Musician Beth Hamon joins us as part of HSOSC's Artist Series.

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Meeting ID: 811 5353 7914
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Beth Hamon is an autodidactic singer-songwriter in Portland, Oregon whose contemporary folk songs straddle the line between Jewish and secular themes of justice, hope, renewal and love.

Beth cut her songleading teeth in Girl Scouts, so the transition to Jewish songleading was simply a matter of learning as many new songs as possible. She has written dozens of Jewish-themed folk songs for adults and for kids of all ages, deeply informed by her experiences of growing up as the "other" -- and often as the only Jew in her community.

Beth's music and art are also informed by her experiences living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and especially in the "D-I-Y/maker" culture that defines Portland, the place she has called home since her early teens. Her music has a raw quality that exhibits equal parts vulnerability and strength.

Beth's Judaism is an extension of those values.

Beth has recorded and produced three CDs: City of Love, Ten Miles and A Sliver In The Sky. All of these collections of original Jewish folk-pop music include liturgical settings now in use at synagogues and camps across the country. Beth also performs in the Portland-Vancouver coffeehouse circuit as a solo artist and is a repeat performer at the Northwest Folklife Festival.

Beth was selected in 2015 by Forward Magazine as one of the top five New Voices in Jewish Music. Her music has been featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting, NPR and Jewish Rock Radio and is now in regular rotation on independent Jewish radio programs around the country. A graduate of Portland State University, Beth has extensive teaching experience in the fields of instrumental music, Judaic Studies and Hebrew. 

Prior to making Jewish education and music her primary career in late 2012, Beth spent nearly twenty years in the bicycle industry as a shop and race mechanic, purchaser and small business owner.

In her spare time, Beth enjoys finding, repairing and donating bicycles for use by low-income adults as affordable transportation. She continues to make quirky, beautiful Judaic art from recycled bicycle parts; some of her pieces are part of the permanent collection at the Yeshiva University Museum in New York.

Beth travels everywhere locally by bicycle and public transit and has happily lived without a car of her own for decades.