Memrie Innerarity Kelly
"Mid-way through a career that included appearances with major symphony orchestras, opera touring companies, and many concert and stage appearances in New York and elsewhere, I was referred to Jane Kennedy by a colleague. I had a very specific vocal problem, i.e., my passagio lacked the stability I needed to sing a particular phrase in a particular Brahms song. Jane coached me through that problem and, in the process, uncovered a much more resonant and expressive middle voice that I never knew I had. Her technical teaching is so insightful I often felt she had miniaturized herself and was sitting right in my throat. How else could she guide me so precisely to the adjustments I needed to make in order to get the results I wanted? Her warmth and graciousness are widely known and much appreciated by her students, but I wouldn't care if she was Attilla the Hun....What a teacher!"
Submitted with love and gratitude by MEMRIE INNERARITY KELLY, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music and French Language, University of Southern Mississippi, Westminster Choir College, and The Juilliard School. Currently active as a teacher, composer and conductor in NYC and Westchester.
Jane's professional life embraces another field of expertise that compliments her work in singing instruction in unique and profound ways. She is a metaphysical counselor and recognized as an authentic Empathic Medium acknowledged in an investigative book by the English journalist Patricia Collins entitled "Psychic New York" and listed as one of a few recommended mediums world wide in Sherry Cohen's "Looking for the Other Side" with a forward by Deepak Chopra. Jane's empathic capacities are what allow her to feel the tensions and misalignments present in problematic vocal technique as she listens to a singer. The years of study of various vocal methods and analysis of information from vast resources of physiological and scientific research on the voice and its use along with extensive intuitive experimentation with singers at every possible level of vocal expression are combined with her extraordinary paranormal gifts to create rapid diagnosis and advancement of vocal progress. The psychological components that affect the capacity for free and expressive singing are also addressed in nurturing and supportive ways of empathic understanding.
"Viewing one's voice as an instrument of emotional expression and a medium for the passion of the soul puts the whole process of creating sound in an arena of enormous potential power. I encourage my students to become self-empowered within the awareness of this emerging arena. Mastery arrives as the consequence of grasping the concepts while experiencing the organization and coordination of the physical processes involved, as the soul, psyche and body are synergistically unified in the expression of emotionally charged and meaningful sound. A byproduct of this demonstration is the most extraordinary bliss. That is the singing experience at its best. This is the desire I have and goal I set for every person that enters my studio."
