|| SFERES & WHITE - A DYNAMIC DUO ||

Jimmy Sferes & Jennifer White

Jimmy Sferes & Jennifer White’s entertaining keynotes draw upon their decades of professional experience as engaging speakers and talented performers. For over 20 years, they toured as the acoustic duo Sferes & White, known for luscious harmonies and imaginative guitar playing. Their first foray into ‘edutainment’ in 2007 - “The Eco-Tones” - combined sustainable living tips with a multi-media music show. Their song “Small Stuff” won an Honor Award in the Great American Song Contest, they appeared on Garrison Keillor’s "Prairie Home Companion" radio program and the Hallmark Channel’s New Morning TV show.  Derek Blackmon from Indie-Music.com says they have, “vocal harmonies that work so well together it sounds almost too good to be true.” They also produced the closing song and instrumental soundtrack for the award-winning modern western “Out of the Wild.”

Jimmy received his first guitar at age thirteen and over fifty years developed broad musical tastes and talents including blues, funk, jazz-fusion, rock, folk, acoustic fingerstyle, and R & B. During his career he performed at many festivals including the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and the Oregon Summer Solstice Festival and he has opened for such diverse luminaries as David Wilcox, Delbert McClinton, Blues Traveler, Larry Coryell, Richard Elliott, and America.  Early on, he earned the nickname “Jammin’ Jimmy” through his ability to sit in and improvise across genres on virtually any kind of guitar, including slide, lap steel, acoustic, electric, resonator, and ukulele.

Jimmy has shared his love for music via his other passion, teaching - in one-on-one and group lessons, as director and instructor for the Yamaha Rock School, and during his multi-media presentation “Wood & Steel: A Brief History of the Guitar.”  Jimmy has written and produced CD’s with his last four collaborative projects and offers professional tracking, mixing, and editing services at Hummingbird Studio. He has provided live sound engineering for artists such as Del McCoury Band, Nickle Creek, String Cheese Incident, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, and The Voice’s Kris Allen and Kristen Merlin. He composed and produced an original soundtrack, and is currently working in the studio creating sync music for film, television, and ads.

Known for her humorous and dynamic style, Jennifer has 30 years of experience as a speaker, teacher, and consultant.  Her insatiable curiosity led her to study philosophy and physics, somatic psychology, permaculture, and whole systems education. She’s taught communication skills and traffic accident reconstruction (yes, that’s a thing), directed a national think tank of leaders committed to "simple, just and sustainable ways of life", and co-founded a non-profit to help individuals and businesses reduce their environmental impact.

As the volunteer trainer and community educator for an AIDS project, she spoke in corporations, halfway houses, high schools, and prisons (just as a visitor). She’s been a psychotherapist and co-created community organizations to promote everything from local music to carbon-reduced lifestyles. In academia, as a professor and director of sustainability & innovation, she developed programs and campus-wide strategies at the intersection of personal wellbeing, social justice, economic stability, and ecological balance.

As a professional voice actor she’s recorded projects for brands such as Google, Mastercard, McDonald’s, University of Chicago, and more.  Currently, she is the founder and Chief Executive Catalyst of the Happy Human Academy - dedicated to ‘empowering humanity to thrive.’