#264 Ester Wiesnerova
🎙️ Songwriter Trysts Podcast – Episode with Ester 🎶
In this heartfelt episode of Songwriter Trysts hosted by singer-songwriter Rae Leigh, Ester Wiesnerova, composer and Recording Academy member, takes us on a journey from her roots in Slovakia to the vibrant music scene of New York City. With a powerful story of resilience, Ester shares how she was influenced by her mother’s political and spiritual songwriting, and how music became her tool for connection and healing. From performing in prisons and psychiatric hospitals to overcoming language barriers and funding her studies at Berklee College of Music, Ester's passion for jazz and composition has been the driving force behind her remarkable career. Tune in for an inspiring conversation about the transformative power of music and the determination to follow one's creative path.
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Transcript
Rae Leigh: Welcome to the songwriter tryst podcast. I'm singer songwriter, Rae Leigh, and I do this podcast to connect with other lovers of songwriting and anything to do with the music industry that helps elevate the song. I'm a very curious person and I love to know what makes people tick. Why do they do it? I don't even know why I do it sometimes, but it feels good.
And that's why we do it right. If you would like to get more involved or you'd like to be on the show, everything is on our website. Songwriter tryst. You can also sponsor the show there by buying us a coffee for as little as 5, or you could even leave us a review and share it around with your friends if you think this is a useful resource for you.
If you're learning to write songs, you want to meet other songwriters to collaborate with, or you just want to find out more about what this whole thing is about.
Welcome to A Songwriter Tryst with Esther Wiesnerova. Thank you so much for joining me. We met in LA in January this year, 2025, and you're such an amazing person. And then I listened to your music and I just fell in love and I was like, I have to get to know this chick better and learn more about your journey and your music.
So thank you so much for agreeing to come on and chatting with us.
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Rae Leigh: First of all, I would like you to tell me a little bit about who you are and where you come froM.
Ester Wiesnerova: So my name is Esther and I am from Slovakia. I was born and raised there. I'm currently living in New York City And I got into the US to pursue music to study music And have been in between the two Slovakia and New York for the past 12
Rae Leigh: years And you've been Like touring the world and I've seen a little bit of what you've done via like your website and listening to your music and it's so beautiful, like it's for me it felt like a calm ocean wave just washing over my body when I heard your voice and the music it's really quite special.
But tell me a little bit about how music started for you. Where did the passion come from? Who inspired you?
Ester Wiesnerova: I'm so happy to hear that
Rae Leigh: because
Ester Wiesnerova: that's the goal. That's exactly what I want. So good. Mission accomplished.
Rae Leigh: Take from me anyway.
Ester Wiesnerova: My mom was a songwriter, a political and spiritual songwriter, which was pretty dangerous to be back in the Soviet Union.
And so I grew up listening to her music. I grew up playing and singing in church. And that was yeah, we did it every day, really. Every day I would sing and play with my mom and most days we would sing and play at church. And then she was a classically trained pianist. So with her, I also got to do some piano and more, Western music theory.
Rae Leigh: Yeah,
Ester Wiesnerova: and then I just realized that's what I want to do with my life and the decision came through playing a concert in prison together with my mom Wow and just seeing I think I was maybe 11 at the time and Just seeing what it did with people who came in it just seemed like totally different people walked into the room before the Concert and different people walked out and I thought this is what I want to do
Rae Leigh: like this is
Ester Wiesnerova: it
Rae Leigh: Okay, you need to tell me more about that story So you were 11 and your mom took you to a gig to sing with you with her
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, we did a lot of these kinds of things.
She just was this sort of like fearless person. And and I think she, she loved seeing music at work. So we would go to like psychiatric hospitals or to prisons or like homes for elderly people. But basically anywhere where she felt like music, maybe of value and Yeah, we might be able to see its power at work.
Rae Leigh: That was crazy. Was it scary for you being so young going? No, you were just like, this is just another day. You're with mom. Mom's confident. And if she's good, I'm good.
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, I think it made me feel important, it made me feel like a messenger of something big. And it made me feel like I can do something or, music through me can do something.
And it was huge for me as a kid to feel that way.
Rae Leigh: Eleven is quite young to know what your direction, what your path is going to be. And you're still at a point where you're, you've got tons of time and you've got a mind willing to learn and sponging up everything. So what, how did you throw yourself into it after you decided this is what you want to do?
Ester Wiesnerova: I started studying it very seriously. In Slovakia, I had no access to jazz education or like more contemporary music. It was all very classical. So I pursued that. I didn't quite do opera. I never related to it much. So the way the sound is produced there. So I ended up studying theater at high school.
