Show, Stagewerx, SF, 2015
• San Francisco Pride Main Stage, 2017
• Buried Solo Show, Stagewerx, SF, 2018
• Reimagine Festival, SF Jazz, 2018
• Grace Cathedral Sound Bath, since 2020