Marisa Corvo

I started READING music at 3 years old and played piano only at that point. By the time I was 6, I was in the Lucy Moses Pre- college for young musicians as a classical pianist. By the time I was about 9 years old I auditioned for the Manhattan School of Music pre college and got in with scholarship. A year later I started singing and landed myself a role on the 1998 musical tour “Annie” where I played “Pepper”..

So this all sounds like I had a good start to my career so far right? Well.. think again.. things got really overwhelming for me. I started to have panic attacks and I started to feel burnt out from all the pressures that classical piano brought me. My mother made me audition for the Julliard pre-college division and all my teachers were on the jury board at that time so all I had to do was do my best… and so I sabotaged the audition. I played snippets of the pieces and then said to the jury “well..i forgot the rest”. I walked out of that room and that was the first time I ever cursed my mom out and told her I was done with music and the piano for good.

By about 18 I attended Fordham University just on an academic scholarship with no interest in music but I soon realized that I wasn’t so done with music after all. I started to miss music and want to do it again more professionally. I started to write music- christian music that was because I worked in my church and felt there was a strong christian music influence in my life at the time and I enjoyed it. At 19, I was offered a publishing deal with Razor and Tie Records in their Nashville branch. I moved to Nashville and attended Belmont university while pursuing my pub/record deal. By the time I was 21, I started having those panic attacks again and started dealing with chronic depression and anxiety. I did not know it at the time, but I was starting to realize my sexuality and that I was in fact a lesbian. Here I had this Christian deal and had to live this christian life, and I was at a crossroads with everything because of what I had to come to terms with. 

I came out to my label and they dropped me. No phone call back- no anything. They just pretended I sort of never existed ( they didn’t even send me a 1099 for that year..weird!!). My parents stopped talking to me for 3 years and I ended up having a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. After a few weeks, I came out of the hospital and drove all the way back home to NYC and never left or lived anywhere other than NYC since 2008. 

I came home to such chaos and abuse as well as being knee high in debt. I worked in a flower shop to get back on my feet where I made 40 bucks a day. From there I started to work as a dog walker in the streets of Manhattan which actually was one of the most therapeutic jobs I have ever had. I swear those dogs helped me heal from all the pain and heartache I went through. I also started therapy for an anxiety disorder that I finally got diagnosed correctly with. It was a long uphill battle and the struggle is real every day but you have to keep pushing forward and make the right choices consistently. 

At 23, I had the opportunity to audition for American Idol and I got on the show. I Made it to the top 35 girls (70 overall) and it opened so many doors for me. I realized at that point I had to make music my priority again and to somehow find my way “back home”. I loved music but it brought so much pain in my life and in my childhood and I had to overcome that pain somehow bc my love for music was stronger than the pain I felt. I started to teach music in the elementary schools where I lived in Staten Island, NY and before you knew it I had a studio of over 50 kids and 5 catholic schools that were fighting to have me on different days. Life was becoming a little easier for a while… and I enjoyed it.. I just never loved it. 

I realized that at 27, I needed to make a change. I had gotten my feet wet with teaching and always knew that I could go back to that if I ever needed to but I really wanted to perform for a living. I was discovered by a booking agent out of Las Vegas named “Steve Beyer Productions”. I have now worked for them FULL TIME for over 3.5 years and I love every second of it. 

In October of 2018 I had the honor of playing for Diane Warren. I didnt even get that job through my booking guy. Get this- I got that gig through a friend of mine from staten island who’s a personal injury attorney and he knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody that needed a singer…. And that girl was me… Diane and I have now hit it off. She believes in me and is encouraging me to continue to grow and not to “give up”. She made me promise her that I would not give up. 

In jan of 2019 I moved to cali and now this is where the story begins….