Artistry with Heart: A Musician’s Wellness Podcast

About Artistry with Heart: A Musician’s Wellness Podcast

Artistry with Heart is a show that goes beyond the curtain and into the musician's mind. Through the stories of musicians, performers, and educators, Artistry with Heart navigates the complex themes of finding the courage to be vulnerable, and understanding what it means to create with compassion and authenticity, while creating resources that aims to inspire all creatives and make music accessible to all. The show is hosted by Stephanie Bernards, and is produced and edited by Vic Billones. Available on all platforms with new episodes every first Thursday of the month ---------------- We are building a support community for creatives. Putting yourself out there takes courage, and this podcast was created to help support you! If you have any questions or stories you’d like to share, email artistrywithheart1@gmail.com (mailto:artistrywithheart1@gmail.com). Support the show: patreon.com/aristrywithheart1 (http://patreon.com/aristrywithheart1) buymeacoffee.com/artistrywithheart (http://buymeacoffee.com/artistrywithheart)

Publisher

Stephanie Lynne Bernards

Category

music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

5 Sept 2022

Latest episode

30 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

33 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Building from the Ground Up ft. Tamar Kaprelian

   On this episode of Artistry with Heart, I sit down with multi-platinum artist and entrepreneur Tamar Kaprelian, co-writer of Rosa Linn's global smash "SNAP" (4 billion streams and counting) and founder of Nvak Collective, a record label built from the ground up to give musicians a better way forward in the industry. Tamar takes us inside her early years signed to RCA under Clive Davis, who declared her entire catalog not good enough sparking a full year of rewriting alongside hitmakers like Max Martin, Kara DioGuardi, and Chantal Kreviazuk. She opens up about being dropped, not once but twice, over inappropriate A&R dynamics the industry around her failed to address, and how those painful experiences became the blueprint for a different way of doing business. We talk about what it took to build Nvak Collective, a label with a 90% female staff, a zero-tolerance policy, artist-care stipends covering everything from therapy to rent, and license-based deals that put ownership back in artists' hands. Tamar shares the story of discovering Rosa Linn in a small Armenian village and nurturing "Snap" from a back-burner song to a global phenomenon, proof that patient, artist-first development works. She also reflects on the legacy of her grandfather, an Armenian genocide survivor who built a life from nothing, and how becoming a mother recalibrated everything about how she leads. We close the conversation with her new song "Mirror" - a reflection on accountability, and what it really means to look inward before pointing fingers outward. If you are a musician that needs resources in the music industry, reach out to Tamar, founder of the Nvak Collective, on her Insta: @tamarkaprelian and tell them Stephanie from Artistry with Heart sent you! Also, please reach out if you'd like more information on Artistry with Heart's online musicians wellness course, running now! If you send me a message at artistrywithheart1@gmail.com, I'd happy share the recorded first section- includes body mapping for musicians, holistic wellness, performance psychology and more. Just let me know, we got your back! I'd also just love to hear from you if anything stood out or was meaningful. Drop me a line at artistrywithheart1@gmail.com . Be you and stay inspired!

2. 

   2 Sept 2026

   Strength from Within with Bex Herman and Gwen Cawdron

   In this episode of Artistry with Heart, I'm joined by two extraordinary orchestral musicians for a conversation about parallel lives lived across continents: injuries, motherhood, and the pursuit of sustainable artistry. Gwendolyn Cawdron is Associate Principal Viola in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She trained at Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and spent nearly eight years with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London before joining the RLPO in 2016. Learn more at gwendolyncawdron.com. Rebecca "Bex" Herman is an orchestral cellist who has performed with the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and English National Opera, among many others. She trained at Eastman and the Royal Academy of Music and co-founded the Castalian String Quartet. In 2017, debilitating stage fright took her off the stage — a detour that led her into a PhD in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music, researching mindfulness and performance anxiety. She returned to performing in 2022 and now splits her time between research and playing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia. Learn more at bexherman.com. Listen to the full performance of Gwen's performance of Bruch's Romanze here and Bex's full performance of Bloch's Prayer  here. Gwen and Bex are close friends as well as colleagues, and their lives have run in remarkably parallel ways: as professional string players, as mothers to two young kids close in age, as expats living far from home, and as musicians who've each had to navigate injury and physical limitation in their careers. We talk about all of it: the realities of touring and orchestral life, the vulnerability of stepping away from performing, and what it means to build a sustainable, resilient creative life, the very themes at the heart of Artistry with Heart: Wellness for Musicians, the course I'm teaching with Gwen and Bex this fall. Read on below for more about the course! Resource of the Month: This month's musicians' wellness resource is brought to you by Artistry with Heart. Musicians face uniquely high rates of performance-related injury, chronic pain, anxiety, burnout, and repetitive stress — yet wellness education remains largely absent from traditional music training. Musicians are routinely taught to prioritize performance over sustainability, resulting in shortened careers and barriers to creative expression. Artistry with Heart: Wellness for Musicians addresses this critical gap with preventative, research-informed, artist-centered education that builds resilience, confidence, and sustainable artistry. This 8-part digital course covers injury prevention, Body Mapping for Musicians, yoga, performance anxiety, and more. This course is essentially everything Stephanie, Gwen, and Bex each wish they'd learned decades earlier, and everything they're currently applying to their own lives as players and wellness practitioners. AwH is excited to offer two free enrollments to the first two people who reach out at artistrywithheart1@gmail.com to let them know what their personal takeaways from the episode were. Beyond that, anyone who's a Heartist on Patreon receives an automatic 10% discount on the course, our thank-you for being part of this community. Join the community here! We're here to help keep you thriving, both on and off the stage. We hope you'll join us! Sign up at stephaniebernards.org/musicians-wellness-course-online.

3. 

   6 Aug 2026

   Love and Mental Breakdowns ft. Alana Hil

   Heads up! This episode has strong language and mentions sexual abuse. If you or a loved one is experiencing an emergency, dial 911 or call The National Sexual Assault Hotline, available 24/7: 1-800-656-4673 ----------------------------------- In this episode of Artistry with Heart, I sit down with singer-songwriter Alana Hill to talk about the journey from their debut album Me to the deeply personal Diaries of a Common Woman. Alana opens up about growing up in Kentucky amid domestic abuse, a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, and a lifelong pattern of people-pleasing, and how all of it feeds directly into their songwriting. We hear the origin story behind "Love and Mental Breakdowns," written in ten minutes after a real moment of relational rupture, and get a first look at an upcoming project, "Who's to Blame," exploring ancestral trauma. It's a conversation about artistic development as a spiritual process, and the gratitude of learning, as Alana puts it, that "we leave home to find who we are, but what we find is where we're from." Find Alana Hill:Instagram/YouTube: @alana.hillStreaming: all platforms --------------------------- Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/artistrywithheart Artistry with Heart is a small, independent show hosted by Stephanie Bernards and produced by Vic Billones. Each episode is made with love – and tons of heart. This podcast was created for you: the dreamer, the artist, the one still figuring it out. If it's added something to your day, we'd love your support.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

9 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 34 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

40

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

71

Contact Artistry with Heart: A Musician’s Wellness Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.