UI theater major looking to make name as pop singer

Jaclyn Holtzman seems like any college student.

She's not sure what her life holds or what will happen when she graduates from the University of Illinois in May 2011. She's juggling schoolwork, a sorority, a boyfriend. Oh, and she's working on a professional singing career under her stage name, J Rose.

Holtzman is a 20-year-old theater major. She's soft-spoken and without ego. Her straight brunette hair is pulled into a ponytail during a recent interview, a purple scarf and gray hoodie sweat shirt framing her face.

But don't be mistaken, said her producer, Bradley Spalter: she's got true star power.

"We believe in her whole-heartedly and she's a star," said Spalter, a relative of Hotlzman's and the owner of Bradley Spalter Music Group. He's produced songs for Babyface, Christina Milian (he was nominated for Grammys for both those artists) and won a Grammy for producing Gladys Knight's "I Said You Lied" in 2001.

"I've been singing ever since I could remember," Holtzman said, especially in musicals. So when she got the chance to sing for Spalter, her relative, last year in Los Angeles, she chose "Good Morning Baltimore," from Hairspray.

"When she first sang for me, her voice just blew me away and (so did) her stage presence," Spalter said. "She just had that 'it' factor."

By the time her trip was over, she'd recorded a song (and learned how to "studio sing," a big change from her former Broadway style) and was on her way to becoming a pop-rock star.

"Usually, that's really a tough thing to do," Spalter said, referring to changing styles, "but with J Rose, she picked it up really fast."

Broadway singing relies more on facial expressions, Spalter said, and "in the studio you sing from the gut. She just completely had it. I was in shock."

She's been back to L.A. a few times, even squeezing in a trip after a summer studying abroad in Paris.

She's recorded more songs and released a single, posed for a photo shoot that's run on MTV's "House of Jazmin" and has a manager. She'll go back over winter break and plans to start rehearsing a live show so she can start singing locally, and she hopes, nationally. She'll also release an album, Spalter said.

Her single, "Beautiful," is available on iTunes and has hit No. 1 on tweenpopradio.com, where fans can vote for the song. Meanwhile, she's maintained her studies as a theater major at the University of Illinois and is intent on graduating.

She participates in as many events as she can with her sorority, Alpha Phi. She's close with her boyfriend, Clay Carns, whom she met eight months ago at the UI.

She hasn't told her theater professors about her aspiring pop-rock career, and she's not sure she will. "I wouldn't know what to say" to them, Holtzman said. "It hasn't interfered with my theater yet (and) it's possible that it won't."

She didn't act in any university departmental shows this semester, which helped her time-wise. That will probably change next semester, she said.

But she's determined.

"I've always been a very nerdy school student," she said. And while it's sometimes stressful, "I believe if you care enough about something, you make the time for it."

Her manager, William Middlebrooks of Farmer Middlebrooks Co., said he wants her to stay in school because it gives her professional training – especially because he considers her a "quadruple threat" – a singer, actor, dancer and model.

"A lot of other recording artists decide, 'Oh, I want to be an actor,'" Middlebrooks said. "She's actually in school perfecting her craft. ... She's actually putting in the professional (training) that will make her a cut above the rest."

As for life after college, Holtzman said she always planned to move to L.A., and now it makes more sense for her.

But if her career starts to take off before May 2011, Holtzman sounds like any other junior in college - she's not sure what will happen. She might end up transferring to a college in California, or she might take a break.

But she'll go back to school, she's sure of it, Holtzman said. And she's learning all the time - she said she draws inspiration from pop-country artists Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, both young women who've made it big.

"I just kind of ditch the country and go with the rock," Holtzman said.

Holtzman said she sometimes thinks about, if she becomes famous, which friends will think of her as Jaclyn, versus acquaintances who'll think of her and address her as J Rose. Already, people in the music business know her as J Rose, she said.

For now, friends call her the latter when they're joking, and Holtzman is glad to have her own personal Facebook page (with the name Jaclyn Holtzman on it) and her own identity. "I'd like to keep those separate," Holtzman said of her names. "I'm still Jaclyn."

But as she continues her career, she's learned she has to believe in herself and what she plans to do.

"If you don't have confidence in it," she said, referring to her musical project, "no one is going to have confidence in it."

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