10-Week Youth Vocal Intensive
A fun after-school vocal program for youth ages 10-16 of all skill levels,
held at Oakland's Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
Tuesdays 3/17/26 - 5/19/26
4:00-6:00pm
Culminating in a Recital Performance for the Community
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
1733 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612
This program is offered at no cost. A $100 nonrefundable application fee is required to ensure limited slots are available to serious participants
Application Form Available Below
This 10-Week Youth Vocal Intensive is offered at no cost for youth participants ages 10-16 of all skill levels. Our goal is to instill and cultivate a love of the arts in each student, with a well-rounded, powerful curriculum in vocal performance. We aim to foster a community based on mutual respect and encouragement so all students can discover and explore their creativity and expression. Our powerful faculty features legendary vocalist and educator Faye Carol, who will guide students of all levels through a life-changing learning experience. Students will discover the joy of singing and explore their unique voice through solo and group expression, harmony, repertoire, improv, history, confidence-building, and a restorative justice curriculum led by non-profit organization Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. The program culminates in a recital performance for the community.
This program is supported by California Arts Council
Faculty & Staff
Faye Carol - Vocals, Executive Director
The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol is known as an icon in the Bay Area and beyond, highly regarded for her powerful voice, astonishing versatility, and gift of connecting with her audience. Equally at home in jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, funk, latin, and hip-hop, she has developed her own authentic sound and unique delivery, delighting audiences young and old across the globe. After beginning her career with gospel music, Faye Carol made her name singing with Oakland blues and funk legend Johnny Talbot & De Thangs before forming her own trio and gaining fame in San Francisco's jazz, blues, and cabaret clubs of the 1970s and 80s. Over a 60-year career in music, this living legend has developed her own unique acoustic sound and style in Black Music - drawing from funk, blues, gospel, and straight ahead swingin' - and cultivated an audience that remains as diverse as her uplifting music. She has maintained a high level of musicianship in her groups, mentoring some of the Bay Area's brightest young talent including pianist Benny Green, bassist Marcus Shelby, and her daughter Kito Kamili. Her vocal proteges include international superstars Kehlani & Ledisi.
Miss Faye has shared the stage with Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Pharaoh Sanders, Joan Baez, Billy Higgins, Albert King, Bobby Hutcherson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Buster Williams, Azar Lawrence, Houston Person, Steve Turre, Dennis Chambers, Bernard Purdie, Lenny White, Roy McCurdy, Sun Ra, Robert Randolph, Mistah F.A.B., Henry Butler, Gary Bartz, Cedar Walton, Ledisi, Philly Joe Jones, Dorothy Donegan, Pete Escovedo, David Murray, Chester Thompson, Charles Brown, and Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson, among others.
Miss Faye is also a dedicated educator and founder of School of The Getdown. She has been honored with the proclamation of a city-wide “Faye Carol Day” in the City of Berkeley and City of Oakland and inducted into the Oakland Walk of Fame, the Meridian Mississippi Walk of Fame, and the Pittsburg Entertainment and Arts Hall of Fame, and has received countless awards including the 2014 Bay Area Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Hero Award, Jefferson Award for Public Service, four Cabaret Gold Awards, Top Star Awards Entertainer of the Year, and a prestigious 2021 Hewlett 50 Arts Commission.
Miss Faye has taught for over three decades at programs and schools including Jazz Camp West, Jam Camp West, East Bay Institute for Urban Arts, Berkeley Black Repertory Theater, Blues in the Schools, Oakland School for the Arts, and her own Music in the Community and School of The Getdown programs. Additionally, she has been a guest clinician at countless schools and educational programs including Young Musicians Choral Orchestra, Elevate Oakland, Jazzschool, College of Alameda, and Eastside Arts Alliance.
Naima Shalhoub - Restorative Justice Curriculum
Naima Shalhoub is an experienced Restorative Justice Practitioner (RJ), Educator, Community Organizer and Musician. She is passionate about the intersections of art, music, trauma healing somatic, practices, community building and transformation and centers compassion, systemic change, social justice and radical joy in the work that she holds in community. As a first-generation daughter of Arab refugee immigrants, her upbringing deeply informs the heart of her work.
Currently, she runs an independent RJ consultancy where she trains, facilitates and coaches for non-profits, schools and community. In this work she applies her 14 years as a professional musician composing, performing music, theater, as well as a recently trained integrative somatic trauma healing practitioner.
In 2014 she spent a year volunteering inside San Francisco County Women’s Jail where she facilitated weekly music sessions. Through this experience she discovered the concepts of Restorative and Transformative Justice which led to her taking a position as a Restorative Justice Coordinator with the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). As well, she continued her work infusing music and performance with community building and circle practice more broadly in prisons, jails and juvenile halls.
Ms. Shalhoub also served as a Restorative Justice Coordinator at a TK-8th grade dual immersion Spanish-English public school for two years with OUSD. During that time she facilitated hundreds of RJ practices including community building circles, repairing harm and conflict circles, welcome back circles, restorative conversations, music as community building, trainings and others. She also supported the school-wide implementation of Restorative Justice and started the school’s first Peer RJ student team.
Ms. Shalhoub then transitioned to teaching music at a public charter middle school in Richmond where she integrated her RJ practices inside the classroom and within the curriculum. She then worked with Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY) as a Lead Trainer, Circle-Keeper, and as the Women and Girls Community Organizer. In addition to being a school-based restorative justice coordinator with OUSD, she has held roles in schools as personal and academic counselor, dean of students and restorative justice coach the last several years.
She has recorded two albums: Siphr and her debut album, Live in San Francisco County Jail (2015), features the incarcerated women with whom she had worked. She holds a Master’s Degree in Postcolonial Anthropology.
Joe Warner - Accompanist, Program Producer
Pianist Joe Warner is setting the Bay Area jazz scene on fire. Known for his captivating style and electrifying performances, he's worked as pianist and musical director for legendary vocalist The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol for over 10 years and leads the charge with his own Joe Warner Trio while sharing stages and studios with icons like Houston Person, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Mary Stallings, Buster Williams, Billy Hart, Azar Lawrence, and Gary Bartz. Warner’s deep groove and versatility have also led him to work with not just jazz royalty but heavyweights like Mistah F.A.B., Bernard Purdie, and Robert Randolph. Whether it’s classic jazz or genre-bending collaborations, Warner’s got the keys to the future.
He has also performed or recorded with Dayna Stephens, John Handy, John Santos, Steve Turre, Herlin Riley, Nasheet Waits, Kenny Washington, Tarus Mateen, Marcus Shelby Orchestra, Johnny Talbot, Stephanie Crawford, Elena Pinderhughes, Craig Handy, Greg Hutchinson, Roy McCurdy, Marvin 'Smitty' Smith, Eric Wyatt, Lenny White, Casey Benjamin, Dennis Chambers, The California Honeydrops, Rico Jones, Sylvia Cuenca, Willie Jones III, Jules Broussard, Freddie Hughes, Derick Hughes, Martin Luther, Oakland Symphony, Rickey Woodard, Valerie Troutt, and Denise Perrier, among others.