The Journey Thus Far
MY STORY
ROOTS
My sojourn on Earth this time around started me in beautiful California, USA. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a household full of music and art. My Dad was a a classical pianist, so I listened to much Chopin, Beethoven Liszt, and Rachmaninoff. My Mom was a huge contemporary music lover and introduced me to an eclectic list of musicians like Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Sade, and more. And, of course, growing up in the 90s, I had my own pop-cultural influences in the world of R&B and pop-soul. Music wasn't the only art form in the house: our walls were covered by oil paintings by family members including my Mom, grandfather, great uncles and aunts - even my own little paintings made it up at some point.
My compulsion to create was clear from a young age and I began my journey into the arts pretty early - singing in the San Francisco Girls Choir as a little girl, and then onto school choirs and projects as I got older.
Eventually, when it was time to "decide what I wanted to do with my life," I decided to pursue classical voice and opera, getting my Bachelors of Music from San Jose State University, and my Masters of Music from the College-Conservatory of Music at U. of Cincinnati.
Directly after my studies, I went to Germany for three months to pursue an opera career (spoiler: I'm still here) and very quickly realized my creativity was meant to follow a different trajectory. And I spent the next decade+ finding my path.
EXPLORATION
I got to Germany, started auditioning, got some jobs, hit my first hurdles, and realized that I wanted to create in a different way - my own way. Being abroad, I was far enough away from my old structures to have the freedom to explore, experiment, learn who I was, and ultimately dream myself into who I wanted to be.
Over the years, I've had amazing projects along including a wonderful band called Courage + Craft and singing in the Extra Chorus at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (which I still proudly do!)
I co-founded a classical chamber music ensemble, I had a solo singer-songwriter career under an artist name, I experimented with electronic music, collaborated with wonderful musicians, left music, came back, left music, came back, and searched a lot for who I really was.
I also somehow ended up having a marketing career, was a pitch trainer for start-ups, taught voice lessons and personal presentation coaching, was trained in and became an Irish-Celtic Shaman, learned and experienced various healing modalities, and spent most of the last decade on an intensely focused healing path and consciousness expansion journey, have had a series of incremental awakenings/expansions, got in touch with ancestors and guides and spirit support... got cats. And this doesn't even touch my close personal relationships, trips and experiences, and other explorations... you know, life stuff. Anyway - I knew I needed to break through a bunch of shit to get to where I am, and the only option was exploration on every level. Which is exactly what happened.
I'm telling this all to say: this path hasn't been linear and it hasn't been an obvious trajectory. It's been an adventure in knowing - and I'm here now with a lot of experience in a lot of different areas and ready to turn it all into the most magnificent creations I can muster.
ARRIVAL
I'm myself now, which is a really great feeling. And for anyone on the path wondering WTF am I even doing - I'm telling you - they journey is WORTH IT... KEEP GOING!
What coming home to myself means to me in relation to my creations is bridging the spirit and human realms to bring frequencies forth in different ways. I am a big proponent of "everything is a mantra so you'd better be intentional about what you say/listen to/put your attention towards because that shit manifests in your life whether you want it to or not," so I make things I want to see more of in the world.
As an artist, I champion universal truth, beauty, awe, expansiveness, groundedness, empowerment, love, and connection. It's taken me a while to get here because, well, I had to become capable of living up to those values myself - but now that I've reached some level of "there," (though there's always a ways to go) I am finally in an aligned-enough state to create from this place, putting my money where my mouth is and bringing high-vibe creations into the world.
What's coming? Well, we'll see! My first priority is to make time and space for the highest potential of my creations to come forth, which will definitely be music, will likely be paintings and writings, and will certainly take other, unexpected forms that will show themselves. I'm really excited about that part, and can't wait to see how it unfolds!
