ABOUT
Our Mission
Documentary Songwriters is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation. We seek to increase empathy in the world by co-writing authentic songs with communities in crisis.
The values at the heart of
Documentary
Songwriters
Our Mission
DocSong’s mission is to bear witness to the human condition and give voice, through music, to people’s experiences.
Our Vision
People around the world sharing and creating songs from their spoken words.
Our Goal
To build connection among people, reduce loneliness, and free up creativity.
March
2010
Hannah Batley serves as the first story source and co-writes with Malcolm Brooks the first documentary song “Sunflower.” They go on to collaborate on three more documentary songs.
April
2011
Monika Kelly, at Bay Chamber Concerts and Music School, sponsors a course in documentary songwriting, in which six students follow the method and generate documentary songs. Monica then adds a documentary songwriting course as part of the Next Generation string program.
October
2011
Marieke Slovin begins learning the documentary songwriting method from Malcolm. She later transforms oral histories of Massachusetts mill workers into documentary songs.
February
2012
Hannah Batley, Alex Wilder, and other members of the Lady on the Radio band are invited to perform in the Camden Library concert series. The show sells out.
September
2013
Hannah Batley releases the album “Lady on the Radio,” containing four documentary songs.
July
2014
Chloë Isis serves as story source for the first humorous documentary song “Driver’s Ed Blues”.
December
2015
Rohan Edwards enrolls as the first documentary songwriting intern from Bennington College. He develops songs about family relationships.
Feburary
2016
Will Foote explores generating songs about his high school and college cultures. He goes on to collaborate on songs with rural farmers in upstate New York.
February
2016
Alex Wilder takes documentary songwriting to Cuba, and Nora Willauer takes it to Spain. Their works became the first documentary songs in Spanish.
March
2016
Chloë Isis and Will Foote conduct the first demonstration of the DocSong process on radio.
September
2016
Caroline Rex-Waller designs a week-long documentary songwriting intensive for the White Mountain School in New Hampshire. 37 high school students co-write and perform their documentary songs.
December
2017
Zach Arfa acts the part of a documentary songwriter in a play production, generating documentary songs as part of the play’s performance.
January
2018
Genevieve Roby signs on as the first long distance intern, completing her DocSong internship online from Maryland.
Feburary
2018
Hazel Delehey is commissioned by Colorado’s High Mountain Institute to write the first documentary song to be used in a film.
May
2018
Whit Arau designs and hosts a series of short podcasts of documentary songwriters reflecting on their work.
June
2018
Malcolm Brooks is invited to the Carnegie Hall Weill Institute to perform a lullaby that was written using the documentary songwriting method.
September
2018
Melodi Var Öngel proposes to use documentary songwriting in Cyprus, as part of a reconciliation effort between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Her proposal is approved and funded by a Davis Peace Grant, and her work later becomes featured in a TEDx talk in England.
January
2019
Joaquin Contreras uses the method as part of a documentary on migrant workers and also as a means of documenting family histories.
April
2019
Jonny Westhorp and Will Foote collaborate in Belgium with refugees seeking asylum. The songs offer testimony to human perseverance and the universal desire for freedom.
July
2019
Khalid Taylor and Chris Finn co-write the first documentary song exploring the relationship between an orphan and her parents.
October
2019
Nora Willauer applies the method to writing songs with women who have experienced sexual and domestic abuse. Her work is featured on NPR’s Morning Edition (October 2019).
December
2020
Caleb Edwards submits a documentary song as part of his application to Berklee College of Music. (He is accepted).
“How beautiful to feel so fully listened to. I had not realized how rare that feeling is, and moreover, how much listening can feel like love. Working with Malcolm and Chloë has been wonderfully rejuvenating, renewing my desire to weave creativity into my life and to remember, always, to celebrate the numerous moments, however kind, ugly or mundane, that make us human.”
— Caroline Rex-Waller | Bethlehem, New Hampshire
“We need 10 or 100 of Malcolm Brooks traveling around inviting others to tell their stories in this manner. This would not only have a profound effect on this population in individual terms but also offer the community ways to connect to the commonalities among their stories.”
— Rick Medrick | Boulder, Colorado