Interview: Heavenly Reyna

Heavenly Reyna

Interview By: Emily May | Photo by: Jeanne Dee

Using her music as a cultural bridge to bring people together, LA-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Heavenly Reyna was raised in 48 countries as her family traveled the globe and documented their adventures as travel bloggers. She began violin lessons at 23 months, piano lessons at 3 years old, started writing songs at 4, and began her travels at the age of 5. Having grown up in a musically rich environment, Heavenly was a lover of music in the womb. Raised in a trilingual household, speaking and crafting songs in English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese, she cultivated her musical skills throughout different cultures during her worldly travels. She has been called a “prodigy” and a “phenom”, having wowed crowds across many cultures with her incredible musical talent. Heavenly shot a lead in two movies and a pilot that was released in 2020 and sings 5 of her songs in one of the movies. She did a TED Talk, starred in the Brat series “The Talent Show”, won a Best Actress Award for her dramatic lead in the film “Rose”, was featured next to Ariana Grande in her “God Is a Woman” music video, appeared on MTV songwriting with Bebe Rexha, featured singer in Halsey’s as well as Lindsey Stirling’s documentaries, and won several film festival awards for writing/filmmaking/editing her Music Videos of her original songs. She played a lead in a TV series pilot and is working on her debut EP with Grammy-winning producer Mikal Blue. Having gone by the moniker of Mozart Dee for her childhood and young adult life, she is thrilled to now be releasing music under her name-Heavenly Reyna. She has done extensive live performances around the world at such venues as Carnegie Hall, House of Blues, Disney Hall, Six Flags, Four Seasons Hotels, Royce Hall, and Hilton Hotels and is a winner in the International Songwriting Competition and winner in the Unsigned Artist songwriting competition. Although the pandemic was hard on many in the music industry, Heavenly became a partner with Twitch TV, which has helped her to move forward with her music career despite industry restrictions over the past year and a half, as well as grow an intensely loyal fan base. With more music, music videos, and an EP on the way, Heavenly Reyna is certainly an artist to watch! You can connect with Heavenly Reyna via the following links.

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | SPOTIFY | SOUNDCLOUD | ITUNES/APPLE MUSIC | YOUTUBE | LINKED IN | TWITCH TV | TIKTOK

You have said that you were born with a love of music, learning the violin at the age of 23 months and the piano at 3. You also grew up in a trilingual home and traveled the world with your parents starting at the age of 5 and performed and sang in many different countries. What can you tell me about your childhood and how world travel and different cultural immersions have affected you personally and musically?

I have always loved music. My mom says I even kicked in time to the music when I was in the womb! Growing up trilingual and traveling the world as a digital nomad with my family was unique and wonderful, but it seemed perfectly normal to me at the time. It is all I had known. My mom went to weekly community singing sessions for pregnant women and we went to music classes when I was three months old as well as Kindermusik classes as a baby. I grew up in a very musically rich environment and loved going to concerts even as a toddler. I started learning the violin at two years old because all the kids in my neighborhood played violin and we had an amazing local teacher who taught everyone. Seeing everyone else play made me want to do it as well and I was lucky enough that the teacher let me start early a few years early. I had an innovative piano teacher as well. Sometimes it was challenging taking a piano around the world with me but we had a full digital keyboard in our small camper van. Finding child-size violins in foreign countries, shopping in different languages, and finding people that would teach online when Skype was just starting to be used was also tough. But music was important to me, even at five years old, so when we started traveling non-stop around the world, we found ways to adapt. Being around such enriching global environments and having the freedom to explore and listen to all kinds of local music definitely impacted me greatly.

You started writing songs at the age of 4 and became really serious and prolific about songwriting when you were 10. What drew you to songwriting and how do you feel it has evolved for you over the years?

My mom says I just always really liked to write and make up songs. When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I was enrolled in a Kindermusik writing music class because I was really interested in creating music. That taught me some basics really early on. I really didn't like rote learning that is typical with classical piano training, so I studied with a jazz piano teacher whose method helped me get to know chords and expand on the basics of creating music. That was my passion even as a little kid. I got even more passionate about creating music and writing songs around 10 years old. I was living in Asia where I did a lot of karaoke, and I joined a choir at my local Chinese school. When I was 13, I was accepted to the same music school program that trained Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez in Dallas. There I worked with many songwriting teachers who helped teach me the craft of songwriting and song creation. I was also lucky enough to have many opportunities to perform in some amazing venues. From that point on, I’ve really just learned by doing. I’ve worked with some amazing professionals in L.A. and around the world and I am thrilled that some of my songs are in movies and on TV. I have more than 100 unreleased songs, and I just keep creating!

From 1st-4th grade, you traveled around Europe with your parents for 7 months out of each year and lived in a village in Spain for the other 3 months. What can you tell me about that time for you and how did spending so much time in Spain help you to connect with your Spanish roots?

I love, love, love Spain and I am really grateful that I was able to spend so much time there growing up. I would not have such a deep connection to my Hispanic heritage, language, and culture if I had not grown up there, going to school in a local Andalusian village. My roots are there and also Barcelona, where I spent much time every summer. Flamenco dancing starting at five years old and participating in all the amazing community and cultural holidays and events that the whole village participates in really became ingrained in my consciousness on so many levels. I went back when I did my 10-city European tour, and it was as if time stood still and I never left. That village girl, and that village life, lives within me no matter where I am, and I think you can hear it when I sing in Spanish!

At the age of 12, you and your family moved back to the US when you were presented with the opportunity to star in your own tv show about travel, leading you all to travel more around the country to get to know your home country better. What was that experience like for you and having been abroad for so many years, what was it like for you to travel around and become familiar with the US? Was it easy to adjust?

