A little about me…

Hello! My name is Anissa Clay Zelaya, and I am the founder of The Swole Soprano. I have been a voice teacher for 5+ years and a voice student for 15+ years. I founded The Swole Soprano with one mission in mind: to help singers grow more confident in their bodies and their vocal technique.

I began to develop my teaching philosophy while attaining my Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from Baldwin Wallace University (Berea, OH). I learned about the anatomy of the voice and discovered how to give my all on stage while allowing my technique to support me. This came with many challenges. COVID-19 greatly impacted the sophomore and junior years of my degree. I performed my entire junior with undiagnosed Grave’s disease and spent my senior year and graduate school auditions recovering from it. That brought with it uncomfortable weight gain. I could not practice for longer than a half-hour without losing my voice. My muscles were weak, which caused my technique to fall from under me. 

Once I began to recover from my thyroid disease, I decided to get in shape. This came with its own challenges, since weight lifting for singers was taboo at the time. I needed to make sure I could get stronger without negatively impacting my voice. I found out in time that, instead of harming me, weight training and cardio only made me a stronger performer. I have found strength training and stretching to be paramount to the advancement of my vocal technique.

I couldn’t keep this to myself. So in 2022, I obtained a personal training certification from ACE fitness, I received my BM in Voice Performance and an emphasis in Voice Pedagogy, and I started working with singers. I found that most of my clients struggled with the fundamentals of proper vocal technique: breath and alignment. Without proper connection to their breath and their instruments as a whole, their singing and performance suffered. After I began training them, I began to see the change within them that I found in myself. And it was exhilarating. 

I found such a love with the human body and the role each body part plays in the act of singing. This holistic thinking of the body became integral to my teaching philosophy. I discovered that to sing properly, one must have no muscular imbalances and be strong throughout the entire body to produce a free and beautiful tone. With proper breathing throughout lifting, strength training can be immensely beneficial to a student’s control of the body and breath. 

I continued to incorporate the skills I learned as a trainer to singers in the studio. While receiving my Masters of Music in Voice Performance at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), I worked with beginners all the way up to advanced singers on their repertoire, always bringing it back to breath and alignment. My students received auditions, roles in their school musicals, and thunderous applause in their performances. 

While receiving my MM, I began to “body build” in a different way. I became pregnant and had my son while singing the lead in the opera and winning vocal competitions. Seeing the change of my body from pregnancy to postpartum has shown me what incredible things our instruments can do. From having no space to breathe to recovering the strength of my abdominal wall, I had to build it all again. But this time, I had my tools in the weight room and the practice room to get me back. I was able to sing a masterclass for Reneé Fleming while eight weeks postpartum and the lead in the opera five months later. None of this would have been possible without my breathing and alignment foundation.

No matter what I sing, from my operatic arias to jazz solos to songs from my favorite musicals, my technique is there to allow me to perform with my whole heart. 

And that’s what I want for you.

Whether you’re a novice who just sings in the car, wanting to finally get a role in your school musical, or setting your sights on the Met stage, I want to help you discover your unique instrument.