Today we’d like to introduce you to Laren and Aimee Loveless.
Hi Laren and Aimee Loveless. So excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
Music has always been a huge connecting fiber of our relationship. Just shy of our oldest child’s second birthday, we signed up for a Music Together class. It was there that the wheels started turning, and we knew someday we wanted to create our own music program. We got just as much joy from attending these music classes as our son did. For that hour each week, we were just present in that moment, dancing, singing, and free. This was something many of us have forgotten to do.
We would return to the idea of starting our music program for families, but life always seemed too busy. When I resigned from my teaching job this past spring, we decided that now was the time. Laren, an elementary music teacher, has the summers off, so we figured the timing would be ideal. Word spread fast of our music classes in Francis Park, and our sessions were full before we knew it. More than 40 families joined us throughout the summer to dance, play, sing, and have fun. Families showed up once a week in the picturesque corner of the park for “Music and Me.” Our classes are geared towards children ages 6 months to 5 years old. The mixed-age groups allowed families with multiple children to attend. We also read a lot of research on the benefits of mixed-age classes and felt like this would be the best fit for what we wanted to create.
Our vision has always been cultivating a community where families can connect with their children and each other. We want the parents to get as much out of the classes as the children do. Having small children is hard and can feel isolating when you’re in the thick of it. Each week we all had the chance to let loose and have fun. In a typical class, we start with deep breaths to help relax and center ourselves in the present moment. We play some original music that focuses on social-emotional learning, like our song titled “Big Feelings.” This was written for our son to help him cope with the big feelings he was having. We mix folk and world songs with Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift music. We incorporate world instruments like African cabanas, guiros from Puerto Rico, African drums, and Laren’s favorite, the autoharp. We also include book suggestions that tie into our theme of that lesson. This fall we focused part of our sessions on Hispanic Heritage Month and included several Spanish songs and a book about a girl from Venezuela that played the piano for President Lincoln. I describe Laren as a modern-day Mr. Rogers with soul. He is a huge empath, with a gift for connecting with people. It’s been one of the greatest joys of our journey as educators, parents, and now our new role as business partners to create this music program.
We all face challenges, but would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Like most parents with small kids, time is always a challenge. Laren works full-time as an elementary music teacher, and I work a few part-time freelancing jobs while I stay home with our two children, ages 4 and 1. Now that the school year has begun, we will offer Saturday morning classes. The road to niching down the music side of our business to focus more on families has come easier than we thought. Laren is the dreamer, the entertainer, the one who can easily captivate and engage any audience. I am an analytical spreadsheet lover and social media marketer and run the back-end organization side of the business. Our roles are so distinctly different that we stay in our lanes. I could never get up in front of an audience and sing, and he hates numbers and spreadsheets, so it works out beautifully. We are really excited to see where the music program is heading and all of the plans for the future.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Laren has been in the St.Louis music scene for over a decade. He has played with several local bands, including Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players, Spectator, and The Reeling Gilly, and recorded and released original music. His 2020 album release titled Laren Loveless Vol. 1 featured many talented local musicians and was recorded in St.Louis at Native Sounds studio. When the world seemed to stand still at the beginning of Covid, we knew we needed to connect people through music. We’d sit on our front porch, and Laren would play the keyboard and sing. We loved seeing people pass by and stop and listen. There, the idea for our porch concerts called “Quarantunes” was born. Like our music classes, word spread fast about our weekly themed concerts, where Laren typically showed up in costume. For 10 weeks, we live streamed our weekly concerts on Facebook. We would have people lining up on our block early with their chairs and snacks to listen to music. He would take requests from the viewers who tuned in each week online and on our block. To this day, people still talk about how much the concerts got them through such a hard time.
How would we have described you growing up if we knew you were growing up?
Coincidentally, Laren and I were born a day apart. Laren grew up in Hillsboro, Missouri, where being a theater-loving kid probably wasn’t the coolest. He played music early in church bands and would start recording himself on his handheld camera. He wrote original music but would often cover Michael Jackson and Prince, who have been major influences in his music career. He would probably be described as a nice kid, who was a tad quirky.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/larenloveless
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laren_loveless_music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larenlovelessmusic
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3BfnuExBYwCoARDgDo3zKh?si=joHQcR3MTqWfr_LcSLpuMA
Image Credits
Dustin Walker Photography
