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about us

Our philosophy

We believe in nurturing creative possibilities. Music therapy is an interpersonal process in which the therapist uses music and all of its facets- physical, emotional, mental, social, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual- to help people improve or maintain their health and well-being. We experience music together in a safe and motivating environment. Through this process, hidden strengths are revealed and in collaboration with our therapists, they are actualized and integrated. Music is used to connect with clients, reveal possibilities and make their lives better. 

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Our approach is grounded in our extensive experience and the science that shows that music has the unique power to transcend barriers, fostering growth and healing where words might fail. Each session is tailored to meet the individual needs and goals of our clients, whether they seek emotional expression, stress relief, cognitive stimulation, or social connection. By harnessing the transformative qualities of musical elements like rhythm, melody, and harmony, we cultivate moments of joy, insight, and empowerment, enabling our clients to meet their goals, build resilience, achieve balance, and enhance their quality of life.

Rooted in compassion, cultural humility, and ethical music therapy practice, CTMTS prioritizes creating a safe space for clients of all ages and backgrounds as they navigating life's challenges and transitions. We celebrate diversity and prioritize creating an environment where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.  CTMTS is a trauma-informed, neuro-affirming, gender-affirming, and LGBTQ+ affirming practice. We are dedicated to providing inclusive, person-centered music therapy services that honor the diverse identities, experiences, and needs of every individual. , We respectfully acknowledge that our center resides on the ancestral lands of the Paugussett, Wappinger and Mohican people, who have stewarded this land throughout generations. We honor their enduring relationship with this land and commit to learning from their legacy.

Our History

Connecticut Music Therapy Services, LLC was founded in 2005 by Jennifer Sokira with a vision to expand access to music therapy services to service users in need, as well as creating flexible supportive jobs for skilled MT-BCs in Connecticut.  The first multi-therapist private practice of music therapy in Connecticut, CTMTS has employed over 40 talented professionals and helped thousands of service users through it’s two decade history. 

Over the years, CTMTS has broadened its reach, providing services across a wide range of clinical areas. From early childhood to end-of-life care, we serve individuals with developmental and mental health needs, tailoring our approach to meet diverse goals and challenges.

As a strong advocate for music therapy awareness, we have played an active role in legislative efforts to secure licensure for music therapists in Connecticut. Through collaborations with local agencies, schools, and healthcare providers, we work to ensure that music therapy remains accessible to those who need it most.

We are proud of the meaningful impact we’ve made in Connecticut and remain committed to serving our community with dedication and excellence.

Our Team 

current career openings

Founder and CEO

Jennifer Sokira, EdD, LCAT, MT-BC

Director of operations &
client experience

Kelsy Moules, MBA, MT-BC

Clinical Coordinator and Music Therapist

Heidi Tierney, MA, MT-BC

Community Outreach Coordinator, Staff Music Therapist

Leah Muller, MA, MT-BC

Coordinator of gender affirming voicework, Staff Music Therapist

Braedyn Inmon, MMT, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Tess Sandler, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Mac Brown, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Danielle Visingardi, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Kaylynn Schachner, MMT, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Ani Ballester MMT, MT-BC,

Staff Music Therapist

Karen Mattera, MT-BC

Karen Mattera, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Karen is delighted to join the talented team of music therapists at Connecticut Music Therapy Services. A certified teacher with more than twenty years of experience in Connecticut public schools, she has taught music across all elementary grade levels. Her background includes directing choirs, ukulele and Orff ensembles, and designing curriculum for comprehensive K–5 music programs. Karen earned her Bachelor’s degree in Music from Western Connecticut State University and her Master’s degree in Music Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She later completed her Music Therapy Equivalency Degree through Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, Indiana. In her work, Karen takes a relationship-centered approach, striving to understand each client’s world—their interests, passions, and the music that brings them joy.

Danielle Visingardi, MT-BC

Staff Music Therapist

Danielle is a board-certified music therapist with a bachelors (2023) and masters (2025) in music therapy. Danielle approaches her work with a strengths- and relationship-based framework, wherein music is used to facilitate the development and maintenance of health and wellbeing as it relates to her therapy participants. She has experience working with therapy participants across the life span, representing strengths and needs in musical, emotional, physical, cognitive, and spiritual areas. Danielle has worked with individuals with autism, Down’s syndrome and other genetic disorders, ADHD, mental health diagnoses, Alzheimer and dementia, epilepsy disorders, traumatic brain injuries, and with individuals transitioning within the criminal justice system. Danielle is particularly interested in fostering healthy relationships between her clients and the communities in which she serves them attained  through greater connection and respect via community-minded and client-centered music therapy services. 

