Liz Stires
Liz is a Marin County based music/creative coach and vocal arranger. Raised in Mill Valley, California, she is the daughter of Ernest Stires, modern composer and mentor to many including Trey Anastasio from PHISH. Her Step-father Glen Carlson started the Creative Music School in San Rafael in 1960 and taught hundreds of local students through the sixties.
Her family is full of musicians; classical composers, opera singers, song writers and instrumentalists. Spending her lifetime as a songwriter studying music, harmony, lyrics, guitar and voice, Liz has deepened her craft of teaching and has developed a unique instinct for arrangement and harmony.
Sensitive to those who don't feel they have found their voice or instrument, all are welcome. No matter where you find yourself; at the beginning or a ways down the path, she will help you find your thread and get going. Having navigated her own creative life path from touring nationally, to working a day job and raising a child she knows how we sometimes must learn to fit music between the cracks. She understands how to work within your current circumstances and still find the time and space to let music grow.
Liz's performing career began early with her band with her brother and sister,The Cascades, and then Huey Lewis and the Monday Night Live Band. She shared the stage with some of some of Marin’s finest players including members of the Doobie Brothers, Terry Haggerty (Sons of Champlin), Ricki Lee Jones and many others. She toured as a backup vocalist with Jerry Garcia Band (JGB) also with Bob Weir and King Fish. Her harmonies are featured on dozens of bootleg recordings of JGB as well as the JGB CD, Run for the Roses, and many other local cd's and recordings. Liz released her own CD in 2012 recorded with her band Kettle of Fish, and continues to record and perform locally.
Having coached hundreds of students of all walks of life and all different ages and talents; from singer songwriters, vocalists to guitar and piano students, including performers, and even full bands, Liz finds great joy in her work. She continues to teach individually, arrange and record vocals, and leads several local weekly harmony groups that are working with her original arrangements of songs from a lifetime of playing, loving music and singing harmony.
Her family is full of musicians; classical composers, opera singers, song writers and instrumentalists. Spending her lifetime as a songwriter studying music, harmony, lyrics, guitar and voice, Liz has deepened her craft of teaching and has developed a unique instinct for arrangement and harmony.
Sensitive to those who don't feel they have found their voice or instrument, all are welcome. No matter where you find yourself; at the beginning or a ways down the path, she will help you find your thread and get going. Having navigated her own creative life path from touring nationally, to working a day job and raising a child she knows how we sometimes must learn to fit music between the cracks. She understands how to work within your current circumstances and still find the time and space to let music grow.
Liz's performing career began early with her band with her brother and sister,The Cascades, and then Huey Lewis and the Monday Night Live Band. She shared the stage with some of some of Marin’s finest players including members of the Doobie Brothers, Terry Haggerty (Sons of Champlin), Ricki Lee Jones and many others. She toured as a backup vocalist with Jerry Garcia Band (JGB) also with Bob Weir and King Fish. Her harmonies are featured on dozens of bootleg recordings of JGB as well as the JGB CD, Run for the Roses, and many other local cd's and recordings. Liz released her own CD in 2012 recorded with her band Kettle of Fish, and continues to record and perform locally.
Having coached hundreds of students of all walks of life and all different ages and talents; from singer songwriters, vocalists to guitar and piano students, including performers, and even full bands, Liz finds great joy in her work. She continues to teach individually, arrange and record vocals, and leads several local weekly harmony groups that are working with her original arrangements of songs from a lifetime of playing, loving music and singing harmony.