I went to a theater high school. But the whole time I was there, I would literally Google how to sing jazz, how to practice jazz because I, that's what I was interested in. And there was no way for me to learn it. And that's how I came across Berklee College of Music, because they were producing all these textbooks and, podcasts and whatnot, and so I followed it all, and I was like, oh, that's such a cool place I wish one day I could be there.
Now, nobody in my family has ever traveled to the U. S., nobody in my family speaks English it was very unlikely that something like this would ever happen. But I did auditions in Paris. I thought, okay, maybe for my 18th birthday, I could ask my mom just to go for a trip to Paris at this particular time.
And so I did. On the plane, I told her, there's this school I want to audition for don't tell anybody, there's no way I would get in. And if I do get in, we don't have the money for the flight not for the school. But I just, I just want to do it. Then she was like, okay, let's do it. Then, we did the audition and she played for me and I sang and I felt terrible after.
I was like, there's absolutely no way this will work out and it did. And I even got some scholarship, not enough. So then I Googled again, list of richest people in Slovakia, according to Forbes, email every person on that list and somehow.
Rae Leigh: You emailed all the richest people
Ester Wiesnerova: in your country?
Rae Leigh: That is a hustle, I love that.
Okay, and did someone sponsor you?
Ester Wiesnerova: I think now people do like Kickstarter, but, maybe it existed back then, but I had no idea it did, so I just, I was like, I need the money, it's somewhere, who could possibly have it? These people look like they might. Very simple. Yeah, and then I ended up going. I thought it's just for one semester because that's how much money I had.
And then I stayed and then another school and this became my life.
Rae Leigh: That's incredible. So not only did you have to learn jazz. From some like from the internet because there wasn't the influence But you also had to learn English when no one in your family was earning place You have to learn another language.
You had to learn a whole different way of doing music and then you had to Essentially learn how to fundraise so that you could actually finance your own. Dude.
Wow. That's so impressive. That just shows that, really there is, if there's a will, there's a way. And you weren't going to take no for an answer. But you obviously weren't you had a good attitude, like you weren't going to kill people to get where you wanted to go, but you just asked and you put yourself out there and you said, this is what I want.
And I think that's incredible. What. If there wasn't really a lot of jazz in your area, what was it that, or who was it that made you go, Oh, that's what I want. Like that jazz feel was there an artist or someone who inspired you?
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, I think just again, on the internet, I would see people like Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan and I loved it.
This time, I was singing a lot a lot of different music, but mostly like pop or, the music at church, which was also on the pop side and I, yeah, and I felt as a vocalist, I didn't have as much freedom as the instrumentalists did, which, yeah, I don't know why exactly I felt that way, but it seemed like there's sometimes like a solo, that, that they can do even in the pop context. And I feel like I never get to do that. Like I'm always just singing the melody and they can always play the chord differently and have just more freedom.
Yeah. And then I saw this, so like people scatting and I was like, wait, like there's more. Then what I'm doing right now and I think that's what attracted me to it. That it seems like the range of expression is just bigger.
Rae Leigh: That's so true. No, I love that. That's it's such a unique style for vocalists when it comes to jazz.
So tell me like when you, okay, so you started, decided to go to Berkeley. When you're as a songwriter, when did you start writing songs? Was that an early on thing or did that come later on in life?
Ester Wiesnerova: So as I mentioned, I studied theater because it was the only option outside of classical music how to get a bit of singing in.
Yeah. And because I wasn't much of an actress and I didn't enjoy it I ended up writing music for the school plays. And that's where it all started that in a lot of. The things we would do at school, I would just, sit at the piano, play and sing. While my classmates would act, and I felt very comfortable that way.
And then it just continued. And so once I was at Berkeley I realized that just doing singing wouldn't feel like I'm really taking advantage of all the crazy music stuff that the institution has to offer. So I actually studied composition for both my bachelor's and my master's and also did singing but that's something I wanted to like, have a degree in and just grow more into jazz composition was what I
Rae Leigh: did.
That's incredible. And what was the biggest takeaway from all the study that you did for jazz composition? There's so much. Like just one. I know there'd be so much, but what's like the, this is, I'm so glad I did that because now I.
Ester Wiesnerova: It's really hard for me to say because everything was new for me when I started studying it, like I had just had no background. But I think honestly, like just understanding music theory deeply and understanding how it can be used, because I think I was taught theory before, but.
I didn't quite know what to do with it and somehow it was just so practical the way we were taught in college. So I guess that was the biggest thing for me that I felt like, oh there's so many like choices I have, for the harmony, for the chords. And I was able to list them all like without maybe even being at the instrument, like just knowing that this is what's going to work.
