Kalabash turns one

“I’m a songwriter,” Natasha Kozaily explains. “And when I teach music to my private students, I encourage them to write songs.” Not so much the method-book approach, the 30-year-old says about the curriculum at the Kalabash School of Music and Arts in La Jolla. No, they follow a more imaginative path. She and a local musician and producer named Chad Farran started the school in Bird Rock in August of last year. “We have a team of 13 private instructors.” At the school, children are encouraged to perform at their in-house open mics and recitals, and now, students also have the option to record their own original tunes in the school’s new in-house studio.

Kalabash School of Music and the Arts is a La Jolla–based music and art school providing group and private classes as well as community events and performances. On Saturday, September 24, from noon to 4 p.m., Kalabash will host an all-ages open house in celebration of the school’s one-year anniversary.

“We started Kalabash Records and we posted some digital releases on Soundcloud,” Kozaily says. “But we’re planning on releasing a physical compilation album next year.” She says the label is an extension of something she launched at Kalabash called the Songbird Circle. “Basically, it’s a monthly club where we all get together and write songs and order pizza.” She says the idea expanded into a weekly workshop and the Songbird Camp, where kids can meet up with members of the music industry. This year’s celeb lineup included the bratpop duo Holychild and Daniel Blue from Motopony, among others.

Kozaily, herself a performer who is originally from the Cayman Islands, has lived in San Diego for several years. When she checks in, she says she is in the midst of what she calls the “Golden Thirty house concerts. I’m doing these shows in 30 cities to raise money for the Syrian refugee crisis. The goal is to raise $30,000.” She’s gigged in living rooms in Brooklyn and Beirut and as far away as Iceland, she says, and has raised $10,000 thus far.

“The future? I have a big vision of what Kalabash Records could be,” Kozaily says. “I can see this becoming something where other record labels look to us for some fresh young talent.”