Origins

Music has been in my bones for as long as I can remember.

I didn't know that the plastic click of a Casio keyboard in my parents’ bedroom at two years old would birth a lifelong devotion—to sound, to story, to creative expression, and to the alchemy that happens whenever someone steps into their Truth, often unseen but undeniably felt.

Driven by an instinctive magnetic force toward anything musical, that early spark quickly evolved into the path of becoming a childhood prodigy, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Starting lessons at three, effortlessly skipping RCM levels, writing my first song at five, and playing Für Elise by six—my young years became a whirlwind of intense discipline. I also carried a fast-moving mind and a huge imagination that I loved to write about in stories and poems, a mind that led to being in the gifted program at school and continuously being given advanced work by my teachers. I was balancing the high-pressure demands of school with a rigorous, full-time musical training schedule, competing (and winning!) prestigious competitions, and writing and performing my own compositions on high-profile stages before I was even a teenager. Soon, those early creations became my passport, pulling me out into the world to taste the air of Japan, the Philippines, and stages all over the US and Canada. By the age of 14, this momentum took me to the North York Performing Arts Centre, where I sat at the piano and felt the thunder of my own original concerto, "Dreamcatcher," vibrating through the Toronto Philharmonia.

Yet, navigating a childhood with such accelerated velocity wired my system to equate survival with constant high performance. Honestly, seeing all of this laid out feels bittersweet — a lifting and swelling in my chest of gratitude for all the opportunities and gifts I have been given, which at the same time is being dragged down into my belly by the heavy rock and tightening of grief for my younger self who was in constant internal struggle and just doing her best.

Right after that, as I was preparing for my ARCT diploma, the crushing weight of that high-pressure piano world (and everything else surrounding it) finally caught up to me. I had a nervous breakdown, and fell to my knees sobbing in my parents' bedroom in the kind of explosive exhale that only happens when emotions have been bottled up for years. I remember feeling like my entire world had ended, and telling them I quit piano completely. None of us were equipped to hold, express, or regulate emotions, so we all did our best to move past them and talk about them as little as possible.

The truth was, about a year before that breaking point, I had already begun a secret affair with an acoustic guitar—an escape from the rigid expectations of piano that felt almost forbidden. It was absolutely thrilling precisely because it was so uncertain and I experienced such profound pleasure and play with it because there were no external demands, no pressure.

The love affair deepened fiercely when I discovered my brother’s old electric guitar and Peavey amp from his Guns N' Roses phase. The moment I learned to turn on the distortion, it was an electric shock of pure freedom—unlike anything I had ever felt. In search of a way to express and reclaim the truth of my own musical voice, I walked away from the classical bench, slung that electric guitar over my shoulder (with my yellow CAUTION tape guitar strap), and joined a punk band.

As I moved into my teens, the church halls, examination rooms, and concert stages dissolved into the raw, sweaty energy of the club circuit, writing and gigging in local bands. Exploring and playing in the shadows of bars and rock venues often underage, I experienced the rough terrain of the nightlife scene and some of the dark, slimy corners of the music industry—navigating it all as a young girl carrying hidden, unprocessed trauma.

Being highly sensitive and constantly processing intense mental and emotional information, I often felt profoundly like an alien doing my best to be accepted as a human, and exist in a "traditional" world that felt unequipped for my hypersensitive system. I was consumed with the idea that there was something wrong with me, a belief that could (and would) seduce me into bed with my shadows real quick.

Music was my armour and my battlefield, yet was also my sanctuary and my tenderness.

Constantly pulled between two opposing poles, I didn't know how to find balance in it all and navigate the internal strain it continuously demanded of me. I kept going anyway.

Somewhere along the way, my first love—the piano—effortlessly made its way back into my life. It felt like coming home, because this time, I was finally able to experience the keys in my own way. I entered the rabbithole of keyboards, synths, and sound design, which began exquisitely melting into my growing obsession with recording and producing my own music.

Of course, the path is always winding. After countless musical heartbreaks and disappointments, I found myself believing I ‘just wasn’t good enough’ and tried to escape music entirely. I entered U of T’s Life Sciences program under scholarship — turning down other top pre-med tracks because I see now that a deeper part of me Knew I had to stay close to the city's music scene, even if I wasn’t actively in it anymore. I was driven by an innate urge to help and heal people, and it was also a path heavily praised and expected of me in comparison to music. When the misalignment caused my body to literally revolt, I shifted gears, volunteering at a veterinary hospital upon acceptance to Canada's top school for aspiring veterinarians, simply because of my deep love for animals and the continued desire to help and heal.

