Hi, I’m Allie
I’m a Songwriter-Producer, Artist, Berklee College of Music alum and Session Vocalist with 10,000 studio hours and counting. I’ve been the voice of 200+ projects in a variety of genres. I help songwriters bring their impactful music to life through session work, music production education & coaching and community retreats.
Currently: I’m writing 225 songs and documenting the process on my social media @alliewritessongs, launching The Song Bridge Podcast, releasing new music every other week, and performing in my Latin pop duo, Armonía - oh, and coaching AMAZING songwriters, like you!
When I’m not creating: I’m probably surfing Lake Pactola with my husband, Zach, hiking with my puppy, Remi, or exploring and meeting new friends somewhere around the world.
My Story
Life is like google maps - only you don’t know your final destination. You rarely get a direct route. You just have to keep moving, follow the next turn, reroute when needed, and somehow… you get where you’re meant to go.
My journey through music has been the same… full of unexpected turns, detours, new faces and places. I didn’t have a plan. I just followed the spark, pointed my shoes in the direction I felt called and stayed willing to fail, learn and pivot. Every step I have taken so far has led me here. And the story isn’t over yet! How exciting!
Most of the time when you scroll online, you see polished bios, highlight reels and shiny success stories. You rarely get to know the winding road that got the person there.
As your future mentor, collaborator and friend, you deserve to know all of the twists and turns that have brought me here. If you want to stick around i’d be happy to tell you my story.
xoxo Allie
Professional Bio
Allie Gardner is a songwriter, producer, music mentor and session vocalist with over 10,000 studio hours. She has recorded hundreds of lead and background vocals and performed live BGVs for major artists including Jordan Smith and Blanca. A former member of BYU Noteworthy, Allie toured in the U.S. singing parts from soprano 1 to female bass, and appeared in videos with millions of views. As a solo artist singing Christian music in Spanish, she built a large international audience, toured in multiple countries in Latin America, and performed in worldwide Christian broadcasts. Her weekly program, Martes de Motivación which ran through the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic received thousands of weekly viewers, bringing hope and comfort through music in trying times. In 2024, Allie teamed up with Diana Angulo, to form a Latin Christian pop duo Armonía. They recently released their debut 12-track album entitled ‘Armonia’.
In English, Allie releases her heartfelt music for healing under the artist name Allie Michele. She is excited to be launching her new podcast, The Songbridge, featuring interviews with inspiring people from all walks of life and sharing the music created about their stories soon!
Allie trained under esteemed vocal coach Dean Kaelin, later becoming his apprentice and earning certification through the International Voice Teachers of Mix (IVTOM) as a Vocal Coach specializing in helping young female artists sing throughout their range without a vocal break. She founded Sing2Shine vocal studio, mentored aspiring artists, connecting them with music industry professionals and launching their own professional music careers. Additionally, she created Sing n Serve Music tours to give young artists an opportunity for cultural awareness and personal development, traveling to Cusco, Peru to do humanitarian service and perform in local communities.
A prolific songwriter-producer, Allie has developed a multi-genre catalog across pop, CCM, cinematic, Latin, worship, classical crossover and music for advertising. She recently completed her 2025 challenge of writing 225 songs in one year, and is a member of the Nashville songwriting community, SongChasers, curated by multi-grammy award winning Songwriter-Producers Seth Mosley and X O’Connor.
Allie is an enthusiastic alumni of Berklee College of Music where she studied Music Production, Songwriting and Music Business. She is passionate about teaching aspiring artists to write, produce, record, mix, and release their own music as self-sufficient songwriter-producers. She finds genuine joy in mentoring with a warm “big sister” energy.
Ok, So Here’s how this all happened-
It was 1998, Sugar House, Utah. My family had always called me opera baby because i’d belt out dramatic melodies from my high chair, imitating the self-proclaimed opera singer who lived next door.
That year my parents were T-boned by an intoxicated driver who ran a red light in downtown Salt Lake City, rolling my parents car multiple times, leaving them hanging from their seatbelts upside down and eventually landing both of them in the hospital with serious injuries. By the grace of God, they survived. But, I spent much of the next few years watching Disney movies and musicals from my mom’s hospital bed. One look at Donny Osmand singing “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and my fate as a musician was sealed.
