Maria Sangiolo has been writing and performing for children and their families for the past ten years. A two-time Parents’ Choice award-winning artist, recipient of a grant from the CT Commission on Culture and Tourism and one from the Iguana Fund from Club Passim in Cambridge, MA, Maria paints with her pen and her voice. Whether it’s under the moon singing a lullaby, in the garden building houses for fairies, by the sea watching dolphins diving or down on the farm growing and eating veggies, Sangiolo challenges us to be our very best and be stewards of the planet at the same time. Moving from the depths of the ocean with her award-winning recording Under the Mystic Sea to terra firma, Maria Sangiolo cultivates a green life in Maria and Friends: Planting Seeds, her latest family recording. Celebrating agriculture and sustainability, Maria is joined by a barn full of musical friends who beckon kids into the garden, down to the farm, into the woods and off to the Farmer’s Market. Many of the friends featured on the CD, including Rani Arbo, Peter Mulvey, Jim Henry, Traci Grammer, Mark Erelli, Lori McKenna, and Brooks Williams were Maria’s label mates on the renowned indie label Signature Sounds in the early 1990s. Others like Lui Collins, Sally Rogers, SteveSongs, and Alastair Moock are favorite performers of Maria’s own children. She’s delighted they could all contribute to this CD. “Sangiolo has one of the prettiest voices in children’s music today,” enthuses Babble.com. Rootsy swing, back porch blues, and folk rock infuse the sound of her new CD. Accompanied by acoustic and electric guitar, dobro, mandolin, piano, fiddle, and Scott Kessel’s recycled drumship enterprise, Maria swings, croons and rocks out on this hybrid collection of songs, many co-written by her and Alastair Moock. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this recording will benefit NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association. The CD was partially funded by a grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, as well as from a grant from Club Passim’s The Iguana Fund in Cambridge, MA. http://www.passim.org/.