Bobby McFerrin's Monday circle keeps turning at The Freight

Most Mondays at noon, McFerrin and the vocal group MOTION turn a Berkeley listening room into an improvised choir, and the run goes on through the fall.

At noon on a Monday in downtown Berkeley, while most of the street is eating lunch at a desk, a room full of people at The Freight is singing a song nobody has heard before, because it did not exist ten minutes earlier.

That is Circlesongs, the weekly session Bobby McFerrin runs with the vocal group MOTION, and it was back on The Freight's stage today, Monday, October 26, 2026, with doors at 11:30am and music at noon. If you missed it, the Freight's calendar has the next one on Monday, November 2, with the Monday listings running on into December. Tickets are $40 including fees through The Freight's own box office.

The format is the draw. McFerrin's own site describes Circlesongs as improvised, collective singing, and says McFerrin and MOTION perform them most Mondays at The Freight in Berkeley. The Freight lists MOTION as Bryan Dyer, David Worm and Destani Wolf, the singers who lead the sessions alongside him. There is no set list to look up and no album to study beforehand. A part gets handed to one section of the room, another layer goes on top, and the piece is built in real time out of whoever showed up.

There is no set list to look up and no album to study beforehand.

That is also why it keeps working as a weekly event rather than a one-off. Each Monday is a different room, made of different voices, and the people who come back week after week are part of the instrument. You do not need to read music or think of yourself as a singer. You do need to be willing to open your mouth.

In our records, McFerrin has played Oakland and the East Bay more than any other market, 83 shows logged here, and nearly all of that is this residency. That is an unusual shape for a career that runs through global stages: the steadiest gig on his calendar is a lunchtime singalong in a Berkeley room that seats 490. The Freight's own calendar has carried the series across seasons, with dated Circlesongs pages going back to spring 2025 and a run of 2026 Mondays that already took in October 5 and now today.

The Freight is a good home for it. It is a listening room first, a nonprofit hall on Addison Street built around folk and roots music where audiences come to pay attention, and Circlesongs turns that attentiveness back on the audience. The sound you hear is mostly yours.

If you are planning around it: Mondays at noon, doors at 11:30am, the Freight's box office for tickets, and a check of its calendar the week of, since a weekly series can shift around holidays. Bring a friend who claims they cannot sing. They will be wrong by 12:15.

Sources: The Freight — Bobby McFerrin, Mon Oct 26 2026 (secure.thefreight.org); 2026 Bobby McFerrin and Motion — The Freight (secure.thefreight.org); Bobby McFerrin and MOTION: Circlesongs — Oct 5 2026 (secure.thefreight.org); Bobby McFerrin & MOTION: Circlesongs — Apr 21 2025 (secure.thefreight.org); The Freight (thefreight.org); Circlesongs - Bobby McFerrin (bobbymcferrin.com); Bobby Gigs - Bobby McFerrin (bobbymcferrin.com); The Freight & Salvage - Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)