I think I adjusted fairly quickly as we stopped every two years in our travels to stay at my grandma’s house in California. I had stayed connected to those friends even as I traveled. With the internet, I could stay connected with various friends around the world even when I was traveling in another country. I love traveling and exploring new places, be it another country or across the U.S. Some of it was a cultural shock, but I adapt quickly to new environments, and it was wonderful to travel all over the U.S. and finally see it. I was almost 13 when I traveled across the U.S. and had been living in Malaysia before we returned. SE Asia is a very different lifestyle and environment, but I think it was the perfect age for me to explore my home country.

Aside from singing, you also act. What led you into acting and what can you tell me about the films you have been in and what you enjoy about acting? What was it like for you to win a best actress award for your role in 'Rose', as well as getting to feature 5 of your songs in 'Fame At A Deadly Cost'?

I fell into acting by accident. My first acting job was for a Japanese TV show. I met the producer and film crew in Croatia, and they asked me to be a part of the show. Then, when I was performing my song “Ashes” on the violin at a GRAMMY night gala, a casting director saw me. She was casting the movie Rose, where the lead was a teen who is a violin prodigy. She and the director ended up casting me in the role which I ended up winning an award for! That was definitely when the “acting bug” bit me. I really enjoy acting and really love doing films. I love that acting and songwriting are collaborative efforts. It is hard sometimes to juggle both careers, as they both take a tremendous amount of time and effort, but I do love them both. I also love when I can combine both like I did in Fame at a Deadly Cost. I had the best director, cast, and crew, and they ended up using five of my original songs!

You recently were made partner at Twitch Music. With the music industry having been so devastated during the pandemic, what can you tell me about your partnership with Twitch and finding ways to move forward with your music despite the restrictions? How have you utilized an online presence to grow your career and gain a loyal fan base?

I absolutely adore Twitch and my community there! The music industry and the film/TV industry were devastated because of the pandemic, like so many other industries. It was very hard for me because I live with my parents who are high risk, so I felt very isolated and sad that I wasn’t able to connect with friends or perform. Finding Twitch really was a lifesaver! It is really hard work, with really long hours where I’m singing. It is very tech-heavy to get started and I had a lot of challenges in the beginning, but I stuck with it. I started going viral on it and just broke over 2 million channel views, which is crazy. I have found the most amazing, supporting community and friends there. I've also been working with producers around the world from my tiny bedroom studio, so that has me stretched thin, but I am grateful to have found new ways to connect to the world and create and perform music. Twitch allows me to be my quirky self and I love the chat because I can connect with people in real-time.

Having performed live many times throughout your life, what was it like for you to adapt to livestreaming instead?

Livestreaming music is so different from performing live in many ways. I didn't really like livestreaming at first, but I had only tried it a few times on Instagram. The pandemic made me push past that resistance and try Twitch. I didn’t really have any real equipment when I started, just my mac webcam. I kept trying and met some really generous people on Twitch who believed in me and helped me. Now, I have so many deep bonds with my Twitch family, and I think I like livestreaming more than any other way of performing – or at least as much as performing in person! There is a special intimacy to connect virtually, partly because of the chat aspect and partly because the audience chooses the song choices. Sometimes mistakes are part of her performance – especially with “live learns” - and I’m a perfectionist, so that was hard for me at first. Being live for many hours, five times a week, and learning new songs in many new genres, will lead to mistakes. I think making mistakes in public and still being supported by my audience has been very healing for me. Performing on a livestream is very vulnerable in many ways and long hours can be a challenge vocally, especially when you can’t rehearse everything, but that spontaneous and close connection makes it very special.

What can you tell me about your new show Dark Springs that you created on Tik Tok with 3-time Emmy winner Bernie Su? How did you meet Bernie and come to work with him?

I met Bernie when I auditioned for his award-winning Twitch show "Artificial." I got called back, but ultimately didn’t end up getting that job – but Bernie and I hit it off, stayed in touch, and then co-created Dark Springs! Right now, Dark Springs is on hiatus, but it was so much fun making it as it’s completely interactive.

You have also received acclaim for your music videos! How would you describe your process in creating your music videos and what inspires your approach to and ideas for them?

Yes, I have! It’s really exciting because I do them on no budget, don’t have much experience as a director, or have really had professional filming equipment! Like my songs, my music videos just pop in my head and then I have to figure out how I can do what I want to do with no money! That is the biggest challenge.

You recently released your new acoustic single "EXIT." What can you tell me about the song, as well as it being your first single released under your birth name? What led you to decide to stop performing as Mozart and start performing as Heavenly Reyna?

“EXIT” is a quirky breakup ballad that compares a traffic jam to the moment in a relationship where you realize it is not going anywhere in a cathartic and empowering way. My Twitch audience loves the song and urged me to release it. I had always wanted to use my real name, rather than my nickname, but “Mozart” was used to protect my identity when I was younger as I have been a public person since the age of five. Now that I am older, I am thrilled to be going by my real name Heavenly Reyna - it feels so right!

What has the experience been like for you to work with Grammy-winning producer Mikal Blue on your upcoming EP? What can your fans expect from the EP?

I really love working with Mikal Blue! He is a very talented and supportive artist and producer. I think my fans will love my upcoming singles as I’ve been very busy and have a lot of songs I want to release, but I’d love to work on releasing the EP in the near future as well!

What's next for you?

The next step is creating the produced, official version of “EXIT” and doing the proper music video. I have some big surprises in store and already have the next two songs ready to go!