Welcome to the place where I weave song, story & community to explore our sense of belonging & connection.
Music in Community
Over the last two years of tending to these old church hall walls, I am watching roots grow deep as a welcoming community space for both creative practice and embodied expression. I don’t see separation between art and the community practices within my yoga studio. Both are spaces where our complex and beautiful shared humanity sits at the heart of it all - and that is a tender, wild and wondrous thing.
My music offerings centre on connecting and supporting community.
Here are a few ways I might show up for you and our collective:
Embodied Vocal Sessions (ages 5+ to adults!)
Yoga & Live Music
Creative Embodiment facilitation/workshops
Therapeutic African Drumming Facilitation (ages 5-13)
Retreats / Trauma-informed wellness gatherings
House concerts & intimate listening shows
Songwriters-in-the-round & collaborative events
If you’re interested in including live music in a gathering or event within your community, you’re very welcome to get in touch!
The Water
My first music release in 8 years.
Recorded live in my community Yoga Studio, with The Sweetwaters Women’s Choir.
8 years ago, it felt like I was retiring from the music industry. I was wrapping up almost ten years of extensive national & international touring and years of connecting with diverse communities through my own songs and stories. I’d traversed stark and heart-filled desert Country, made temporary homes in the mountains, along coastlines and deserts sands. Yet, after a lifetime of chasing the sun, I somehow landed in the soft valleys of North East Victoria, navigating the deep depths and unexpected complexities of solo mamahood.
Without any capacity to put my feelings into music or pen to paper, it truly felt like I was cruelly forced to put down the one tool that had kept me alive throughout my formative years. My language of survival was gone and I had to learn and lean into a completely new way of being. I was scrambling for a new operating system - curiously, one that just couldn’t make room for music.
Having lived through harsh and beautiful Seasons that have reshaped both my life and my voice, songwriting and performing now feel so different. I’m not on my own. I’ve grown into a skin that also grows community spaces and experiences from the ground, up. That’s where The Water rose from.
The Water: a song woven with feminine power and born from the learnings of belonging. A song written as an ode to the land I now call home. A home that I share with my beautiful boy, kind giant doggo, and an inspiring, supportive community of incredible women and folks of all ages. There is life in this song. There is life when we gather with intention, curiousity & kindness.
Meet
Nestled in the north-east Victorian hills of Dhudhuroa/Waywurru Country, Candice McLeod is a compelling folk songwriter whose storytelling confronts both beauty and breaking with unguarded grace.
Following years of creative paralysis in the depths of solo motherhood, Candice powerfully wove herself back into community, supported by the soulful harmonies of The Sweetwaters - a powerhouse trio of women including Gabby Vening & Mezz Coleman. Together they weave a warm, soulful fabric of sound, singing songs gathered over many years of shedding skins, and forging a home away from the road.
Alongside the Sweetwaters, Candice’s forthcoming album is a fiercely intimate body of work, anchored in a warm devotion to community connection. For release alongside the blooming wattle of the Springtime, 2026.
Celebrating the release of their latest single, The Water, Candice McLeod & The Sweetwaters will be performing at the Yackandandah Folk Festival on March 20-22.
Community Reflections