Staff Music Therapist

Ani Ballester, MMT, MT-BC (any pronoun) became a board-certified music therapist in 2020 after graduating with a Bachelor of Music Therapy from Drury University. Two years later, they earned their Master of Music Therapy from Colorado State University. Although Ani has experience with a wide variety of clientele in settings like schools, psychiatric facilities, and private homes, much of their work is focused on serving Autistic communities. An openly Autistic therapist herself, she uses her master degree focus on neurologic music therapy and disability justice centered approach to help clients use their neurodivergence as a strength. Ani is also proud and invigorated by the opportunity to offer Gender Affirming Voicework. He believes that the best tools to reach our goals is by embracing and empowering our most authentic selves. Serving the neurodivergent community, trans and gender non-conforming community, and any person or group who seeks compassion and strength in their lives is where his work finds its greatest fulfilment.

Staff Music Therapist

Kaylynn Schachner (they/she) is a music therapist practicing the Liberatory Music Therapy model of Gender Affirming Voicework (LMT-GAV), serving diverse voices remotely from her home in occupied Shawanwaki/Shawnee and Osage land (colonially referred to as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Kaylynn received a Masters in Music Therapy from Slippery Rock University in 2023 and has been board-certified since 2020. Before becoming a music therapist, she was a singer-songwriter, vocal director, and guitar & voice teacher, so her sessions are scaffolded by artistry, creativity, collaboration, and person-centered pedagogy. Kaylynn leans into various music therapy methods (improvisation, song re-creation, etc.) and narrative therapy with a psycho-social-somatic perspective on trauma and healing. As a researcher, Kaylynn is interested in the embodied lives of trans folx, singer-songwriters broadly, and trans singer-songwriters in particular, and how these groups find and build communities of resistance. In her free time she enjoys gratuitously long walks with her dog Loki, reading, playing video games, and painting.

Staff Music Therapist

Mac Brown, MT-BC (they/them) is a board certified music therapist who has worked with a variety of clients ranging from infants to seniors. Mac has worked with clients in a variety of settings including the office, schools, group homes, nursing homes, mental health and rehab facilities, and clients homes. Their clinical background includes working with adults and children with autism and other developmental disorders, teens with mental health and addiction challenges, as well as seniors with dementia. Mac received their bachelors degree in Music Therapy from Montclair State University.

Staff Music Therapist

Tess Sandler, MT-BC is a board-certified music therapist who earned her bachelor’s degree in Music Therapy from the State University of New York in Fredonia. She has experience working with children, adolescents, and adults with a wide range of cognitive, physical, and emotional challenges. This includes individuals with developmental & intellectual disabilities, dementia, traumatic brain injuries, visual impairments, speech impairments, and medical complexities. Tess utilizes a humanistic approach with her clients to help them reach their goals. 

Coordinator of gender affirming voicework, Staff Music Therapist

Braedyn Inmon, MMT, MT-BC (they/he) has been a board-certified music therapist since 2016. After graduating from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX, Braedyn has primarily worked as a music therapist in hospice, long term care and neuro-rehabilitation settings supporting disabled adults in both individual and group sessions, with some experience offering community-based group programming for developmentally disabled adults. Additionally, they have experience conducting psychoeducational groups in community-based mental health centers as a mental health professional. Since 2019, Braedyn has been in the process of completing their Masters in Music Therapy with an endorsement in Counseling from Slippery Rock University. Their studies have focused on finding their clinical identity within the Resource Oriented Music Therapy paradigm, incorporating counseling micro-skills and music psychotherapy techniques into their current work with clients, and developing the gender affirming voicework approach with their colleague & peer Maevon Gumble, MMT, MT-BC. Braedyn is excited to offer gender affirming voicework as well as community music therapy programming to clients in Connecticut, with a particular interest in fostering community for trans and gender nonconforming people across the lifespan.

