Berks' Best 2023 Performing Arts winner Denise Jade Jean discovers her voice in Daniel Boone choir
May 19—Suffice it to say, Denise Jade Jean, or DJ, as she is known, found her voice — in more ways than one — performing in the choir at Daniel Boone High School.
Having endured a troubled childhood that ultimately landed her in foster care a couple of years back, DJ says she was as likely to fight you as friend you during freshman year. But all that began to change when she joined choir, where she discovered the joys of working with others instead of against them. Sixty voices united as one will have that effect on you.
As recently as junior year, it wasn't a given that DJ would graduate. But not only will she don the Blazer blue cap and gown come June, she'll have an extra feather in that cap as the Berks' Best 2023 Performing Arts winner.
DJ's list of accolades includes Outstanding Rookie Award (Choir), PMEA District 10 singer (2022 and 2023), PMEA Region V Singer (2022), Berks Senior County Choir singer (2023) and Tri-M Music Honor Society. She also was captain of the color guard the past two years, played in band and has remained active in theater. She has a role in the upcoming production of "Head Over Heels" at the Yocum Institute for Arts Education.
But just as importantly, she emerged as a leader and role model for this year's freshmen, which she never could have imagined three years ago.
"I struggled everywhere because I was dealing with so much at home, and I hadn't really found my thing to help me get through it," she said. "So I was a very angry person, and I wasn't someone you could have a conversation with. It wouldn't have worked."
Today, she comes off as bright, outgoing and engaging. She laughs easily, as when she tells you she wasn't much of a singer in the beginning, then adds, when asked how that's going now, "I think I'm pretty all right."
She plans to attend the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she will study vocal performance with an eye toward a master's degree in music education.
During her audition there, she brought one of the faculty members to tears with her rendition of "She Used To Be Mine" from the musical "Waitress." She said she picked the song, about a battered wife looking back on her earlier years, because she could relate to it.
"For me, it's the parallel feeling of being unable to go back to the life you had before you experienced traumatic events," she said.
Ultimately, DJ would like to be a high school choir director and color guard leader, and maybe even a band leader (she plays guitar, ukulele and piano), and give future students opportunities similar to the ones that turned her own life around.
She says she owes a debt of gratitude to Amy Heck, a life skills instructor at Daniel Boone, who took her under her wing in her junior year and helped her get up to speed academically and apply to colleges. DJ doesn't even remember how they met; she just knows that without Mrs. Heck, she wouldn't be where she is today.
"She wasn't required to do so; she wasn't my teacher," DJ said. "Out of the kindness of her heart, she was like, 'Let's just figure it out.' And we did. If I had not come across Mrs. Heck, I would not be going to college."
