Meet Regan Mozingo | Harpist & Composer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Regan Mozingo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Regan, why did you pursue a creative career?
Growing up I took great reprieve in the arts. I gained much needed perspective by experiencing other times and places through art and music. Reading literature could completely take me to another place, with my focus growing so intent that I couldn’t hear what was going on around me. I ceaselessly sketched through all my classes, hurrying to finish homework so I could return to my sketches of people and animals. The throughline of creativity in my life lead me directly to a career in the arts. I started with coloring comic book pages for Image comics, then I got a degree in musical performance and composition. Playing music was hard to get paid for but I made ends meet running a dance company for a wealthy benefactor. Scoring large-scale theatrical dance such as Labyrinth Masquerade was a hobby and occasionally a paid endeavor as with Astra Dance Theatre. As soon as I was able I started my company High Priestess Productions as an umbrella company to release the musical albums, promote and produce album or dance company shows and plan the promotional tours. My ethos was to create beauty in the world… but in reality that actually means a lot of little office work tasks. The time I get to spend creating makes it all worth it. There has never been a straight line from art to paycheck for me, but I’ve managed to stay afloat in one of the world’s most creative cities, while continuing to make audacious, mystical beauty in the world.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m most passionate about writing music. Being able to contribute to the emotional impact of a stage production or film is deeply satisfying. I’m mostly interested in Big Art. I want to make things that take teams of people working together. The sense of building something together, and making my music a part of that – this is amongst my most satisfying activities in life. I’ve had the pleasure of having my music included in the marketing of shows like Lost, 24 and Alias.

I also perform harp and sing. My album Faerie Archives vol 1 is a recording of authentic faerie music. We built a faerie house out of pieces of an local oak grove and invited the faeries to come and share their music with the world. In my first real experience with channeling I then released my harp to the wild spirits which filled the air. What followed was music unlike any I had ever heard. It was woven through with songs I loved to play, but so much more inspired music was pouring out of me. I recorded 4 sessions in sacred space, with myself and my harp as an offering… and then spent 6 weeks editing the tracks and adding other inspired musicians. I did much of the editing in a sort of trance… when I recorded the vocals I woke up the next day feeling like I had recorded a song or 2. When I went back and looked there were vocals for 4 songs. The whole project was simply enchanted. Although it was released in 2008, it’s currently popular on spotify and gets shazaamed regularly. It won awards in the Best Album category at the International New Age Trade Show.

Although now that I’m a mom you are most likely to catch me singing during savasana at the yoga classes I teach twice a week… I joke that being a yoga teacher is one of the best things you can do with a liberal arts degree. But seriously, being able to sing a lullaby to my students as they rest their bodies and minds during savasana is as satisfying as a crowd of drunk people cheering me at a festival or bar show.

Life is very different for me now. I am a mom and that is a 24/7 passion project. Finding time for my creativity is a hero’s journey all on its own. But that creativity finds it’s expression, nonetheless.

My most recent film project was “Cod’ine”, a pandemic dance film shot in my library, which won awards in the 2022 film festival cycle. Our dance company, Astra Dance Theatre, would love to be performing on stage… but our foray into film won a lot of attention at a time when our dancers really needed a way to connect with audiences again.

Our biggest on stage hit was “Caligari”, based on the 1919 German expressionist classic film, complete with animated, interactive backgrounds. We best best theater company in LA by the LA Weekly 2 years running, and sold out the historic El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood, itself a historic landmark from the silent film era.

I’ve toured the world, and seen my music set in time with giant bursts of flame on the fire stage at Burning Man, I’ve been High Priestess to rituals of healing for the City of Los Angeles itself, as well as countless bindings and banishings. I open myself to embody the divine feminine in the here and now, for the world and for those I love. This path is who I am…

And yet there are challenges now, more difficult challenges than I expected. Through the Trump years there was such a movement away from expertise, such a violent push back against equality for women, minorities and sexual minorities, against science and the scientific method. Such a sense of madness and of parts of society coming unglued from the whole. During this time I felt my spirituality wither. I willingly relinquished my foot in the other realm in favor of grounding myself strongly to the provable, effable realms. I also had children at this time, and there is no greater and more dramatic end to illusions than to have children. When you are thinking of how to prepare a child for the world we live in, the world to come… it did not seem fit to build any illusions into their world view. Heck yes we can talk about Santa – a little mystery – fine! But other than that lets cleave to the provable, and keep an eye on our biases in a way that lets us relate to the world in an effective manner.

So I face the death of my mother this year. And what can I do but step back into the river of blood and stand hand in hand with my ancestors now… given that one of them standing close is so precious. Fear sent me away from my spirituality. And the groundedness that followed was so good. Because now I need the grounded all the more as I grieve to loss of such unconditional love as to change forever one’s idea of what love makes possible.

Right now the dance company is in very early pre-production on an opera based in ancient greece, as well as another dance film based on the faerie tale Tam Lin.

Faerie Archives 2 has been recorded – but the seasons have not brought the time to edit it yet. Perhaps an invocation is in order.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would suggest a drive out the 126 to Pt Magu. There is a lovely little camping ground there called Sycamore campground, and it’s across PCH from a little beached called Sycamore Cove. A day there, playing amongst the waves will work up your appetite! If you can make it, we’d come back to Newhall and visit Brewery Draconum. Great music, lovely garden for the kids to play in with a giant connect 4 – and great food for after a day at the beach. I recommend the fish tacos.

If we had more time I’d suggest Descanso Gardens, maybe the Getty in Malibu, maybe Asanebo sushi Valley Village.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d love to dedicate my shout out to David Wilkinson who has been my patron and supporter for 25 years. His financial support of my composing and the dance company has been transformative to me as an artist. From hiring me in my early 20s to play forgotten piano scores up to the heady success of producing our biggest hit “Caligari” in my mid thirties… to the elder care and political science paper-writing that we spend our time with now – a lifetime of creative support is a magnificent gift.

Website: www.theprofessionalcomposer.com

Instagram: highpriestess

Twitter: hpsregan

Youtube: highpriestess22

Others: http://www.astradancetheatre.com/ , http://www.high-priestess-productions.com/, http://www.premayogaflow.com/

Image Credits
Michael Helms Photography