Vivienne Aerts

“The staggeringly versatile skill-set of NYC-based Dutch Singer, Educator, Psychologist and Artist-preneur Vivienne Aerts busts myths around the ‘Jill of all trades’ paradigm with a nonchalance that leaves even the most skeptical purist taking a bow. A practicing clinical psychologist and choir conductor in Europe before she went on to be a Fulbright scholar and Suma Cum Laude Berklee graduate, her collaborators since have included some of the most iconic names in the world of jazz. Her eclectic ‘experience’ events in collaboration with her husband, renowned pastry chef Ted Steinebach was the root of her multi-disciplinary approach to the making of her new album, ‘Typuhthâng’, which not just features a 100 female musicians from around the globe, but also comes with a bar of bean-to-bar chocolate from Original Beans Chocolate, a company that pro-actively empowers female cacao farmers of Virunga State Park in Congo. Besides this, she is a voting member of the Grammy Recording Academy and a faculty member at Berklee College of Music where she has been instrumental in building a new generation of performers who are not only skilled musicians but also mentally and physically healthy individuals. The Fulbright scholar is known for addressing core issues artists and educators alike have been grappling with unnoticed for generations: mental health, well-being, and the hamster-wheel effect the neglect of the same threatens to have on the arts eco-system. With side-notes of entrepreneurship for the artist, disparities between European and North American attitudes towards education, and chocolate.”