An opera singer with the angelic voice improvises her way to creative fulfillment
Having the voice of an angel has allowed JennyRebecca Winans ’02 to soar to great heights in the opera world. She blossomed under the wing of her opera-singer mother, Paula Winans ’74. She graduated from DePauw University under the tutelage of the great, vocal master Stanley Irwin and then learned excellence and grace under pressure in graduate school at the Manhattan School of Music – the New York Times was present for every performance. After grad school, she moved to Berlin, Germany, where she excelled in the European opera scene.
But what has become most important to JennyRebecca over the years is not so much the success and standing ovations in the classical music arena as connecting one-on-one and in small groups to share the healing power of creative expression. On tour with her husband Drew Ronning, also a musician, in early 2026, she made a stop in Greencastle to present a creative expression workshop and to give a performance at Gobin United Methodist Church on campus. Her earthy-yet-crystalline voice was a treasure to behold, but it was the genuine way she connected with community members and concert-goers that had people penciling in next year’s potential tour stop on their calendars.
Building community is something in her DNA that was nurtured at DePauw. From the moment Stan Irwin went to bat for her to receive the scholarship she needed to afford the university’s tuition to the lifelong friends she made through Alpha Phi and the university’s student-led Christian ministry group (then called JC), JennyRebecca has built a multitude of friendly circles in Greencastle and now around the U.S. and world, both in-person and virtually.
As a young person, she aspired to study songwriting, but it was an unspoken rule in her household that classical music would be the course of study for any musician in the family. She even considered enrolling in a musical conservatory for her undergraduate education and is thankful her parents persuaded her to attend a music school in DePauw’s liberal arts environment. “Going to DePauw gave me a lot of safety to really explore who I was in every way, musically but also relationally before going into a bigger city and a competitive, high-pressure situation,” she says.
“In Greencastle, we were there and we were together. We had this opportunity to develop really deep relationships and friendships. And because I had a scholarship, I didn’t have to work in addition to going to school. It was such a gift to just be at DePauw and be a student and to have that time. There is a tendency these days to not pursue higher education because it’s so expensive or you can create a career without it, but I think the learning that happens in the liberal arts environment – training people how to think critically and how to be contributing citizens – is something all of us need, especially now in the world.”
At DePauw, in addition to the challenging academic work, deep friendships, and transformative presentations by guest artists and alumni speakers, JennyRebecca says an elective class with Professor Eric Edberg in her senior year gave her tools she would only begin to appreciate and use years later after a heart-wrenching personal hardship left her reeling emotionally and seeking an outlet for creative expression. The class, “Music Improvisation,” was something wholly unorthodox for classical musicians.
While in Berlin, after dealing with that personal tragedy, she drew on some of the things she had learned in Edberg’s class. She began writing songs – first “sad, sad songs” that gradually became more playful. Soon she began making a music video with friends for every song and amassed more than 400 original songs on her YouTube channel. “As far as creative expression, I had never experienced the fullness of what that could mean on a daily basis. When you start to tap into it,” she says, “it feels like electric love. It feels so vibrant, and I felt like I was coming to life” after decades of focusing on the perfection and productivity of classical music training and performance.
Her song diaries, as she called them, led to more creative expression and community connections, eventually starting a podcast called Artists Rising. The podcast focuses on creativity and nurturing the technical, psychological, and creative aspects that artists – and all humans – need to thrive while avoiding burnout and unhealthy coping behaviors.
In addition to the Artists Rising podcast, another guiding light in JennyRebecca’s life is the willkommenskultur or “welcome culture” being promoted in Germany as it relates to welcoming refugees. She has led theatre workshops for groups of immigrants where few in the group shared the same language, finishing with the group writing and performing a musical in German. And she’s traveled to Lesvos, Greece, a doorway into Europe for thousands of people, to lead music and creativity workshops among Middle Eastern refugees there. She and Drew produce and perform music together as the duo Arvo, while both of them work day jobs in the arts and elsewhere to keep their creative lives moving forward. JennyRebecca also has a Patreon account. There, fans can find and support her artistic endeavors, such as her newest album “Courage to Be” which includes collaborations with the drummer from Maroon 5, the bassist from the Who, and the audio engineer who also works with Feist, Shawn Mendes, and Andrew Bird.
If you want to help prepare today’s DePauw students for uncommon and values-centered success like JennyRebecca’s, consider making a gift to support The Fund for DePauw.
Photos by Jenny Marsala and Julia Maria Klotz.