Even when I finally allowed music back in, the pressure to follow a traditional path lingered; I almost accepted a prestigious university spot for classical piano as a way to ‘prove’ myself . But after all the twists, turns, dark nights of the soul, and existential crises (among other things), I could no longer escape the magnetic pull of the stage. Before my twenties, I walked away from academia entirely to dive headfirst into the big, fat, scary void — my very first session playing tour, which ended up leading to supporting many different bands and artists as a touring and session musician.

I did not know yet (but deep down, I know I Knew) that my decision to leap into the unknown would pave the way to experiencing the biggest dream I had at that time — being on a massive tour, on massive stages, with a massive artist, in front of massive crowds.

I was in rehearsals in LA with P!NK on my 23rd birthday (I remember she gave me 24 birthday spanks — one for good luck!), and started touring internationally with her on keys, guitar, and backing vocals, getting to perform on arena and stadium stages, private shows, and appearing on television shows around the world. Over the years, I had also been continuing to channel my creativity (bringing with me my lifelong passion for writing, poetry and story-telling) into the delicious world of songwriting, building a rich (and ever-growing!) catalog, including writing for J-pop superstar Kumi Koda.

Then… life continued to life. 

During rehearsals with P!NK, right before the very first show on that massive tour, my mother left her human body. The ground completely cracked open beneath my feet. I missed the first two performances to be at her funeral, but by the third show, I was on a stage at an arena in Rotterdam in front of my first crowd of over ten thousand people.

Standing on the world's biggest stages while carrying that level of heavy, suffocating grief—compounded by my own quiet, lifelong struggles with mental health and trauma-related survival—eventually invited (mmm…no, DEMANDED) me into a reckoning. That collision initiated a deep descent into personal development, wellness, somatics, yoga, energetics, and spirituality. I had to learn how to inhabit my skin in a completely new way, or I literally would not have continued to live. 

I moved beyond the external noise of arena and stadium stages into the quiet landscape of nervous system restoration, diving into all types of therapies and healing work. Those seasons shaped me and still continue to shape me into a mentor who knows, intimately, that

A creative career is only as strong as the human being inside it.

I was born with a highly sensitive ear and have also spent a lifetime fine-tuning and developing it. These days, very little slips by me technically or energetically. I can feel and hear an artist's "blind spots" immediately—areas where they are straining, holding, or trapped in their head—often before they even realize it themselves, and I have a way saying the exact thing that can shift the direction of their entire musical and life experience.

When I work with artists, the human always comes first — I just can’t help it. Unlike traditional lessons that are often only based on a standard curriculum of theory and technique, I intentionally pull pieces from my wealth of knowledge that I Know intuitively will cause the most profound shifts. It may be pitch in one person, it may be rhythm in another. It may be fear of visibility, or perhaps an unconscious habit of pushing to sing loudly as a way to prove themselves. All of these energetic pieces undeniably manifest in the instrument of the body, so areas of tension or holding directly affect the quality of tone and sound that is expressed, even if the mind tries so hard to make something different happen. We cannot think our way past our bodies. (Believe me, I have tried.)

This is why I am fascinated with diving beyond the surface in the areas that artists feel pulled to explore and expand, because the technical tools and techniques become way more effective. Also, every individual has what I call their signature artistic frequency — from the way they express, to the way they experience the world, how they learn and grow — the same thing that is medicine for one person can be poison for another.

I learned, and continue to refine in my own life how to maintain a sustaining, resilient, authentically expressed life as an artist—not by bypassing the high sensations that occur when living inside an energetically sensitive body, but by learning that I can, and how to hold them. 

I’ve always found a home for two opposing visceral desires in my body through music: the safety in the yang structure, solidity, and the grid-like mathematical logic of rhythm and pattern that allows me to unravel and blossom creatively into my yin softness of freedom, flow, and play. Music is always teaching me life lessons. It’s all connected — being an artist does not exist in a vacuum.

This is why I do what I do. These are only a taste of the experiences I have had, and I believe that the way my life has unfolded and continues to unfold is no accident. It has initiated me into having the capacity to anchor and hold space in a way that only someone who has been through it and lived to tell the tale can, battle scars and all. The biggest lesson this journey of almost four decades has taught me is that

It was never just about the craft, but who I AM inside it.

Becoming a mother only expanded that truth—it softened me, deepened my connection to something greater, and fiercely re-anchored what truly matters. It gave me the courage to fully embody the frequency I now hold inside the studio and across my entire life: grounded in safety, trusting in my intuitive gifts, and devoted to riding the waves of the unknown. I remain an active artist myself—performing, writing, producing, releasing, creating—whatever feels most alive. Forever devoted to the craft, and forever embodying my Truth.

And whenever someone feels the pull toward their own Truth, I am here for that conversation.