Unleash the Hearts unleash the Voice.

Unleash the Hearts Academy: A Musical Sanctuary The academy offers a safe space for musical exploration, focusing on freeing voices and embracing diverse musical interests. It’s a music therapy project, not just performance-focused. So one thing that makes Unleash the Hearts Academy different is I am interested in taking my 20 years of experience, particularly working with children for well over a decade, to be able to allow the idea of having a safe space to explore the possibilities in music and performance that wouldn’t otherwise always be embraced. I am a very staunch advocate for finding and freeing voices based on what is presented to me as that person feels is their voice. I’ve had really talented coloraturas on paper come to me and tell me I would much prefer to be trained as a contralto. And after listening many, many times, I kind of quietly smile to myself and think about all the different voice styles I was trained for. Because some of us are blessed enough to be able to do it all, some of us can’t. And I am a coach who understands what it’s like because I have close to five octaves when I sing and relax and I can do just about anything. So why can’t they? I understand in the professional world and even in community theater, there are rules to be adhered to, but this is a place of safety, sanctuary, if you will. I think about it like the possibilities of pulling out a dress up box for some children and letting them pick the costumes. The one place with their friends and family support that they can explore things maybe they’ll never get to do. And that’s why this is a music therapy project versus a performance project. We use performance to be able to coach, advocate and teach. But the idea is to take a break from the real world. It’s a place where the golden rule exists, just like sing and relax has since 2011. I think a lot of good things can come from that. Being able to tap into our musical fantasies, if you will, the roles that we would never be casted for, and some of it for good reason. But that’s not my place to judge. My job is to find and free voices, but to give my students the tools to make the decisions about how they use those voices themselves. So I’m not interested in what a typecast would be in New York City for, you know, Porgy and Bess. I’m not interested in following a protocol because that’s not what a playground is about. A musical playground or IME independent music education is about community connection, creativity, and teaching teachers to be able to think outside the box and let their students embrace the things that maybe they’ve never had a safe place to be able to embrace. We are not judges. We are advocates and support. We are mentors and we’re applicable, as I do only work with adults, friends, And that’s pretty much it.