Yeah. And I, yeah, that was magical for me.
Rae Leigh: Absolutely. I love that. And Berkeley, I like, I think you nailed it, is a very practical school. And even people who don't finish their degrees, which there seems to be quite a lot of they come out of that school with a lot of practical knowledge and ability to actually create and do something that is impactful on a powerful way.
And it's very intentional as well because they've had that training. And I get jealous when I talk to people who've been to Berklee because I'm like, Oh, if I could do it over again, I definitely would have wanted to do something like that. But I also get to work with people who have done it. And so we, I get the skills one way or another.
You said that your mum was quite political in some of the stuff that she did. Have you followed, because I've listened to some of your music. What, as much as it's relaxing and everything, is there an undertoning message or value that you want to put into your music that you have been releasing?
Ester Wiesnerova: Yes. And again, when I mentioned like why I got into music, I think a big part of it was because I felt like artists are important and they have things to say. And if I don't, it feels a little bit like a wasted opportunity. So I try to do that, not definitely not in a pushy or preachy way at all.
But just, to maybe. Have people think a little more or just offer an opinion and offer a story they might not have heard and they might relate to. And sometimes it would have, political undertone of some sort.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And I think that's, that's what art should do. And even if we don't think we're doing it, usually there is something in there subconsciously that we want to say through our art.
Is there something that you're really passionate about, like a topic or something that you advocate for that you find tends to come through in your music or you would like to see change in the world that artists can speak up for?
Ester Wiesnerova: There are a lot of things that I would like to see in the world. But I think one of the topics are women because especially, in music in general, but in jazz, especially, there are very few women.
And even in my studies, I would usually be one of maybe two, like in class of, 25 or 30 people for most of my studies. And I still see it now in the industry. And I think our voices are missed because we do see the world differently. And sometimes people don't quite know maybe how to respond to it because there just hasn't been many music written by women in the jazz context.
But the more I think it's important. It's important to talk about issues that are important to us. It's important just to share how we see the world.
Rae Leigh: Absolutely. I release music in country music and it's exactly the same. And there are obviously your bigger female artists that have done really well.
But sometimes I feel like, especially when it comes to the female count on a festival register or something, it still feels very tokenistic. And we're still very much a minority and and you're right. Like our voices in general, sometimes. Not even just with music, but just like in general, being out and about we still get mansplained to and we still get that, it's okay, let the men deal with it, it's I don't know, I feel like it's been over a hundred years women have been like, charging for a voice and to vote and to just be treated like equals as human beings and it still comes up and it's infuriating. But we're also meant to be kind and caring and nurturing and loving and all these other things.
How do you navigate that in the jazz world or in your music world? What do you what's your secret little tips to people on how to navigate those sort of circumstances where we're subjectified.
Ester Wiesnerova: I wish I had a recipe on how to do this. I think what would help me a lot was just to educate myself as much as I could, and sadly, I think I had to do way more than some of my male colleagues. But it just gave me some knowledge and therefore some respect.
Not always but at least some which I think really helped.
And then I think for me, like inwardly, it really helped to just. Know who I am and not let anyone get to it and not take too seriously any comments or any, anything so that just comes up or any maybe even well intended feedback, from my, a lot of my male colleagues on my music, just because their experience is different.
And, I appreciate it and I respect their opinion, but just Not take it to heart too much and be very selective to whose feedback I take in.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And that's really powerful to know when feedback is actually about you and your work or whether it's about them and their ego or experience.
I love that. And I actually struggle with knowing, and it's been a journey, but like knowing what is me as an artist. Yeah this is what I want to say, and this is what I want it to sound like, and this is how I want it to feel. Versus taking feedback can be really challenging to know whether it's Is that actually what you want?
Because as the artist, you still have to make those decisions. And I've definitely made mistakes where I've gone with someone because I think they're more experienced or talented, and so I should listen to them. And that devalues my voice as an artist. I don't know, like It's
Ester Wiesnerova: a tricky balance, because, do you want to grow and, I think it is important to receive feedback and to act on it, but like, how do you choose, who, whose feedback is important and whose feedback is not, and yeah.
Trial
Rae Leigh: and
Ester Wiesnerova: error.
Rae Leigh: We just keep doing it. And so you've had some incredible opportunities. You've travelled the world and you have been really acknowledged and recognised for your work. When do you feel like that started to really turn for you after where you go, do you know what?
I've made the right decision and I feel like I'm getting there now. What was that point for you? I don't think
Ester Wiesnerova: it was one huge break. And I think for most people it doesn't happen like that, honestly. It was just a lot of steady work. A lot of steady work on PR. But I feel like it's nice about being from Slovakia.