Later, while other kids chased soccer balls around me, I sat in the grass picking dandelions and making up songs, totally lost in my own world. My parents wisely redirected me into music lessons including violin, voice, musical theater, dance, and choir. One of my earliest memories of the magic of performing was singing in the Kurt Bestor Christmas Concert with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as part of the Salt Lake Children’s Choir.
At twelve, I began more rigorous vocal training with Dean Kaelin, vocal coach to artists like David Archuleta, Julianne Hough and many other Broadway, American Idol and The Voice alumni. Dean grew to become one of the most influential figures in my life. I’ll be forever grateful he took me under his wing. 🤍
When my brother moved off to college, I “borrowed” (and never returned🤭) his guitar which I affectionately named ‘Mojo’ and began writing my own songs. At the time, iTunes was exploding, Taylor Swift and Sara Barielles were emerging and I was desperate to be an artist just like them. I began recording at Noisebox Studios when it was just a basement apartment and Dave Zimmerman, a recent graduate. (Crazy to think about all these years later!) Anyway, I absolutely fell in love with the recording studio. I signed with a talent agency (bad choice tbh), performed in cafés, local events and started working as a hired session vocalist.
During my teenage years, I also began working at The Campus Club, an organization that provides Music Therapy & Life Skills activities for individuals with disabilities. In 2012, I had the opportunity to write an hour long musical for the group to perform. To this day, it is one of my most cherished memories. After realizing my passion for using music to serve in that community, I got a second job as a personal aide for two of the group members and spent my days doing “unofficial music therapy” — singing, playing the guitar, doing personal daily care and companionship. BJ (pictured left) became the soundtrack of my life, his powerful bellowing voice singing “Kiss Me In The Rain” (my first original hit), “Bring -Allie- Home”, his rendition of B.H.H. from Les Mis, and every ABBA song ever.
After spending years going from one Musical Theater performance to the next with rarely a break in rehearsals, I realized that my music could be better invested in service than in performance. I subsequently made the difficult decision to step away from musical theater, giving up my former dream of performing on Broadway (a big deal for me, considering I had dedicated years of my life training for that goal with coaches) — I have never once regretted that choice.
I applied and was accepted to the well sought after Music Therapy Bachelor’s Program at Utah State University, though after much thought and consideration, I decided to pursue my education elsewhere.
After discovering the power of music to heal and unite, I followed that calling far beyond my hometown. I served as a volunteer missionary in Quintana Roo & Yucatán, México, living in a hut, sleeping in a hammock, serving people 24/7, learning to speak Spanish (and some Maya) and giving my whole heart to people who taught me more about life, faith and resilience than any other experience could. I sang in doorways, tiny chapels with tin roofs, and on many dusty roads. I saw how God could use my voice to bring comfort, peace and even laughter! (because how awkward is it to ask someone if you can sing them a hymn when they’re actively trying to shut a door in your face haha)
Next, I lived on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, while attending the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies studying Biblical Hebrew & Archaeology. There is nothing like singing at the Garden Tomb, The Garden of Gethsemane and countless other sites that I regard as Holy. What I loved most, however, was being around so many people who did not believe the same as I did. I learned more about my personal faith convictions from watching Jews, Muslims, Other Denominations of Christians, and others practice their respective faiths. They stretched my worldview, deepened my empathy and rooted in me a single truth I still live by:
Every Voice Has Something To Teach Us.
Around the same time, I started recording Worship Music in Spanish for my friends in México. I wasn’t expecting anything, but the songs went viral and pretty much overnight I suddenly had an audience of thousands of people requesting songs!
Through multiple international tours to countries like México, Peru, Argentina and Panamá, and through digital concerts & a weekly facebook live program titled Martes de Motivación which ran for the duration of the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis, I was privileged to build an audience of 30,000+ amazing friends from around the world. I witnessed countless miracles of how involved God is in the tiniest details of our lives as I visited countries and sang. During each tour, we organized community humanitarian service events and personal house visits to friends and fans in need of encouragement. My favorite part (and my manager’s least favorite haha) of every tour was staying hours after every performance to individually greet any and every fan who wanted to meet me. I heard thousands of stories of how my music had impacted their lives. It has been the privilege of my life to form some small part in their stories. How cool that God could use music to do that!
