Indie Spotlight: Mary-Jess

Hey, Mary-Jess! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today! For those who don’t know you yet, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got started in music.

Thank you for inviting me! 

     I am a Contemporary Classical soprano from the UK and my career started when I won the Chinese version of ‘The X Factor’ in Nanjing, China. This then led to me recording my debut album with Decca, being invited to sing the lyric version of the theme from Downton Abbey for three of the Official Soundtrack Albums, and being appointed representative of the UK Government's ‘GREAT Britain Campaign’ in 144 countries by No. 10 Downing Street and The Foreign Office.

Amazing! You not only started learning Mandarin in your teens, but even moved to China to keep learning! Where did the initial desire to learn Mandarin stem from?

     My Grandma gave me an amazing piece of advice, she said: ‘You must have more than one string to your bow’. She was a florist and a hairdresser, my Mum is a florist and a seamstress, and now I’m a singer and I speak Mandarin Chinese. 

     Initially, I thought that Chinese would be an incredible second string. I went on to study Western Classical Music with Mandarin Chinese at Sheffield University, and then at Nanjing University in China, but I didn’t realize at the time that it would be the most amazing unique selling point. As of right now, I’m the only soprano in the UK who can deliver a full show in Mandarin Chinese.

Your grandma sounds like a smart woman! I understand that you come from a long line of singers! With your grandmother and mother being in music, did you always know that you would be too?

     I always knew that I was going to be a recording artist. I didn’t know how or when it was going to happen - but it was going to happen! It was an unshakable belief. My Grandmother was a soprano soloist for local choirs and my Mum sang with rock cover bands, because of this they could see how difficult it would be to make music your full time career, so the second piece of advice they blessed me with was: ‘make the most of every single opportunity available to you’. I still try to live by that everyday.

     These include things like: YouTube, releasing singles, collaborations, and my new podcast that I launched during lockdown. I continue plugging away at these day to day, but I’m also focussing on bigger projects. For example, I recorded a live album before lock down, I plan to release it in November and then build an Ultimate Album Launch around it. When I perform, I tell all my stories and I’m no longer afraid to be vulnerable with my audience, so by the end of the show we feel like we’re very good friends. It builds a lasting connection, so if I can bring that online to my buddy system  I feel it will be a really effective way to build a lasting fanbase.

     I also plan to launch a crowdfunding pre-order campaign for the live album and a subscription based service too. Here’s hoping my business will be stronger and far more robust by the end of all this Covid rubbish!

You are a semi-recent graduate of the IndieFounder: Foundations program! Tell us a little about how Founder and Indepreneur have changed your approach to your career?  

Regular fan nurturing and engagement is something that we’re really passionate about at Indepreneur. I noticed your socials, especially YouTube, have been very consistent over the past year! How have you found the right kinds of recurring content that works for you and how has that worked for your Buddy System?

     I found the right kinds of recurring content by being very brave!

     When I was signed to Decca, they kept saying that music must fit into a box, and that people must be able to pigeonhole you. I understand what they’re saying from a marketing standpoint, but to be completely honest, I always hated that idea. 

     I grew up singing rock songs at karaokes in smokey pubs with my Mum, I love being able to sing everything, I won the show in China because I was able to sing Proud Mary one night and O Mio Babbino Caro the next, and my mind kept going back to a phrase in one of my Grandmothers old singing books:

“The voice has the ability and the power to paint in sound the colour of human emotions”

     I thought, when have human emotions ever fitted into a nice neat little box? Never. So why should my voice?

Until, I had a huge influx of messages and comments from fans saying:

     "Wow I never knew you could sing like that!’"

     “That’s my favourite song too!”

     “We have far more in common than I thought!”

     It was that last message that really flicked a switch in me. After that, I started putting up a huge variety of content from my favourite jazz standards, more of the rock songs I sang with my Mum, and even non-musical content like restoring a vintage dress and sharing my love of slow fashion. I always share why I love these things, why they are important to me, and instead of scaring fans away, it’s just shown that we have far more in common than we ever thought and it’s really strengthened our bond! I’ve opened up to them and shared more of myself, and they feel they can do the same to me now. It’s been the most wonderful thing!

     It’s also been brilliant for my business. After lots of research, I created a 20 step YouTube checklist for every time I upload a video (which includes Corrin’s Green Light Warmth Boosting!) so that I could create one piece of content per week and have it serve all my social media channels and my mailing list, and it’s made a HUGE difference.

     Fans don’t have to buy music anymore, it’s everywhere for free, so why should they give you their money? It’s because they like you, know you and want to support you. My YouTube channel has 100% helped with that!

So what is next on the horizon for you and your music that we can be looking forward to?

     Well, I have the live album coming up that I mentioned, but also some national TV appearances! 

     There’s a show on the BBC (the national broadcaster here in the UK) called Songs of Praise, normally they film congregational hymns that people can sing along to at home, but with Covid that can’t happen right now, so they invited me to sing four songs for them, including one of my own songs that I co-wrote! They have an audience of up to 2 million people, so I’m really excited about that!

     Another thing that I really want to focus on is collaborations, especially with musicians or bands outside of my genre. I’d love to let my inner rock chick out more often and create amazing collaborations in the style Nightwish or Evanescence! We could achieve a wonderful cross pollination of fan bases, I’d interview them for my podcast and we can introduce each other to our respective email lists, and combine organic tactics with Indepreneur methods to grow our fanbases with our amazing new music!