About Olivia
Due in great part to the inspiration of some outstanding teachers and guides, Olivia De Jesús (she/they) is passionate about guiding others to find and strengthen their own expression and sense of self through music, mind, and body as well as their sense of belonging in loving, accountable community.
Olivia has lived her life singing, searching, and settling into her skin. She’s had the privilege of traveling the world (inner as well as outer) and continues to find her sense of self in the divine as well as the mundane (one and the same, one and the same). Among other things, she identifies as a cis, queer, white-appearing multiracial, latine, auto-immune disabled human being…with muppet-like tendencies.
Credentials:
Olivia holds a bachelors of music education from the music conservatory at Baldwin-Wallace University and a masters of early childhood music education from the University of South Carolina. Olivia has taught music at every level, from interactive MusicPlay classes for infants and their caregivers, to university music education classes. She has worked and volunteered as a music educator both in the United States as well as internationally in Dubai, Bali, and Buenos Aires. Her methods are influenced by Gordon’s Music Learning Theory and vocal improvisation giants Bobby McFerrin and Rhiannon. She holds 3 levels of certification from Gordon Institute of Music Learning (GIML), has attended 3 levels in Jeanie Lovetri’s Somatic Voicework ™ method, and completed a year-long vocal improvisation course called All The Way In with Rhiannon in 2018.
Olivia is a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner and a 200 hour registered yoga teacher (RYT). She is trained in mindfulness education from Mindful Schools and has a background in Vipassana meditation taught by S.N. Goenka as well as other forms of mindfulness and self-inquiry practice as taught by Ramana Maharshi, Gangaji, and Eckhart Tolle. She is part of the learning lineage of Thea Lee and Tommy Woon which focuses on neuroliberation, decolonization, and peacemaking. She has trained in Loving Conflict work with Char Azad. Resmaa Menakem’s Somatic Abolitionism movement is also an important influence on Olivia’s anti-oppression work.
Olivia has worked previously under the concept MusicaEntera and still uses the brand in her work from time to time. She lives and works from San Antonio, Texas.
