{"id":3816,"date":"2016-08-19T10:17:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T16:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=3816"},"modified":"2016-08-19T10:17:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T16:17:07","slug":"jj-heller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/jj-heller\/","title":{"rendered":"A Candid Conversation With JJ Heller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our friend JJ Heller is doing a really cool Kickstarter project<\/a> right now.\u00a0She made a Christmas album and for every $15 she raises, she is donating an album to a hospital. She was kind enough to sit down and tell us all about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hello, Dearest – What have you been up to this summer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JJ – I’ve spent the past several months working on a new Christmas project, called \u201cUnto Us,” that I can’t wait to get into the homes of my listeners! Christmas memories are tied so strongly to the music we listen to in December, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly.<\/p>\n

HD – You also found a unique way to donate your music in a meaningful way through a <\/strong>Kickstarter campaign<\/strong><\/a>, how did that come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JJ – I made a lullaby album, called \u201cI Dream of You,\u201d in 2014. Over the past few years, my fans began telling me how the songs played an important role during their time in NICUs and children\u2019s hospitals with their children. For example, a listener recently wrote in and said:<\/p>\n

My daughter was in the NICU for a week after she was born \u2026 for the first few weeks,\u00a0your music was the only music she\u00a0would fall asleep to, or just lay and listen to. It always calmed her\u2026 like magic! I’ve loved hearing my husband sing these songs to her (makes my heart a puddle!), and the lyrics of some\u00a0have given me peace and really encouraged me through our first few weeks as new parents.<\/em><\/p>\n

Letters like this gave me the idea to donate music to patients and families in hospital environments, so I decided to partner with my fans to do just that! So for every $15 we raise in the Kickstarter campaign, I\u2019m giving a copy of \u201cI Dream of You\u201d to a hospital. So far, there are nearly 4,000 CDs marked for donation!<\/p>\n

HD – Did you expect \u201cI Dream of You\u201d to have such a meaningful purpose when you made it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JJ – Not at all! I just wanted to make some beautiful songs and sing truth over children at bedtime. It was actually very freeing to make a lullaby album since I knew there was not hope of these songs landing on the radio. It gave me the freedom to slow down and enjoy songwriting for it\u2019s own sake. I love knowing that even before the album was released, the Lord already knew how the music would calm children and encourage parents in very specific ways that I never could have anticipated. His dreams for us are often so much bigger than the ones we have for ourselves.<\/p>\n

HD – Will your Christmas album have a similar feel to \u201cI Dream of You?\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

JJ – There are some very soothing songs on the album, but I think Christmas music has a special charm of it\u2019s own. I know when I listen to music at Christmastime, I want to hear songs that I\u2019m already familiar with. I intentionally only put three original songs on \u201cUnto Us\u201d because I assume my listeners are like me and want to experience a bit of nostalgia and whimsy in December. There\u2019s something special about this project that has completely exceeded my expectations. It\u2019s such a beautiful collection of songs, I feel like it\u2019s my Christmas gift to my fans!<\/p>\n

JJ is also going on tour this fall with our own Mandy Arioto. Find out more\u00a0information on tour dates and tickets<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our friend JJ Heller is doing a really cool Kickstarter project right now.\u00a0She made a Christmas album and for every $15 she raises, she is donating an album to a hospital. She was kind enough to sit down and tell us all about it. Hello, Dearest – What have you been up to this summer? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":3817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,117],"tags":[504,505,506,507],"class_list":["post-3816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-wellness","tag-i-dream-of-you","tag-jj-heller","tag-kickstarter","tag-unto-us"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}