Author: Jen Coccioletti Vanella

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.

A singer recounts her journey from burnout in opera programs to creating “Sing and Relax,” a personalized music education program focused on joy and well-being. She shares how she rediscovered the fun in music and built a program from scratch.🌈🎶🎤

What does it mean to sing and relax? Well, before I say that, I should go back about 18 years to graduate school when I was doing callbacks across the country for opera yap programs. I was a very blessed woman as I have an instinctive gift for music, and I had done quite well in the auditions, and I was bouncing from Minnesota to New York to Chicago, singing for anybody who wanted to take their precious time to hear me. And by the time I got to Boston, I got a look at myself in the mirror right before I went in for the next callback. Just gotten off a plane from all the way across the country, dressed in some bathroom at the airport, grabbed a taxi, and I didn’t recognize myself. was dressed the right way. I had the right look. The jewelry was protocol. The pantyhose were the right color. But something had happened to me, and I happened to be singing for a woman. I had sung for an undergraduate for another program who knew me, and she didn’t recognize me when I walked in five years later. So I sang. It wasn’t my best callback ever. It really wasn’t. I was exhausted, and I got in the taxi to go back to the hotel, and I heard this little voice say, this isn’t fun anymore, is it? And I knew that that was the truth. And there had been a bunch of other situations, too, that were a lot more dramatic, seen not the best come out of people as the higher level I competed. And I’m a pretty straightforward, gentle person. I’m very maternal, even if I am talented. And I didn’t have time for the nonsense and the malarkey I was seeing, including, with all due respect from some of the coaches. So we’re sitting on the plane on my way back to Kansas, and I heard a little voice say, you need to remember why you started to do this to begin with. And you need to go back to when it was fun, and you need to go back to when it was you singing with your foster brother and your best friend, you know, in the basement of a church after having spent 16 years being abused. If you sang at all, the freedom that came with that, the laughter that came with that, you’ve got to find that again, Jen. So I talked to my friend, actually, and my foster brother, and he said, yeah, you just got to get them to be able to sing and chill out. And I said, do you mean sing and relax? And he said, yeah, yeah, I do. And so, you know, on a shoestring budget of a grad student, a lot of faith, some help from this amazing woman named Paula. I’ll tell you about another time from Disability Rehab Services and my dear grandmother. We scratched it together to bring Sing and relax to life. 450 square feet in my studio, tiny little apartment while I went to school. A keyboard, which I still keep as a reminder of where it started and a whole lot of tenacity when I think about it now, and some faith. And I started from bottom to top, teaching the Littles, working my way to corporate celebrity contracts, realizing they didn’t know how to sing and relax, too, half the time, and that’s why they were here. And then in 2021, supporting essential workers. That led me to getting my certifications in music therapy. That led me to going to Forbes Business School. That led me to go to Copenhagen. That led me to nyu, and that led me to take all of those musical, colorful, beautiful things and these amazing opportunities I had and turn it into a mindset of play, structure, focus, and science. So what is Sing and Relax personalized music education to be able to find and free what’s lost? Because I can also tell you there’s plenty of singers like me out there who started doing this because they loved it, went deep into the industry, saw everything that was broken, and started to assume they were broken, too.

Did you know that you were an angel. Did you know that you could fly. Did you know you could change the world. If you’re willing to try. Did you know it doesn’t take much that an angel doesn’t always have wings, just has to smile and care. Did you know being kind, did you know, if you don’t mind, you could change the world. Did you know angels are everywhere. And it doesn’t matter if you have religion or faith. And it doesn’t matter what you look like our way, because he doesn’t care. The first angels I saw when I was small, the colors of the sky and the little boy who let me play with his truck. Did you know that you don’t have to have a lot of money. Did you know well now you do. You’re an angel. Please never stop believing that God might save the world. And please if you forgot what it was like to be a little girl, or a little boy who wanted to play with someone else’s toys, pass it along. By that cup of supergrip coffee. Open the door. You’re an angel. Please don’t ever forget. You’re an angel. And when the world is dark and wet. You get to choose if you see the sunshine or the storm. Be an angel. Nice and warm.

Do you remember way back when you were a little girl or a little boy. And you were sitting in a classroom in kindergarten, and you were having arts and crafts time. And there were safety scissors and paint, and glue, there was probably some kid if they were like me, and was trying to eat the glue and use the glue. And a little boy asks you, if you could please pass him the green paint. And all you see is a little boy. And then you see that little boy A few years later. And you notice that that little boy is different than you. Maybe that little boy is black? Or maybe he wears a special hat on his head. And you’re already very curious to know why. But you also are being taught that it’s not polite to ask. I think this is when we start to lose that ability to just see one another for what we really are. Not black, white, Asian, whatever it is. But each other’s angels. We are each other’s angels beloved’s. It doesn’t matter what your faith is, it doesn’t matter what you believe in. We are here to help one another. And little ones in kindergarten know that. And then they’re taught to stop knowing that. And I think that’s why me opening unleash the Hearts Academy is so important. Because in my program, we’re going to implement the things we knew when we were five years old. When we really understood what it was to be a human being

Dreams become realities. When you open your eyes. And then you see. Love is good and hope is too. But then action must come. Sometimes I lie in bed at night, dreaming about a world, I want for our children. Then I think of all the people who have smiled at me and said “ Jenny. That’s sweet. That’s nice. But dreams are only things that children do when they sleep. Only powerful people can change the world. “. At first, I get small. I close my eyes and nod and smile. And then I realized they are liars. Because I have a dream that’s becoming reality. Because I have the heart and the colors of the world to paint. I have a dream and the strength to carry on, because that’s the only way we’re going to wake from the darkness. And they’re starting to look at me like it’s possible. I no longer close my eyes and just pray. I simply say, I smile and simply say, I have a dream. That is becoming reality. And the only way it will be anything more than dreams, is if I stand up on my knees. So the tall so tall, that the world can see and give what I have. And never give up. I have a dream, that’s becoming reality. I have a dream that nobody can kill. I have a dream. Because the angels tell me it’s so, so I will sleep at night. And I will close my eyes. And I’ll pray for another day. And then I’ll stand up tall, never feeling small. And I’ll say. “ I remember painting with the angels Jenny’s butterflies fly away” . I have a dream. That is reality. Not that it’s easy. Not that I don’t cry. Not that I don’t sometimes question myself. But this is so much more than me. And soon you will see. I have a dream.