Cathy DeWitt has been a Unity Music Director since the 1980's, under Rev. Sharon Connor and Joe Bettencourt at Unity of Gainesville, Rev. Bill Dodd in Ocala, and now back at Unity of Gainesville with Rev. Marciah McCartney. She has performed and toured at Unity churches for almost twenty years, and has played at New Thought churches in California, Arizona, and Florida, as well as Unity Village in Kansas City. She has two songs published in Unity Association's "Best of Love Notes" compilation: "Sweet Spirit" and "Arms (are for Hugging)", and two more being published in 2007: "Spirit of Spring (the Joy Chant)" and "For the Pure in Heart." Her original melody for James Dillet Freeman's "Prayer for Protection" is used at Unity churches around the country, especially in Florida. Well-versed in jazz and folk as well as New Thought music, Cathy is a singer/songwriter, pianist, guitarist, harpist, and bowed psaltery player.

While at Unity of Gainesville during the eighties she helped organize regional retreats and performances. She has presented music for workshops and lectures featuring Bernie Siegel, Alan Cohen, Marianne Williamson and Deepak Chopra, as well as sharing the stage with many well-known musicians including Pete Seeger, Lesley Gore, Dave Frischberg and David Roth.

She is internationally known within the Arts in Healthcare field as a performer, a lecturer, and presenter of educational and experiential workshops on Music & Healing and Creating Successful Arts in Healthcare Programs.

In 2002 she was asked to participate in the Healing Arts Seminar at Unity Village, where she sang and played at an evening concert. She also leads participatory workshops and spiritual music at Unity retreats. Some of the workshops she offers include:

Hear Cathy's award-winning song "Everybody's Somebody's Child"

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For more information
CathyDew@aol.com

Cathy DeWitt Home Page

Cathy at Unity Retreat on St. Simon's Island, Georgia

The Rhythms of the Universe:
A participatory and fun workshop taught in conjunction with her husband Rob Rothschild, a professional drummer for over twenty years, that helps people find their own rhythm, dance and play in a safe and loving group setting. Instruments for all are provided.

Music as a Healing Tool:
A workshop that shows the many ways we can use sound to help us de-stress in our own lives. Includes exercises in listening, singing, playing the harp and other instruments to create an alternate environment. A reminder of the impact sound has had on us all our lives, both personally and culturally, and the ways it has been used for healing from ancient to modern times.

Melody and Memory, Modes and Moods:
Using music to trigger memories, create community and enhance mood. An experiential workshop that explores the unique way music creates both an individual subjective experience and a unifying community experience. Shows how different modes and tunings can have different emotional, mental, spiritual and physiological effects.

Cathy at Unity Village

Cathy DeWitt
DREAMSONG

Click here to listen!

"Cathy's workshops give me an inner calmness and peace...
I particularly like the rain forest experience with her percussion instruments."

An eclectic professional musician since the 1970’s, Cathy DeWitt has shared the stage and the airwaves with Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Garrison Keillor, Florida folk legend Will McLean, and jazz pianists Dave Frischberg and Rob Bargad. A jazz vocalist and pianist, bluegrass guitar picker and folksinger/songwriter, she serves on the Boards of the Gainesville Friends of Jazz and the Friends of Florida Folk. She is a nationally published writer and concert producer, and hosts a weekly folk music program, "Across the Prairie", on the NPR affiliate station WUFT. In 1995 she found an unexpected setting for her musical versatility: Shands Arts in Medicine program in Gainesville, Florida, where she spent the last eleven years creating a pioneering, world-renowned Music in Medicine program. From piano playing in the hospital lobby to elevator singalongs, from hallway concerts to bedside harp in the ICUs, Cathy uses music to transform the hospital environment and the patient experience.

She has presented workshops and seminars for many universities, arts agencies, and hospitals, including conferences for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare and spiritual gatherings and retreats for Unity. Her consultant clients include Vanderbilt University, San Diego Hospice, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and the Royal Hospital in London. Along with several individual songwriting awards, including two from the 2006 Unisong International Songwriting Contest, she is the winner of a Fetzer Grant for her Healing Music Programs, a Florida Arts Council Individual Artist Enhancement Grant, and the National League of Penwomen Branch Award for Music.