Bio
Rhys Tivey is a vocalist, trumpeter, songwriter, music producer, voice teacher, and actor based in NYC.
Rhys grew up on a small horse farm in rural upstate NY to visual artists Hap Tivey and Liza Tivey. As a teenage trumpeter, he played jazz and orchestral music, performing in Carnegie Hall, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic with Albany ESYO. After graduating from NYU for jazz trumpet, he dove into developing his sound as a vocalist, songwriter, and producer, taking inspiration from earlier days of musical influence (an eclectic mix of Phil Collins, Jim Morrison, David Bowie, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Tribe Called Quest, and Miles Davis), while incorporating jazz and symphonic elements absorbed during his trumpet studies. As a yoga teacher, an ambassador to his grandmother's Elizabeth Taylor AIDS foundation, and as a proponent of fighting climate change and volunteering for Citizens Climate Lobby, a mix of spirituality and activism run intertwined to his life as a maker of music. After several years of performing in LA and NYC and recording original songs with Mike Haldeman, Carter Lee, Dillon Treacy, Jessie Bielenberg, Rhys joined grammy nominated engineer Mike Tierney, and mastering engineer Alex DeTurk (D'Angelo, David Bowie), to release his first album in 2020 mid-pandemic, entitled “Unsteady”. Much of the project was born from demos recorded in the few off hours working as a farm apprentice at Hawthorne Valley Farm, and completed at his own studio and Mike Tierney's Shiny Things Studio in BedStuy Brooklyn, bridging rural and urban backdrops for it's songwriting and sonic essence.
As a music producer, his most recent release with Ukrainian singer songwriter Kseniia, "100 words about the war", commemorates the Ukrainian war.
As a voice teacher and founder of Voice Brave, Rhys infuses research-based techniques for sustainable vocal growth with yoga, qi-gong, and holistic intuitive embodiment rooted song interpretation, vocal improv and songwriting, offering both individual private lessons and group facilitation ( voicebrave.com ).
As an actor / mover / performance artist, his first collaboration with director Daniel Irizarry and writer Robert Lyons was during the production of “My Onliness” at the New Ohio Theater in NYC in 2021 and 2022, appearing as the character of "the Writer" (for which Theatre Mania calls him “an exhibitionist with a clarion voice”, in “The Most Singularly Insane Show In New York”). Then also with Irizarry and Lyons, in summer of 2023, he acted, composed, and sang in the final performance of New Ohio Theater’s 30 year legacy, with “Ultra Left Violence”. In Spring 2023, Rhys performed as Oberon and Theseus in Neopolitical Cowgirl’s Midsummer Night's Dream at HERE Arts Center, with additional performances at Longhouse Reserve in Easthampton NY in August 2023. He has also performed in underground Nie Theater of Berlin, as well in Phoebe Legere’s Shakespeare and Elizabeth: The Reality Show at Theater for the New City. With performance art duo, Elk and Feather, he has performed at CREST Fest, Five Myles BK, and in residency at Signs and Symbols Art Gallery, and in March 2023 joined choreographer Natalie Deryn Johnson as resident composer and dancer at Keshet Dance’s Makers Space Residency in New Mexico.
select performance archives
2020
January: C’mon everybody residency Brooklyn
2019
September 29: Hotel Cafe (main stage) LA
June 23: Cmon Everybody, Brooklyn
June 22: Hilo, Catskill NY
January 24: Manderlay Bar(at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel), NYC
2018
Dec 12: Muchmore’s, Brooklyn
October: Nie Theater, Berlin
April 22: CAPITAL REGION EARTH DAY, UAlbany Campus Center, Albany
April 26: Three's Brewing, 333 Douglass St, Brooklyn
March 16: Song and Sound: Meditation and Listening Journey, Center for Remembering and Sharing, NYC
March 8: Manderlay Bar (at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel), NYC
Feb 27: Wonders of Nature, 131 Grand St, Brooklyn
Feb 15: Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles
2017
August 25: Solo performance, Gagosian Gallery presents John Chamberlain Foil Sculptures @ LongHouse Reserve, Southampton, NY
July 1: C'mon Everybody, 325 Franklin Ave, Brooklyn
June 24: Midway Cafe, Boston
June 18: Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St. NYC
June 1: Manderley Bar at at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel, NYC
May 7: Song and Sound: Meditation and Listening Journey, Center for Remembering and Sharing, NYC
May 6: Motown and More showcase, 178 2nd Ave btwn 11th and 12th, NYC
May 1: Three's Brewing, NYC
April 19: Artistic Noise Art Auction Benefit, NYC
April 1: Pel's Pies, Brooklyn
March 9: Manderley Bar at at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel, NYC
February 14: Pianos, NYC
February 11: <EP Release show> Mercury Lounge, NYC
February 10: <EP Release show> BSP, Kingston NY
February 9: Manderley Bar at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel, NYC
January 4: Manderley Bar at Sleep No More's McKittrick Hotel, NYC
2016
December 28, 8pm: C'mon Everybody, Brooklyn
December 6, 8pm: Threes Brewing, Brooklyn
November 10 - 20: On tour with The Walcotts; NYC, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, Asheville, Nashville, Dubuque, Minneapolis, Chicago
November 1: Three's Brewing, with Figure 8 Studios Residency, Brooklyn
October 8: Conkling Hall, Rensselaerville, NY
September 20: Sofar Sounds, Brooklyn
August 25: Wilding Cran Gallery, LA
August 24: Sofar Sounds, LA
August 12 and 13: Sofar Sounds, London
June 30: Manderlay Bar at The McKittrick Hotel, Sleep No More, NYC
June 1: Sofar Sounds, secret location, NYC
May 16: Bowery Electric, downstairs, NYC
May 13: Hotel Cafe, LA
March 30: Mercury Lounge, NYC