You know that as, as far as I know I'm the only Slovakian, for example, in the Recording Academy. Really? Back home. That's a big deal. Yeah. All the media are writing about it. Nobody cares here in the US, but those are some things, I could get. I could capitalize on a little bit maybe in terms of PR and, and learning like how to find these opportunities, how to see what's interesting, where, what's interesting in the years, what's interesting back home and that just going for it.
Nobody talks about the amount of rejections we all get but, Write a hundred emails that reach out to a hundred people and yeah, 5 percent give me something. And that's
Rae Leigh: just how it goes, yeah, I love that, but it is, that's where the hustle is. And yeah, if you can't handle rejection, it's definitely not the industry for you.
But it's also something I learned that it's not personal. Sometimes, most of the time, it just comes down to timing and whether you're the right fit at the right time in the right place. And it's convenient.
Ester Wiesnerova: A hundred percent. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: How did you join the Recording Academy? Because that's how we've met through the Recording Academy.
And last year was my first year. How long have you been a part of it? And have you been to the Academy like the Grammy week before or?
Ester Wiesnerova: No, it was also my first time and I also just joined, just like you yeah, I got into it through my last album that was considered in, in two categories in 2022, I think.
And that's, when I heard about how the whole process works and that. I could possibly be a part of it as well. Yeah. And so when I looked into it and then some people recommended me and I became a member.
Rae Leigh: Oh, that's so exciting. And how did it feel to be there this year?
Tell me about your experience being amongst it. Cause it was a bit different this year. I hear as well, but I we don't know any different.
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah. I liked all the. That I didn't just make it a big party because I wouldn't quite feel appropriate given the situation, and they tried, acknowledging the fires and all that was happening around, I really enjoyed my whole time in L. A. I was there for eight days, I think, so a little longer. And, I had a lot of friends in music there who I saw even outside of the whole Grammy week, which was so nice. And then it was intense, I thought. There was a lot of networking. There were days when I was talking to people for eight to 12 hours straight, like I had to remember to eat, for example, it was a Grammy day.
I literally go there at 1130 and left at nine and I realized
Rae Leigh: you hadn't had anything. Wow.
Ester Wiesnerova: And then after party and after party, anyway, it was a lot I don't know how you felt.
Rae Leigh: They didn't have like they had a few food vendors inside the facility. However, the lines were massive. And by the time we actually got there and decided to get food, they closed.
And we were just like, it was, I don't know how many people actually got food on the day, but someone did tell me that's the case. So I had a few snacks in my bag. Just, yeah. What was your favourite part of the Grammy day, outside of not eating? Okay, because going to the Grammys is a big deal and I don't know a lot of people that have done it until I went as well.
What do you think was the most beneficial thing for you to go?
Ester Wiesnerova: I loved seeing the performances. A lot of them are great. I loved, seeing artists like Shakira, who I don't think I would, buy a ticket to see Shakira. But it's what I grew up listening to her as a teenager. There was no way escaping her back then.
So it was special to, to see people like that. And then. I just love the whole idea of, honoring people in the music industry. And especially, maybe in the jazz category, the classical that, don't get as much mass attention. It nearly seems like it means more to those artists.
I don't know, I don't know if that's fair to say. Maybe it doesn't mean more, but it means a lot to everybody. But it was just So nice to see them like recognized and, to hear how they got there. And so many of them are like independent artists, without a label or maybe they have a label, but they did, all the promotion by themselves.
And it just feels yeah, like this is possible. We're finally in an age where this is possible. And it's so great to see these people there and seeing them being honored.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Absolutely, it was it was really chalk and cheese I find for the two different ceremonies. There's a televised version and then there's like the full day for all the categories that more of the minority people, smaller categories, not like big pop genres and all that sort of thing. But it. I was just so inspired by the whole day. I think I think that's probably the biggest thing I got from the whole week going home is I just want to do more and be better. And I was inspired to elevate my game of what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.
And I think like we all need that because we can, I find it's very easy to get like comfortable in a certain okay, I could just release country music in Australia and it does well. And I have, my little space, but I also think that art shouldn't be boxed in like that either. I do think art is one of the ways that as countries and humans, we stay connected internationally and that.
When we're more connected internationally and we have those diplomatic relations, we can create peace and have better communication between our leaders and things. I feel like art does that and when art and culture drops off as a country that is, I think it's dangerous because we become isolated from each other and and I don't think people talk about that a lot but the diplomatic international connection that we make across all genres because it speaks to different people and different classes and different tastes, but it keeps us, I don't know, connected to what's going on in the world because there's, there is something that's behind it.
