Duncansville native Grace Jester, 20, is pursuing a musical career in Nashville, Tenn., and has released her first music single, a song she composed called “Wrap Me in Your Arms.”
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When growing up in Duncansville, Grace Jester was known as the neighborhood “songbird.” Today, the 20-year-old lives in Nashville, Tenn., and has released her first music single, a song she composed called “Wrap Me in Your Arms.”
Grace’s neighbor and former elementary music teacher Martha Miller said, “She was this little songbird. She didn’t sing in a little, quiet voice either. Everyone in the neighborhood knew she loved to sing.”
Jester laughs when she thinks back on it now.
“I didn’t have any social awareness. I’d be outside and singing at the top of my lungs,” Jester said. “I remember she (Miller) would tell me how she loved hearing me sing. Looking back on it, there was someone who wanted to hear me sing. And that was nice and it’s a good reminder.”
Miller became Jester’s piano teacher for five years starting when she was in third grade. Even then, Jester wanted to be challenged.
“She always wanted me to find her something harder to play. She wanted to be challenged and that was a fun thing. I’m excited for her. She has a love for music that you don’t often find in kids. She loved playing the piano and she loves to sing. She is a special girl,” Miller said.
Jester is the daughter of Dr. Shaun and Lara Jester, who now live in Dumas, Texas. The family moved from Duncansville seven years ago. Jester attended Foot of Ten Elementary School and the Hollidaysburg Area Junior High School. She graduated from Dumas High School in 2021.
Now a junior at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Jester recruited several fellow music students to help her create the song in the campus recording studio.
In a phone interview with the Mirror, Jester said she is hoping to create a fanbase for her music, which she described as “classical crossover.”
She credits Miller, a former neighbor and retired music teacher at Foot of Ten Elementary, with harnessing her enthusiasm to her talent.
“She was the one who told me how you can utilize it in this way. … I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her,” Jester said. Miller encouraged her to participate in choir and orchestra.
“When I was in seventh grade I did ‘Altoona’s Got Talent,’ and I was in a ‘Phantom of the Opera’ craze, so she helped me prep for that. She is one of the biggest reasons I started and stayed in music and her support, constant encouragement and willingness to teach is one of the biggest reasons I am where I am today. I knew I had someone who believed in me, and that was enough for me. Even now, we still keep in contact and discuss musical endeavors.”
Miller remembers how Jester loved composing her own music back in fifth grade.
“She would say, ‘I wrote a song, do you want to hear it?’ Then, she’d sit down and play it. It amazed me. She was like a one in a million — a very special student,” Miller said. “I think she’ll do great things because she wants to succeed.”
Jester would also write Miller little notes expressing her gratitude for Miller’s support.
“That means a lot when you’re a teacher,” Miller said.
Miller said Jester was born with an angelic voice, but she also had to work really hard to get to the level she is now. Even before all her lessons, though, it was hard to imagine her voice was coming from a five-year-old’s body, she said.
Jester is pursuing a dual music major in commercial music and music business and a minor in theater.
“My goal is to one day design lighting for performance, including my own,” she said. She is waiting to hear if she landed an internship with a production company as a lighting designer/technician as a step forward.
Her first single release is available on several streaming platforms. “Wrap Me in Your Arms,” Jester said, was written when she was figuring out how to say good-bye to people.
“It sounds a lot more flirty than it actually is. It is really about losing my best friend and I really wasn’t sure how to cope with it,” Jester said. “They never said why — they just left. I never spoke to them again. But if they heard this song, what would I want them to know? So that’s what the song is really about.”
She said the romantic tone in which she wrote the song, however, was intended to connect with as many people as possible. The song’s chorus is about wanting a hug.
Whenever she is asked where she is from, Jester says Altoona.
“It’s never stopped being home,” she said. “There’s a lot of good memories. It was a place I felt safe. I felt loved and I was able to figure out some aspects of my life and who I was before everything got crazy.”
Jester has taken voice lessons from Dr. Rebecca Hays in classical music and initially thought she’d pursue a career in opera. She’s also received training from vocal coaches Mary Jane Johnson and Paige Brown.
“I’ve always wanted to sing. I love music so much. It’s been kind of who I am. It makes me feel things and I want others to feel things, too,” she said.
Mirror Staff Writer Patt Keith is at 814-949-7030.
The Jester file
Name: Grace Jester
Age: 20
Residence: Hometown, Duncansville; lives in Nashville, Tenn.
Family: Parents, Dr. Shaun and Lara Jester, and younger sister, Hope Jester, all of Dumas, Texas.
Education: Graduated from Dumas High School, Dumas, Texas, in 2021; junior at Lipscomb University in Nashville. She’s on track to graduate next year with a dual music major in commercial music and music business and minor in theater. Internship with artist manager Mark Hollingsworth, most well known for managing Petra, a Christian rock band popular from the late 1970s to early 1990s.
