Teenage Composer, Producer of Come to feel Your Best Self Theme Tune: ‘It All Will Be OK’

When Ethan Hanzlik is not feeling very well, everybody all over him is aware of.

“We received a phone from a center university trainer a person time who requested irrespective of whether everything was Alright with Ethan,” his father, UConn trumpet professor Louis Hanzlik, claims. “We told her he appeared all correct, it’s possible a minor down, and puzzled why she was asking. She claimed he hadn’t been singing in the hallways like he usually did, because Ethan would wander about and just sing.”

Now a 17-calendar year-outdated junior at E.O. Smith Significant University, Ethan Hanzlik constantly has turned to songs irrespective of whether he was satisfied or sad, indignant or scared, annoyed or pressured. Right now, on a poor day he’ll change up Beyonce’s “Virgo’s Groove” or “Three Dots and a Dash” by the Punch Brothers to battle a funk.

Tunes has been an outlet – in considerably the exact way that it’s encouraged Louis Hanzlik, a Grammy-award winning musician and coordinator of brass and percussion in the music office, and mom Amanda Hanzlik, E.O. Smith choral director and president-elect of the American Choral Administrators Affiliation Japanese Region.

Smiles had been all all-around, then, when Sandra Chafouleas, not just the family’s neighbor but also a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in UConn’s Neag University of Education and learning, approached them with the strategy for a musical collaboration – generate and document the topic music for the Feel Your Most effective Self method she co-designed and indirectly enable younger little ones channel their feelings, identical to the way younger Ethan had uncovered to specific himself.

“It was a melody I experienced tucked absent, and I brought it back again,” Ethan states of the song that took him fewer than 10 minutes to publish. “I started from the beginning and filled in the text that they really required, for the reason that they experienced a highlighted listing of text they have been adamant I use. From there, the song designed obviously.”

Louis says that whilst Chafouleas approached the spouse and children about working on the track jointly, he and Amanda agreed the project was better suited for Ethan, who’s taken qualified music lessons on the cello, French horn, guitar, and voice and all through the pandemic added on the internet lessons in track composition.

“It’s not as intricate as my other items,” Ethan admits of the Experience Your Best Self concept that spans 1 minute, 14 seconds and is probably the shortest he’s prepared. The longest is about 5 minutes.

Chafouleas claims she and co-creator Emily Wicks, supervisor of functions and collections at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, had been targeted on crafting the scripts for 13 episodes of the puppet-centric plan and hadn’t to begin with thought of their musical choices.

“But as we acquired nearer to the shoot dates, we started out speaking about inserting audio in the beginning and at the conclude, and at first assumed we would use canned music,” she claims. “But as we talked, Emily and I didn’t feel that was quite suitable. It appeared that we ought to have audio that was particularly related to Feel Your Greatest Self.”

The two talked about phrases and tips that matched the target of the online video sequence – like “take a split,” “get some rest,” and “it’s easy” – and approached the Hanzlik family, figuring out the track would require to be a brief turnaround as filming dates neared.

“Given the undertaking now represented a collaboration in between the School of Fantastic Arts and the Neag College, it appeared natural to extend collaboration from Puppet Arts to the music office,” Chafouleas says.

“That has been just one of my most loved components of this operate,” Wicks suggests. “A power of this task has been it creating from an interdisciplinary collaboration at the College. Being equipped to develop partnerships concerning schooling, puppetry, music, and even technology has served to make this task a good results.”

Ethan made the tune in his residence recording studio introducing in a xylophone and marimba electronically. Then arrived filming it with a trio of puppets.

“They had been all crouching down below me,” Ethan says of the puppeteers. “I was seated earlier mentioned everyone else, so there was a house under where by folks could crouch and slide on scooters. It was really appealing to see the approach. The puppeteers are quite significant about their craft and it’s unbelievable how they maneuver and generate these characters out of nowhere.”

Impressed by the total procedure, Ethan suggests he’d gladly operate on an additional children’s project even while that style is nearly more challenging to make mainly because the products demands to be available, and it requires to be uncomplicated.

“It has to be some thing kids can fully grasp, and not just comprehending lyrics and text. They need to have to have an emotional knowing and emotional relationship to the audio. It requirements to be singable. Individuals melodies are catchy, they get in your brain,” Ethan claims.

Chafouleas suggests she and Wicks have obtained a lot of optimistic reviews about the topic track: “We have listened to all the things from ‘what a super sweet jingle’ to ‘my co-employee walks about buzzing it all the time’ to the tune absolutely will get ‘stuck in my head, like an earworm.’”

And that is excellent for Ethan, who expects to study music in faculty and go after a occupation in songs composition and output. Currently, he’s penned hundreds, if not 1000’s, of songs, he claims, at the very least a person a day – even for the duration of review hall.

“Recently, I had my to start with choral piece printed and it’s being premiered this March,” Ethan claims.

“And where by is it getting premiered,” his father prompts.

“It’s being premiered at Carnegie Hall with the E.O. Smith Chamber Singers,” Ethan claims, very pleased but reserved. “I’m pretty psyched to have the prospect to go there not just as a singer, but as a composer and have my piece premiered there. It is getting published by Hal Leonard, which is the premier sheet songs publishing firm in the earth. That is exactly where I’m centered, vocal arranging and output.”

It is a career in which Louis Hanzlik claims he has entire self confidence his son will excel, not just since he’s talented but also due to the fact he’s levelheaded and driven.

And in a great deal of strategies, he’s an instance of how to Sense Your Most effective Self in a human earth.

Come across far more information and facts and obtain the Come to feel Your Greatest Self elements on the web page or by subscribing to the YouTube channel.