The political message, even if it's not political, it's, it tells you what's going on in someone's life and that life is a representation of their community, their society and what's happening there.
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, it's so universal.
Rae Leigh: It is. No, it's true. It is. What would you say is, has been like the biggest advice that you've ever been given?
Ester Wiesnerova: That's a very good question. It's so simple. But I, whenever someone tells me like, You're doing it right. Just keep doing it. You're doing all the right things. I feel like that means the most to me. Cause I think for me, the biggest thing I always question is am I doing the right thing?
Like maybe I should, be doing something else or at a different time or, and mostly. I feel like it is, or I think just keep doing it you're just not seeing the results yet. Yeah, consistency. So that's very helpful for me.
Rae Leigh: I agree, I think it's encouraging, and I don't know about you, but as a creative, and I've noticed other creators are like this as well, you have an idea and you want to create something, but you want it to happen yesterday.
It's been a really hard journey, but I think I've got to the point where I'm like, okay, do you know what? It's going to happen when it happens and I'm going to enjoy the journey and the creation. Go there.
Ester Wiesnerova: Yeah, the moment from like inspiration to writing the song itself is pretty quick, but then.
The whole process of putting it out. Sometimes people write an album and it comes out two years later, right? It nearly feels like everything is just so delayed from the, like the initial idea and the initial moment. And I need to put this out. And by the time you're touring, sometimes you went for godlike, what
Rae Leigh: the
Ester Wiesnerova: first idea
Rae Leigh: was, it can be three years after.
It's frustrating, isn't it? Like you write a song, you want the whole world to know about it, like straight away. And then it takes, yeah, there's a whole journey. And, I'm very impatient, but I'm learning patience. Okay. If you could collaborate with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Ester Wiesnerova: I would collaborate with Norah Jones. Oh, yes. What's your favourite? Yeah, when I saw her there at the Grammy's, I was like yeah, that's someone I would want to hang out with and possibly collaborate with.
Rae Leigh: What is it about Norah Jones that you like or are inspired by?
Ester Wiesnerova: I've, I've always loved her music but just Stylistically, I what she did, where it's a combination of some jazz and country and I think she's an amazing musician like on a very high technical level, but she doesn't feel the need to show it a lot.
And I think she's just made it very accessible what she does to like a wide range of people. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: No, that's awesome. I was excited when she won as well, as much as I had friends who were nominated in the category next to her. It's a hard one to be like, yeah, it's I I'm sorry you didn't win, but at the same time, Norah Jones, I don't think a lot of people mind losing to her.
She did deserve it. I've asked a lot of like the main questions and I am going to put all of your details into the blog and the description of this podcast so people can go and follow you, listen along to your music, feel what I felt when I listened to your music and just I want everyone to go and support you and follow you and help boost your journey as well and watch your journey.
And hopefully we'll run into each other on the red carpet sometime. But, is there anything else you would like to share with people about who you are and what you're doing and your music? A message to all our other songwriters out there?
Ester Wiesnerova: To other songwriters? Yeah. I just want to encourage them to be bold and to keep exploring more of who they are and keep bringing it out.
I am, I'm right now doing this book called the artist's way. I don't know if you're familiar. Yeah, you are familiar with it. Okay. So I've been very much on this journey as very relevant to me now. So highly recommend. That's one thing. Yeah. And just keeping Staying in touch with who they are and putting it out in music and it's super important what you do as a songwriter, no matter if someone listens or not or cares or not it is still important to put it out.
Rae Leigh: I love that. It's important to put it out, keep doing it. And I can tell from this whole episode as well that you're a very consistent person. And I do think that is a massive part of it. And what you said earlier consistency means learning how to take that rejection and pushing past it and sticking to like your why.
And you're an inspiration to others that. That can happen and that you just keep asking even if you have to message a hundred people and only get five percent return not a lot of people do that. But if you have a real desperate desire to do something You're willing to go through that type of rejection to get the end result and I'm so encouraged by Everything you've shared today.
So thank you so much. I'm so glad that we met And and yeah, I just wanna support you and you've got new music coming out in the fall, which is opposite to us. That's Australia's Spring . Oh, but, so it's a while away, but people are gonna come and follow you and hopefully maybe one day you can come out to Australia and perform for us.
Ester Wiesnerova: I'd love battle. Let's do it.
Rae Leigh: I would love that too. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks for joining another songwriter Truth with us today. Please don't forget to leave a review, subscribe and share with your friends. And if this is something that you'd like to find more out about or join the community or even come on the show, you can do so at www. songwritertrists. com.
