CALICANTO ASSOCIATES produces and disseminates written and audio materials, which focus on the traditional music of early California. Calicanto publications include two songbooks, each with a companion audio compact disc, several musical historical plays with accompanying CDs and a series of choral octavos suitable for children’s and women’s voices.
The company, Calicanto Associates, was founded as a partnership in 1994 by four music educators: Karen Arlen, Margaret Batt, Mary Ann Benson and Nancie Kester. The authors cooperated on the research, compilation and presentation of the materials; the writing of the books and plays, and the recording of the compact discs. These materials are self-published under our partnership name and marketed to schools, colleges, museums, state parks and libraries throughout California and the West. Following the retirement of Ms. Batt and Ms. Benson in 2001, Karen Arlen and Nancie Kester have continued the partnership and further development of the company. Both Karen Arlen and Nancie Kester are frequent clinicians at local state and national conferences and provide workshops and in-service training for classroom and music teachers.
Karen Arlen
Karen Arlen taught pre-school through 8th grade classroom music in both public and private schools in Oakland and Alameda for many years, including 21 years at Redwood Day School in Oakland. She is also an experienced piano and guitar teacher. A graduate of the University of Oregon with a BA in Art, she later received an MM Education with a Kodály Music emphasis from Holy Names College in Oakland, She was a fellow at the UC History-Social Science Institute at UC Berkeley in 1997, where she developed her project entitled Oh California, That’s the Place for Me: Songs of California’s Immigrants. Ms. Arlen is a past president of the Northern California Association of Kodály Educators and also served on the national board of the Organization of American Kodály Educators for eight years, both as Regional Representative and as Western Division President. She was co-chair of the OAKE conference in San Francisco in 1991. Ms. Arlen is co-author of They Came Singing: Songs from California’s History and Days of Gold: Songs of the California Gold Rush. As a classroom music teacher, Ms. Arlen reformatted Calicanto’s musical and historical plays to make them performance ready. She wrote and illustrated the play Tutokanula: A Yosemite Legend. Karen, who now lives in San Francisco, is compiling materials from her native state, Oregon, entitled Exploring Oregon’s History Through Song.
Nancie Kester
Nancie Kester is recently retired from her faculty position at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, where she taught piano, music literature and music theory. She currently teaches piano, theory and composition in her East Bay studio. Ms. Kester is an award-winning composer who has written numerous works for chorus, piano and various instrumental ensembles. She received a BA in Music Composition and Piano from California State University, East Bay and a MM in Music Education with a Kodály Emphasis, Instrumental Focus: Piano, from Holy Names University. Ms Kester taught elementary and pre-school music for many years in Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley, and was the recipient of a Gerbode Foundation grant for training music teachers. Through this program, she trained two groups of musicians who staffed music programs in schools throughout the Bay Area. Nancie Kester is a former board member of OAKE and co-founder and first president of the Northern California Association of Kodály Educators. Ms. Kester is the author of the book Folk Songs for Piano Ensemble, two and three part keyboard arrangements of traditional songs; co-author of Music for Underfives; and co-author of They Came Singing: Songs from California’s History and Days of Gold! Songs of the California Gold Rush. She is also a free-lance calligrapher and graphic artist. Ms. Kester is responsible for the calligraphy, maps, layout and many illustrations in all Calicanto publications.
Karen Arlen and Nancie Kester are business partners in Calicanto Associates, which specializes in compiling and publishing the authentic music of early California. They are frequent clinicians at state and national conferences, including Organization of American Kodály Educators, American Orff-Schulwerk Association, California Music Educators Association, California School Library Association, California Council for Social Studies and California Association for the Gifted. They present workshops and in-services to music groups and educators throughout California and have performed with the Calicanto Singers at various historical events.