Music

Learning to learn by failing fearlessly led me to say ‘yes’ when I was encouraged to sing at a jazz jam I went to observe.  I had started singing as voice therapy to strengthen my speaking voice for teaching. My teacher, Heidi Schmidt, asked me to sit in with her band “Nice Work Jazz” at a local venue and that was the moment I fell in love with singing for others. Brad Goode was hosting the jazz jam at the Muse Performance Space and asked me if I wanted to sing, and that became a regular outlet for my artistic needs.  Once the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) started offering adult jazz combos, my learning took off.  I also studied jazz with Jonathan Saraga, Joey Blunk, and currently with Adam Revell.

Some people wonder why a science teacher is singing jazz. When I sing and move from tune to tune to tell stories loaded with emotional content, I am creating neural networks, laying down patterns of emotional flexibility that are needed to do the job of teaching every single day. I am modeling life-long learning for my students.  I am learning to listen in new and more sophisticated ways and can hear subtle changes in the energy of my classroom. I am showing my students that just because you choose a day job for practical reasons, you can still live an artful life to be fully expressed as a human.

Enjoy these samples from The Kat Ellis Ensemble