Kimberly Haynes

Kimberly Haynes is a singer-songwriter, album producer, cantorial soloist, voice instructor and grief coach whose work lives at the intersection of music, prayer, spiritual transformation, and the human experience of loss and renewal. For more than two decades she has served as cantorial soloist at Ahavat Torah LA, where her voice has been present for Shabbat, the High Holidays, life cycle events and the quiet moments in between.

Her award-winning catalog includes the 2016 One World Music Album of the Year for Awaken Me, the 2021 Global Peace Song Award (Jury Prize) for Narrow Bridge, which was inspired by a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, and the 2024 New Age Notes Radio Awards for The Enchantment, honored for Best New Age Vocal Song and Best World/Chant Song. Though her music is often associated with new age and world genres, it reaches toward something more cinematic and emotionally universal.

In January 2020, Kimberly's husband Brian passed away after a period of illness, leaving her to raise their two sons largely on her own. Through years of grief she kept quietly creating. The result is Into The Light, her first self-produced album. It took seven years to make and is dedicated to Brian. It is a cinematic, orchestral song cycle moving through anticipatory grief, devotion, loss and transcendence, with the siddur woven through every track and Brian's voice on the title song. She recorded much of it at home and worked with musicians including MB Gordy, Hans Christian, Manose Singh, Todd Boston and Vito Gregoli. A companion book of journal entries, CaringBridge writings and reflections, illustrated by watercolor artist Karma Vieira, accompanies the album.

Kimberly has taught voice for over twenty years. In recent years she has brought grief coaching into her practice, drawing on her own experience to support others through loss, and she is developing a grief coaching training program for the Life Purpose Institute. She performs Into The Light as a self-contained live experience of music, voice and cinematic accompaniment. She lives and creates in Topanga Canyon, California.