Our Teachers
Meet the Bracy’s Music Together Teaching Team
The people who lead Bracy’s Music Together classes bring music, movement, experience, and human connection into the classroom. Meet the active teaching team behind our school-day music experiences.
Music-Making Begins With Connection
Young children experience music through participation: listening, moving, singing, experimenting, observing, and joining in at their own comfort level. Our teachers help create an environment where those different forms of participation are welcome.
Classroom teachers participate alongside their students, helping the weekly music experience become part of the broader classroom community.
Our Teaching Team
Leisl Bracy
Leisl is the Director of Bracy’s Music Together, which she established in 2011. She discovered Music Together after attending her first class with a friend’s son, and on that first day she knew she wanted to be part of that musical community.
Leisl is a graduate of The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, where she received a Diploma in Early Childhood Education, and she is a Level 2 Preschool teacher. She successfully completed the Music Together Teacher Training Program.
Mia DeJesus
Mia is a contemporary vocalist. She graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Professional Music. Mia was thrilled when she discovered Music Together in 2007, because the program combines two things she loves: music and teaching children.
Through Music Together, she has taught a variety of classes, including classes for babies, mixed ages, preschool, and a special needs preschool. Mia is a registered Music Together teacher, and she plays guitar.
Jelena Karanovic
Jelena is an educator, a registered Music Together teacher, and a licensed Music Together Director who also directs her own Music Together program. She is a formally trained pianist, clarinetist, and singer. She also plays guitar and ukulele, dances, and is passionate about music and children.
After attending Music Together with her daughter for three years, Jelena became a Music Together teacher herself. In her energetic and fun classes, she engages with each child while supporting their musical development.
Gabriele Tranchina
Gabriele is an internationally recognized jazz vocalist whose professional background includes performances in the United States and Europe. Her albums “The Old Country,” “A Song Of Love’s Color,” and “Of Sailing Ships and the Stars in your Eyes” have been critically acclaimed, and the second earned Gabriele a cover feature in “Inside Jazz Magazine.” She signed with Jazzheads Records in 2010. As a musician and educator, Gabriele has also held jazz vocal clinics for adults and college students.
Since 1997, Gabriele has directed Sol La Ti’s Music Together program. In 2012, at the request of her German-speaking families, she developed “Musikalische Mäuse,” a German music program inspired by her heritage and her experience as an educator in jazz and Music Together.
Genesis Adelia Collado
Genesis is a performer and vocal coach based in the Bronx, NY. She made her off-Broadway debut in “Notes From Now” in 2022 and has since performed in concerts around the world, including “Broadway in the Park en México” and “To Feel A Thing: A Ritual For Emergence” for Amsterdam’s Holland Festival. Genesis has also lent her voice to audio dramas and albums, and she can even be spotted singing in a RuPaul’s Drag Race commercial.
Genesis has been building experience teaching music to and taking care of children for most of her life, and when she first joined a Music Together class, she felt at home. Genesis brings that same focus on community and camaraderie to her classes.
A Shared Approach to Early Childhood Music
Every teacher brings an individual background and musical perspective to the classroom, while the program itself centers on active participation, developmentally appropriate music-making, and creating opportunities for children to experience music without pressure to perform in one particular way.
The result is a musical environment where listening, movement, singing, exploration, repetition, and shared participation all have a place.
Teachers Become Part of the Classroom Experience
Bracy’s Music Together is designed as a school-day program, so the music teacher does not work in isolation from the classroom community. Classroom teachers participate during weekly sessions and receive learning resources that can help continue music-making between specialist visits.
Bring Our Teaching Team to Your School
If you’re exploring music enrichment for your UPK/Pre-K or Kindergarten classrooms, tell us about your school and the program you’re considering.