After more than a decade of studying voice privately with my mentor, Dean Kaelin, I had the opportunity to become his apprentice. I shadowed hours of Dean’s vocal sessions both with professional level-performers, and with novices. I poured over hours of his and other master vocal coaches recorded sessions, inhaled volumes of material to learn everything I could about vocal technique and eventually was licensed as a certified vocal coach in the International Voice Teachers of Mix Singing. I sought feedback from many coaches to improve on my teaching skills and quickly grew to be an impactful vocal coach.
I specialized in helping teen girls learn to sing throughout their vocal range without a “break”, allowing them to sing powerfully and freely in any style. I gained additional training from Jon Skidmore, Psy D in Performance Psychology to help my students overcome stage anxiety and achieve peak performance. Many of my voice students have gone on to book roles in prestigious musical theater companies, start successful independent music careers and become professional hired session musicians themselves.
What started as private voice lessons in the back corner room at Dean Kaelin’s studio soon grew into Sing2Shine, a commercial music studio with 7 amazing staff, 100+ students, a musical theater program, rentable photography/performance space and music career mentorship program. Students in the mentorship program were given opportunities to perform in Showcases and interact with industry professionals such as Amy Whitcomb (The Voice, Season 4), Kyle Khou (American Idol Producer/Talent Scout) and Jay Warren (T-Pain, Gladys Knight, JTM) and were connected with local songwriters, studios and businesses to gain real industry experience and connections to jumpstart their careers.
I was a young, serial entrepreneur, newlywed, growing a business during a global pandemic while balancing a thriving international music career, working as a session vocalist for Blomberg Music Productions and regularly teaching 40 voice students. To say I was burning the candle at both ends couldn’t begin to cover it. I failed hard, fast and often. I tried to learn from every mistake I made (and I made many!!!) as quickly as I could. We built something we were so proud of, and something I was so heartbroken to leave behind when a massive opportunity arrived in my husband’s career that pretty suddenly took us to South Dakota. We left Sing2Shine in the very best of hands with Fields & Co. Productions. I often wonder what else we could have done with Sing2Shine if we had had more years to reach our potential. We’ll never know… but my students and the community we built still have my heart to this day.
In early 2017, I experienced the catastrophic, sudden, unexpected loss of my lifelong best friend which plunged me into a deep depression. I stopped writing songs, stopped singing and really, stopped living. After spending months in Zombie mode, I was walking through the Student Center at BYU and saw an audition notice for BYU Noteworthy, the school’s Premier Female A Cappella group. Needing something that would help me feel alive again, I immediately walked in and botched my audition. Somehow, director, Keith Evans saw something in me, invited me callbacks, and I made it into the group. It changed my life.
I spent the next two years singing voice parts from Soprano 1 to Female Bass, touring in the United States, performing in music videos and recordings that got millions of views and building amazing friendships. One of our songs, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, received a personal congratulatory phone call from the office of His Holiness, The Pope. (That was a shock!! But what an honor.)
The person you marry shapes your life more than anyone else ever will.
I met my cute South Dakota boy, Zach, fell in love with his dreamy big blue eyes, we dated, and got married the following year — just two kids with big hopes and hardly any idea what life would ask of us. We’ve grown up together since then, side by side through every twist and pivot. Zach has encouraged, challenged, supported, and believed in me through every iteration of my dreams.
Here’s where it gets interesting…
Moving to Rapid City, South Dakota presented new challenges. I suddenly found myself in a place with no music infrastructure, hundreds of miles from any sizable city, away from all of my existing recording clients, voice students, business and with no reputable recording studios to record my music to continue my international music career. Yeah… things looked bleak. My options were… I could become a neighborhood vocal coach, travel frequently to record in bigger cities or just give up. So I decided to start over! Endings have a way of becoming beautiful beginnings.
With my schedule suddenly completely wide open, I decided if I couldn’t find a studio, I’d have to make one instead. I rolled up my sleeves and inhaled hours of YouTube Tutorials, online courses, masterclasses and programs to try to learn to professionally produce my music. Progress was slow and frustrating.
While I learned, I continued touring as an artist, singing in worldwide broadcasts (one on the set of the Chosen!), and sang backup vocals for artists such as Jordan Smith, Blanca, Take6, Gary Levox, Liberty James and others.
I was still grieving what I had let go of, but I knew I couldn’t give up on my dreams just yet.
