By Jim Roberts
When Kayce Laine saw her face on the digital marquee outside Scope Arena in Norfolk, she cried.
“Growing up there, I always saw myself as being like a pop star,” she said. “I wanted to be on these stages doing pop music.”
She will realize part of that lifelong dream April 25 when she performs at Chrysler Hall—just not as a pop singer.
Instead, she’ll take the stage as a sound healing practitioner—a path she began exploring in 2020.
After graduating from Great Bridge High School and the University of Virginia, Laine spent five years in New York City performing pop music, playing in bands and working as a full-time musician. She relocated to Nashville in 2016 but found it difficult to rebuild her network in a new city.
“I thought I could just continue to do music full time,” she said. “But it was like starting totally from scratch in a new place, without the connections I had before.”
She took a job as a publicist, which provided stability but pulled her away from performing. For a time, she stopped playing music altogether.
That’s when she began exploring meditation and other wellness practices, eventually training in crystal healing, Reiki and sound healing. She was already familiar with crystal singing bowls from her time in New York, where she first encountered them in a yoga studio.
“I remember it just filled the room in such an incredible way,” she said. “It was different from anything I had experienced musically.”
She began working primarily with the bowls, which produce sustained tones that overlap and build over time.
“You can play a bowl, and it doesn’t shut up for an entire minute,” she said.
She also incorporates other instruments, including a large gong that introduces lower frequencies and shifts in tone.
“You can feel it—the sound is just moving through your body,” she said.
Laine completed certification through the International Sound Healing Academy and eventually left her job to pursue the work full time, a decision she described as necessary.
“I assumed I would revert back to my struggling artist way,” she said. “But it was more worth it to have the freedom and to build something that felt sustainable.”
Her background as a musician continues to shape her approach—how she transitions between notes, layers tones and structures sessions.
“I know how to make it sound pretty,” she said.
Her experience also includes work in clinical settings, including a detox center where she led frequent sessions.
Those environments reinforced the importance of precision in how sound is used. Laine said the experience depends heavily on how sound is applied—and, done poorly, it can have the opposite effect.
“You can go to a sound bath and feel terrible,” she said. “It’s like hearing a guitar out of tune. Your body reacts to it.”
Laine’s performances differ from traditional concerts in both structure and audience experience. Participants are typically seated or lying down as she guides the session through a sequence of tones and instructions.
“Everyone is totally quiet, looking at you,” she said.
Earlier in her career, she struggled with performance anxiety, particularly during complex live shows that required managing multiple instruments and technical elements.
“One of the things I struggled with was performance anxiety, especially in situations where I was juggling a lot at once,” she said.
That experience has informed her work, including sessions she once offered to musicians before they went on stage.
“I would go to venues and do sessions with them before they would go on stage,” she said. “Just helping them calm down and regulate their breathing.”
Her work has also expanded into collaborations. In a recent performance with the Nashville Symphony, musicians followed timed cues rather than traditional notation, using stopwatches to coordinate changes.
“At 136 seconds, we go to an E,” she said. “It’s not structured in a traditional way—it’s more about the feeling.”
Her Norfolk performance will include a pre-show vendor market featuring local wellness practitioners, including massage, aura photography and other health-focused offerings.
“It’ll be a really cool, interactive thing,” she said.
For Laine, the venue also carries personal significance. Her father—locally renowned singer/songwriter Lewis McGehee—performed there in the 1980s, and she described the space as a milestone within the region’s music scene.
“My dad opened for Bruce Hornsby at the Chrysler,” she said. “It’s the pinnacle. I’ve made it.”
The Virginia Arts Festival will host “Elevated Sound Bath Experience with Kayce Laine” at 7:30 p.m. April 25 at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk. Tickets are $35 plus fees. Discounts are available for seniors (60+), military, students and children (13+). For tickets or more information, visit vafest.org.
[Sidebar]
“She Created Her Own Path”
Long before Kayce Laine was guiding sound baths on major stages, she was standing on a barstool, singing beside her father, Lewis McGehee.
“I had her on stage when she was 8 years old,” he said. “She’d have to stand in a chair to get to the microphone.”
Music filled their home—”constant noise,” he quipped—and while all four daughters were musical, Kayce stood out early in both interest and focus.
“She kind of saw herself being in that world,” he said.
As a trained musician, McGehee recognizes the technical elements behind her current work, including how she builds chords and transitions between tones during a session.
“There’s a little bit of academia involved—and a lot of intuition,” he said.
What surprised him most was the impact of the experience itself. Before attending his first sound bath, he expected something more passive.
“I thought it was going to be a feel-good experience,” he said. “But I was like, ‘Wow, this is different.’”
The effect, he said, was immediate and physical.
“It went past the rational mind. You really felt it in your body—there was a sense of openness.”
Watching his daughter leave a stable career to pursue sound healing full time was not without risk, but he said the results have exceeded his expectations.
“She created her own path—way bigger than I thought it would ever be,” he said.
For McGehee, the distinction between professional respect and personal pride is difficult to separate.
“To say that I’m proud is an understatement,” he said. “I’m just happy for her.”