Jennifer Moss’s journey with music is not a typical one. For starters, touring Australia as part of children’s entertainment group Incy Wincy is not the first place you’d expect to find a classically trained opera singer. “It was a quantum leap from the operatic stage and I absolutely adored it. It was like I’d be given permission to go out and have lots of fun.”

Introduced on her website as a Singer, Dancer, Strummer, Drummer and Instigator of Joy, fun is what Jennifer strives to bring to music. Talking about her involvement with The Baby Proms at the Auckland Philharmonic, where she introduced the orchestra to five year olds, she says, “Frame it in a way that’s fun, then it’s educational without them knowing it.” In Jennifer’s practice, that philosophy is applied to all of her students – whether they’re 9 or 90, and it pays off.

“Thank you so much for what you do. Without you my life would be grey.” This was a note to Jennifer from one of the members of her community choir - from which the tagline for Jennifer Moss Music, “Colouring Lives With Music” was born.

Now based in Palmerston North, Jennifer runs the Manawatu Community Choir. At the first meeting, she says that she hoped for 25 – and was overwhelmed to see a line of 85 people waiting to come in the door. She had a similar response when she started a ukulele group. “There’s a huge need. It’s a safe place for people to explore. It’s a very different learning experience to what people are used to – they don’t get told off, it’s fast paced, fun and positive.”

“99% of the population have had a negative experience with music – singing especially. They’ve been ridiculed in some way, by a teacher, or most often by a family member and it’s been taken on board. My task is to undo this.”

Reality television shows, Jennifer says, are causing so much damage through spotlighting aspiring singers being put down and humiliated just for having a go.

“When someone says to me, ‘I can’t sing’ – I don’t take that on board. It’s a very fine line between talking and singing and your voice sounds fine to me I say.”

In an effort to further celebrate and normalize singing, Jennifer is launching “Palmy Sings for 30 Days” on October 21, which also happens to be World Singing Day. Hosted on Facebook, every day for 30 days, she will post a video of a Palmerston North person or persons singing. “Not a 'performance'...just everyday people...singing.”

In a recent Radio New Zealand article on The lifelong implications of telling children they can’t sing, Northwestern University choral music expert Steven Demorest warned about turning singing into a competitive pursuit instead of a fun, social activity, through requiring students as young as seven to audition for school choirs. “Those who are not successful feel a sense of rejection,” he says. “All young children naturally respond to music and we should be encouraging musical and vocal exploration.”

Jennifer worries about this, that music is not emphasised enough in New Zealand schools, and that children aren’t being exposed to real music. “Teachers are so overloaded, and unless they have a particular passion for music, it’s just not a priority.” Playing the drum and ukulele for kindergarten children, Jennifer says there have been times where the children have never seen or heard those instruments played before.

Recalling her own learning experiences, Jennifer grew up in a very musical family and never had a negative experience with music. “I remember watching my primary school music teacher sing one day and thought, ‘I want to do that!’ I was nurtured and empowered to do anything I wanted.”

Continuing the nurturing, empowering, and encouraging elements of her own musical experience is at the essence of Jennifer’s business. Talking about the transformative effect this approach has on people, she says that it is almost like therapy. “They’re having fun and just letting go.”

Jennifer’s musical journey has seen her singing in Sydney’s Opera House, travelling Australia with a children’s entertainment group, writing award-winning children’s albums, working with the Auckland Philharmonic, and now teaching singing, ukulele, community choir, African drumming and dance.

While African drumming seems light years away from opera singing, Jennifer found her first drumming experience was like coming home. “I just couldn’t stop crying.” She described the very primal and therapeutic nature of the genre, and says that down the track she often sees some form of semi-life change in her drumming students. “You can see people really processing experiences and memories – it’s a great right and left brain exercise.”

“It’s a real honour to pass these tools of transformation on to people.”

Falling completely in love with African drumming and dance, Jennifer has recently begun taking tours to Ghana. In 2016 she took a group of drumming enthusiasts for 16 nights, where they participated in drumming and dance classes each day. “It was phenomenal. Life changing in so many ways. You can explain till you’re blue in the face about why they play and dance they way they do, but it’s not until you actually see it yourself that the penny drops.”

Creating a thriving music business in a town that has often been overlooked and under rated is no easy feat, nor is surviving and thriving as a musician in New Zealand. While she admits to a few flops along the way, Jennifer says “I’ve got very good at making my own work and opportunities.” Acknowledging that life as artist here can be an isolating and lonely road, and in an attempt to give back and contribute Jennifer hosts the Facebook groups Palmy Arts, Palmy Sings, and Palmy Drums where artists can share, collaborate and ask for help.

“Palmerston North is a really buzzy town – to the point where you find it hard to get to everything, there’s so much on. The arts community here is very vibrant.”