All the while I was battling it out trying everything I could to learn music production. I could hear music in my head but was lost every time I opened Logic, not knowing how to take the sounds in my head and bring them into the software. I applied and was accepted to Berklee College of Music to study Music Production, Songwriting & Music Business in their Interdisciplinary Music Studies program. I got to create my own major, learning from some of the best in the business on a variety of topics! Berklee was life changing. I gained the skills I had so desperately needed, had excellent mentors and professors who often met with me outside of class to answer my questions, give me feedback on my work and point me in the right direction. In addition to production, I gained a greater interest in Film Scoring, Sync Music for TV and Film and reignited my passion for songwriting.
Early in my Berklee studies, I was invited to join a Nashville-based Songwriter Community, created by multi-grammy award winning songwriter, Seth Mosley and have had the opportunity to be mentored by Seth, and grammy award winning producer X O’conner in online and in-person trainings for the last few years. We’ve also heard from industry professionals like Rick Barker, Taylor Swift’s former manager, Music Publishers from Sony and many other successful songwriters and industry professionals.
Once in the group, I dove head first into co-writing remotely with many skilled songwriters from around the country and continued to hone my craft, even writing with some incredible writers like Baily Hager, Andrew Capra and Seth Mosley.
As I gained production skills, I invested in building a professional grade recording studio in my home and began offering session vocals and production services to songwriters. I no longer had to depend on anyone else to write, record and release music whether for clients or in my own career. It was so liberating and almost intoxicating to be able to hear something in my head, put it in my computer and share it with the world on my own timetable and terms. I would give ANYTHING for every songwriter with music stuck in their head to feel that way. (FORESHADOWING!)
Graduating from Berklee was a full-circle moment. As I watched Sara Barielles, the artist who got me hooked on songwriting in the early 2000s, stand up to the podium to offer her speech and receive her honorary doctorate, I couldn’t help but feel proud of my own journey with all its twists, turns, successes, failures, yeses and no’s. As I flipped my tassel, I made a silent promise to myself to never let anyone define for me what I could or couldn’t achieve ever again. I symbolically ended my lifelong battle with imposter syndrome and resolved to move forward with unshaken confidence.
During this time, I launched Sing n Serve to take groups of young performers to Peru to complete service projects and perform concerts for local communities. We partnered with a school in Quenqo, Cusco, Peru high in the mountains, to paint and update run down classrooms, provide activities for the children and engage in the local community. It was amazing to see the group build bridges across language barriers, socioeconomic classes and religious beliefs as they attended llama blessing ceremonies, filmed music videos in town squares with locals, explored Machu Picchu and other ruins and served in the community.
One of the ways I began sharing my music more freely after learning production was by creating Armonía, a christian latin pop duo alongside internationally adored spokesperson and musician, Diana Angulo. Uninhibited by production barriers, within our first year as a duo we were able to release a full length album of original music, a Christmas EP and 4 singles, perform live in christian women’s conferences and build an audience of 5,000 enthusiastic fans. Teaming up with Diana was so much fun, I made the difficult decision to discontinue releasing music and touring as Allie Gardner, and retire my spanish speaking solo career in favor of pouring all of my energy into Armonía.
Phew! We’re almost caught up to my current chapter.
2025 was a catalyst year. I set and reached the goal to write 225 songs, with as many of them co-writes as I possibly could, continued my work as a session vocalist and producer, finished my Berklee Capstone project, and made the big move to Nashville, Tennessee. I also worked with an incredible team of doctors to finally address some major health concerns, reworked my health habits both mentally and physically, and became more spiritually and emotionally settled.
With my personal development came a flood of ideas and unshaken conviction for how to use all of my talents, abilities and experience to help songwriters find creative freedom, write impactful music and make a difference in the world.
I founded Allie Writes Songs, The Song Bridge Podcast and the Allie Michele music brand to reach my goal of expanding human empathy one song, one songwriter, and one person at a time.
so here’s what comes next
My Current Chapter Includes
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14,000 ft:
Pachamama & The Llama Blessing Ceremony That Changed Everything
Real Humans. Real Stories. Real Songs.
Imagine National Geographic… but instead of photos → stories & songs.
The coolest stories never make it to the headlines — they’re inside ordinary people. In each episode, I sit down with someone from a unique walk of life to hear their story then share their perspective through a new song.
Podcast
Dear Songwriter
About Session Services Coaching Retreats Podcast
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