Community Outreach Coordinator, Staff Music Therapist

Leah Muller, MA, MT-BC (she/her) is a Board Certified Music Therapist, who received her Masters Degree in Music Therapy  and Bachelor’s degree in Disability & Community Services, with a concentration in Special Education and Social Work. Leah has extensive clinical music therapy experience working with individuals of all ages in school settings (developmental disabilities, Autism, etc), intensive medical care (stroke, TBI, etc), adolescent residential rehabilitation, hospice, and dementia care.

Leah’s work is rooted in compassion and patience, with an emphasis on supporting client strengths and abilities to achieve their goals.

In her free time, Leah enjoys leading her church worship band, hiking with her husband, and drinking an iced latte!

Clinical Coordinator and Music Therapist

Heidi Tierney, MA, MT-BC (she/her) is a Board Certified Music Therapist, holding a Bachelors degree in Music Education with a concentration in Music in Special Education and Percussion. She earned her Masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Music Therapy. Heidi has worked closely in the field of education, specializing in therapeutic and residential school settings. Heidi’s work is founded in person centered and strengths based  approaches, developing each client’s unique strengths to support their challenges. She has worked extensively with adolescents and their families, specializing in Trauma and co-occurring disorders including depression,  attachment disorders, anxiety, ADHD, addiction, psychotic disorders and developmental needs.  Heidi currently serves a broad range of clientele spanning across all ages and including individuals with Autism, intellectual and memory care needs. Heidi holds certifications in Neurologic Music Therapy and trauma treatment therapies such as ARC, SMART, EMDR level 1, and My Life My Choice. Her previous experience in greater Boston as a residential program administrator has informed her approach that places value on integrating caregiving systems and community into an individual’s treatment.  Notably, she has presented her research of Community Music Therapy and the therapeutic benefits of music performance at conferences across the country.

Assistant Director & Music Therapist

Since 2015, Kelsy Moules, MBA, MT-BC (she/her) has happily been a member of the Connecticut Music Therapy Services team. With an undergraduate degree is music therapy from Anna Maria College and a Masters of Business Administration from Saint Joseph’s University, she uses her education and experience to inform her role as both a music therapist and administrator. Kelsy has had the joy of working with many people with a variety of needs and backgrounds, but, has specialty in working with older adults with developmental disabilities, Alzheimer’s and dementia. Kelsy also has extensive experience working with preschool-aged children, particularly in school-based and group settings. Kelsy’s primary instrument is voice but she also plays the guitar, piano and trumpet. In her spare time, Kelsy enjoys spending time with her family, hiking and finding new coffee shops to try. 

Founder and CEO

Jennifer Sokira, MMT, LCAT, MT-BC (she/her) established CTMTS in 2005 and her current clinical work focuses on people who are healing from grief, trauma and PTSD using music psychotherapy methods. Jen is a Fellow of the Association for Music and Imagery (FAMI) and she has completed Levels 1 and 2 of Brainspotting as well as advanced training in Complicated Grief Treatment. Founder of Connecticut Music Therapy Services, LLC, since 2005 she has created opportunities for thousands of individuals in Connecticut to receive quality music therapy services from skillful and caring music therapists. Notably, Jennifer was music therapist and Clinical Director of the Resiliency Center of Newtown where she provided music therapy and assisted with community programming and consultation for clients impacted by the 12/14/12 tragedy at Sandy Hook School from 2013-2020.

She is currently serving as Vice President of the American Music Therapy Association, and her past professional service includes tenure as a Past-President of the New England Region of the American Music Therapy Association, and nine years as an appointed member of the AMTA Ethics Board.

Jen’s advocacy for increased knowledge and training for healthcare professionals working with clients who have experienced trauma has lead to her to consulting, writing, teaching and presenting regionally, nationally and internationally on trauma-informed practice and disaster response. She serves on faculty for Alverno College’s Master of Music Therapy program, Southern Connecticut State University’s bachelor in music therapy program and Quinnipiac University’s music minor. She is also the co-owner and Director of Educational Programming for EnlightenCE.

Jennifer’s recent publications include Considerations For Music Therapy in Long-Term Response to Mass Tragedy and Trauma in Music Therapy Today The Resilience Framework for Trauma-Informed Music Therapy,  in Trauma-Informed Practice in Music Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide (Routledge) and “Music Therapy: An Opportunity to Support Older Adults Healing from Trauma” in the American Society on Aging’s Generations Magazine.  She is pursuing a doctorate in education (EdD) at Alverno College, and her dissertation research focuses trauma-informed care education in music therapy undergraduate curriculua.