Music is a powerful form of storytelling, conveying narratives through melody, rhythm and lyrics, without the need for spoken words. Famous Spanish cellist and composer Pablo Casals once said that “music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.” If you ask Pine Crest alumna Alexis Kesselman ’15 her opinion, she would be in full agreement.
“I’ve always been interested in music. I’ve been writing songs ever since I understood what music was, and I realized that I could share my stories that way. We had a baby grand piano in our house and I would tinker around on it and come up with all sorts of things,” she says.
New to Pine Crest as a second grader, Alexis started piano lessons with former Pine Crest music teacher Mr. Doug Evers in the third grade. “The thing with lessons was that the focus was always on learning specific material and entering competitions to perform that material. But I was much more interested in writing original songs, and once Mr. Evers realized that I had a knack for it and was consistently improving, thankfully, he was open to me exploring that,” Alexis recalls.
She continued to immerse herself in the arts where she could. “I was always in choir. I was in Ms. Jan Hinton’s class for music, and she would write songs and plays for the Lower School students. I always thought that was so cool because it was the first time I realized that someone’s job could be to write songs, and I told myself that maybe I could do the same one day. She was very inspirational.”
Alexis received steady support from her arts teachers, like her choir teacher Mr. Michael Testa. “As time went on, I would incorporate music into my school work any way I could. If there was an open-ended project, despite the subject, I would write a song about it, because it just made sense to tell the story that way, and my teachers were always very encouraging,” she says.
As senior year drew closer, Alexis recalls feeling conflicted about her path forward. “My friends and I were all really strong students, and we were all striving to get into Ivy League schools for college. We made plans to be doctors and lawyers and do the kind of big things that are expected of you as a Pine Crest graduate; but I also knew that I loved music and I wasn’t willing to give that up. I wanted to go to a top school, but I wasn’t sure how to proceed with the music,” she explains.
It took Alexis and her involvement in an extracurricular activity to help her identify the potential in her passion. “I was taking Music Theory AP, and I was still in the choir, but I also joined PCTV. I was involved in the narrative side of filmmaking, and some of the other students I worked with started asking me if I’d be willing to write music for their films. That was when I became intrigued with film scoring.”
After a lot of deliberating as a senior, Alexis landed at the University of Miami (UM) Frost School of Music. “It was a unique experience at the Frost School. I think it opened me up musically, and gave me the opportunity to be surrounded by all these people who wrote songs, which wasn’t an environment I had ever been in before. It was surreal being around so many like-minded people. It allowed me to learn a lot about my songwriting and even more importantly, production,” Alexis says.
“I learned about music production while I was there,” she continues, “but what stood out even more was that there were very few female producers. I wanted to challenge that. College was also the first time I had someone tell me that my work was well suited for the theater, because it was very story-structured. Suddenly, I had this idea that I wanted to work in musical theater, film scoring and pop production.”
Just after graduating from UM in 2019, Alexis explains that her parents weren’t necessarily the biggest fans of her plan to move to L.A. and “make it big in Hollywood.”
“They preferred that I start a Master's program, so I looked into some programs in New York, but instinctively I knew that I needed to be in L.A. making music, networking and getting into as many rooms as possible.”
Just as Alexis started to gain momentum, meeting more people and existing fully in her music, the global pandemic took effect. “COVID happened and basically shut the world down,” recalls Alexis. “So I left L.A. and moved back to Florida for months. I was doing my best to keep the momentum I had built, but I got more nervous as time drew on. It’s really difficult to write songs and produce music over Zoom!”
Wondering if perhaps music just wouldn’t sustain her, Alexis began seriously entertaining the idea of post graduate schooling in something more practical, like law. “Just when I thought I was going to have to take the GRE, a song I had written over Zoom was chosen to be on the soundtrack for one of the Spongebob movies.” “F is for Friends” written by Becky G, Tainy and Trevor Daniel, became the first big song Alexis worked on. “That was validating, and felt like a good step forward,” she says.
“After that, I had a few other songs come out with smaller artists, and then I started posting original work on TikTok. One of those songs got 1.8 million views, and people began asking me when the song was going to be released. So in three weeks time, I got it mixed and mastered and managed to film a music video for it,” Alexis says.
Despite experiencing some mild success, Alexis felt like there was still something missing. “I just felt like I could go deeper, so in 2021, I applied to the Master of Arts in Creative Media and Technology program at Berklee College in New York City, with a focus in Writing and Design for Musical Theater.”
Ironically, the very same week that Alexis got accepted into the program at Berklee NYC, she also received a publishing deal at Warner Chappell Music. “I was torn and wanted to do both,” she says, “so I did. I signed with them and also moved to NYC to get my masters degree. I even co-wrote my first musical, loosely based on my own professional journey, called ‘Through the Frame.’”
As Alexis continued to make strides in New York, she was just three weeks from graduation at Berklee NYC when she caught another big break. “A song called ‘Glimpse of Us’ that I’d co-written while still in L.A. for an artist named Joji went number one on Spotify U.S. and Spotify Global, and landed at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.”
That success kickstarted the momentum Alexis picked up after leaving grad school, and suddenly she found herself fully immersed in the industry. “Warner Chappell wanted me to hit the ground running, especially on the heels of ‘Glimpse of Us,’ so I was flying all over the world, in and out of different studios, getting calls from producers I had always admired, and working with all these incredible artists. It was pretty surreal,” she says.
With several projects on the horizon, like the first full album she produced on her own with an artist named Lydia Night, Alexis has worked consistently in all the formats she has sought out: theater, film score and pop production. “It’s a balance,” she continues, “but my biggest focus remains showing up for myself as a producer, and making sure to position myself in rooms where my merit is acknowledged and not overlooked simply because I’m a woman.”
As Alexis continues to navigate what can be a fickle industry, she is confident in her ability to pivot, find the next thing and figure out how to make it work, a skill set that she attributes largely to her Pine Crest education. “Pine Crest taught me how to hold myself to a high standard, and how to adapt regardless of the challenges I may face. Because of that, I trust that no matter what path I take, I will find success.”