February 8th, 2010
Singing lessons are effective fund-raiser
Phyllis Jenness, 87, doesn’t tell herself no.
“I’ve never heard anyone say it that way before, but I appreciate hearing it,” she said.
The retired University of Kentucky voice professor sees a challenge or a new opportunity and goes for it. And we in Lexington are far better for that.
Jenness retired from UK in 1993 but hasn’t taken the sit-back-and-relax part of retirement very seriously.
“After I retired I had a yen to do something that wasn’t music related, because I had done music all my life,” she said.
So she took up golf. But she wasn’t as good at it as she was devoted to it. She taught adults to read through Operation Read. When they needed an English as a second language teacher, she volunteered.
Her students were Russian immigrants, prompting a desire to learn their language and culture to teach them better.
“I was a terrible, terrible Russian student,” Jenness said. “I could pronounce it, so I could sing Russian songs. But as far as learning the language, I was a dud.”
However, through her Russian teacher, Jenness became involved with InterCultural Connections, Inc., a non-profit service organization that originally helped children in Russia but now helps children in distressed communities in the Bluegrass and around the world, particularly Guatemala.
To help raise money for the organization, Jenness decided to offer voice lessons, “thinking they would never want that.” But they did. In 2004, Jenness started “Be a Better Singer” voice classes, which still meet on Sundays, with proceeds benefiting InterCultural Connections.
Glenna Graves, president of InterCultural Connections, said Jenness’s contributions have paid for scholarships to the YMCA for young people in Georgetown as well as sending thousands of books to Thailand and three ambulances to Guatemala.
In Escuintla, residents celebrate “Projecto Phyllis Jenness,” a truck with an attached water tank that has been a huge blessing to the residents of that small Guatemalan community.
Graves said 99 percent of the non-profit’s budget, or several thousand dollars annually, is from Jenness and the money she makes teaching.
“She thinks everyone can learn to sing,” said Janet Friedell, 79, who attended the first class Jenness taught in 2004. “She gets us to actually stand in front of the class and perform a song, something I never dreamed I would do.”
Judith Lesnaw, 69, also a charter group member, said Jenness criticizes gently and always encourages her students. “Never once, no matter how unprepared we are or how we creak, squeak and squawk, have I ever heard a disparaging word. She uses our incredible blunders to make us feel good and teach something.”
The Sunday class meets at 3 p.m. at Temple Adath Israel, 124 South Ashland Ave. It’s reached its limit for participants, but Jenness recently agreed to teach another voice class, this one on Saturdays, to all-comers, regardless of ability. Proceeds from those classes will benefit Hope for Tomorrow Children’s Home, an orphanage in Guatemala.
Again, the proceeds will buy diapers, medicine, food, clothing and provide for 24-hour staffing for the home, which currently houses eight children.
Brenda Riddle is executive director of Adopt!inc., a Lexington adoption agency that facilitates both domestic and international adoptions and that has acquired Hope for Tomorrow.
Jenness “is a fabulous example of someone who is incredibly giving,” Riddle said. “And what a creative and innovative way to help children in another country. She is incredibly kind.”
The new Saturday classes started four weeks ago, and like those on Sunday, cost $30 a month. A permanent location is being worked out.
But what about rest for the retiree?
“It’s such a satisfaction to me that at this point in my life I am being useful and helping the students but also helping people who need the money,” Jenness said. “It’s better than sitting around and watching TV.”
That she will never do.
Born in Natick, Mass., Jenness sang at school, in church and in college, where she was a featured soloist, “so I was led to believe I was a real hotshot,” she said.
Jenness earned her undergraduate degree and taught math, science and chemistry in schools before following her dream. She spent several years in New York City, making a living with her voice, but not achieving the level of success she had hoped for. She registered with a Chicago employment agency and was surprised to get a call from UK in August 1954.
“I had done almost no teaching,” Jenness said. “I don’t think I lied about it, but I think somehow they thought I had done more.
“I hadn’t been here a month before I knew I had found my profession and my place,” she said.
And she has been good for Lexington and UK. She primarily taught vocals, but she dabbled in vocal literature and choral conducting, all the while performing.
She established UK’s opera program in 1955 and founded the Lexington Singers in 1958. She led that group for nearly 20 years.
“I had never done any choral conducting, but somehow I thought I’d like to do this,” she said.
The Singers are still going strong.
And now she teaches voice to ordinary people.
“I try to see more in life than doing what I have to do, meeting my schedule and washing the dishes,” she said. 
The Sunday class has 24 students ranging in age from teens to those in their 70s or 80s. An hour before the voice classes she offers a sight reading class for $10 a month.
“I get great satisfaction in working with a singer no matter who they are, whether they are talented or not, and hearing the voice become healthier and more usable and more pleasant and etc.
“The teaching part has always been so stimulating to me and continues to be.”
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Be a Better Singer
Phyllis Jenness teaches a voice class at 11 a.m., on Saturday for all ages and all talent levels. The cost is $30 a month. Contact Jenness at (859) 269-5451








I am a native Kentuckian, and I have worked at the Lexington Herald-Leader for nearly a quarter of a century. I've been a columnist for almost 20 of those years, dispensing my opinions about anything and everything. Born in Owensboro, Ky., I'm old enough to have lived through racial segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and the break-up of the Beatles. That means I am "old school," and my thoughts emanate from that perspective.