Meet Gaby
J Henderson
Gaby (pictured left) is 15, lives in Miami, and is passionate about writing music. She reads all her books online and has a great sense of humor. When she leaves school she would love to pursue a career in music, and so she is wasting no time and already has herself a manager, Kayla (pictured right). Gaby was one of the first readers of TCOM and loved the story so much she wrote a song about Esme, the main character!
In a lot of ways she reminds me of myself. My name is Jess, I’m a composer and I had the pleasure of writing the score for The Color of Music. The very first song I ever wrote was a song inspired by The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S Lewis. At the age of 8, I was so moved by the story of Aslan and Lucy that I HAD to write my own thoughts down. It was probably one of my earliest fantasy fiction obsessions, there have been MANY since and I think it was the first time I felt completely carried away and swept up in a story. The adventure, the magic and the ESCAPE. I definitely spent a lot of time in my own imagination.
Sadly (or thankfully as I don’t think it was any good) I don’t remember any of the song, and I have no record of it but from that day I fell in love with storytelling through music. I remember showing it to my dad (who is also a songwriter) and being so proud when he recorded it for me. Who could have predicted that writing songs would end up becoming my career path? Although it would be a few more years until I wrote a song I was ready to share with the rest of the world, without a doubt, a seed of creativity was planted that moment at the age of 8.
It was also one of the reasons I was so drawn to this project. TCOM is a story of a young girl who gets literally carried away by the music of the band to places she never dreamed of. I can definitely relate to that! The spirit of empathy and CREATIVITY is at the heart of this project and we love to see artists like Gaby being inspired to create. So check out the lyrics to her original song inspired by the emotional moment Esme realized she wouldn’t see her parents again, Beyond Cold. She has also sent us the track that she wrote the melody to. Maybe you could write your own song to the instrumental!
So get to creating! You never know where it could take you.
