Ginny Mitchell’s Orinda roots: the seed for a musical career

    It all started in the Cherub Choir at the Orinda Congregational church for the then three-year-old Ginny Mitchell. That’s when her love for singing and music began.
    That was 65 years ago, and Mitchell has been singing ever since, typically performing two to three times a month.
    “It is my belief that if you can talk, that you can sing,” she writes on her website (ginnymitchell.com). “We are most vulnerable when we are singing. Our ‘instrument,’ the voice, IS us. In other words, we don’t put our finger on a valve or a key on some other instrument to produce the sound. The sound we produce begins with us and is a reflection of all we are.”
    Born in Berkeley, raised in Orinda until age 14, Mitchell left Miramonte High School her junior year to move to Santa Cruz to live with family members when both her parents in Orinda passed away within months of each other.
    “They were in their 40s,” said the singer, songwriter, musician and teacher. “My mother took her own life and my father died in a small plane crash six months later. Dad was first a personnel manager and then a lumberjack, he patented his own shake machine. Mom sold life insurance and worked for a long time at the church.”
    After graduating from Santa Cruz High, Mitchell studied music at Cabrillo Community College, taking Ray Brown’s legendary jazz improv class. She became the first vocalist to finish the class and went on to earn her AA degree in music at Cabrillo. She continued her musical studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
    After college, she married Tim Peet and moved to Canada, living in Malakwa, British Columbia. The couple, together with friends and family, started a concert production company called Starlite Productions. In 1986, she won the Best New Artist award by the Canadian Country Music Association, and was also nominated for a Juno award, the Canadian version of a Grammy.
    A few years later they moved back to Santa Cruz, but the marriage ended – with Mitchell joining Sean Seman’s Young at Heart, singing for elderly residents in convalescent homes and joining the Mount Madonna Choir.
    Mitchell later met filmmaker Marty Collins, who became the director for her “Wild Rose” music video. She writes on her website, “at the time he had a production company in San Jose called, of all things, Starlite Productions.” They married in 2001.
    While it was Orinda Congregational church that initially nurtured Mitchell’s talent for singing, even taking a liturgical guitar class there at age 11, it was Orinda that gave her a special song to write about.
    In 2010, she wrote a song and co-produced a video with her husband about her Orinda home, titled “Hills Above Orinda,” (http://bit.ly/4m4mZb3), which was filmed on location with permission of the Johnson family.
    Collins directed it, Mitchell performed in it and was editor, and the two young girls in the video were her granddaughter Savannah and a guitar student Desiree. Mitchell also teaches guitar through her company called West Side Voice Academy – her private music school.
    She had lots of support from her husband in creating that video.
    “Marty and I have no children together. He was very supportive and his children were as well. His daughter and granddaughter were part of the crew on the filming [too],” said Mitchell, who teaches voice and guitar, mostly voice.
    Mitchell, who always wanted to be a musician when she grew up, talks about why she loves writing and performing.
    “Being able to express thoughts and feelings through music and build community,” she said. “The relationships with other musicians are precious to me.”
    When she’s not performing or working, Mitchell spends her time “walking my dog, tending my roses, songwriting and making jewelry. I love hearing other musicians when I can, as well as spending time with friends and family.”
    In fact, she took this summer off to travel and visit her brother and sister who live in Canada.
    Among Orinda, Canada and Santa Cruz, Mitchell calls all three of them – home.
    “Orinda, specifically the hill above my old home on Johnson’s property where we filmed the video, Sicamous, B.C., and Santa Cruz,” she said. “Only that Orinda holds a very special place in my heart.”
    Her Orinda memories will last a lifetime, such as “spending the summers in those beautiful hills, Pine Grove Junior High dances (it closed in 1975), ice sliding on the golf course and spending endless summer days with friends,” she said.
    Her mantra in life is simple.
    “Reach down deep and you will find the strength you need, when you need it,” she said, adding, “be kind, be strong.”