The Family Behind Halo Music Studio
A husband-and-wife team building something that unites families through music, learning, and shared creative experience.
Kristina Olock — Curriculum Creator, Songwriter, Teacher
Kristina Olock grew up inside education and music simultaneously. Her mother was an elementary school teacher of extraordinary heart and a singer with a pure soprano voice. Her father was a college music professor, choir director, and arranger. Her older brother became a beloved teacher and professor. Krissy laughs about it now — she was certain teaching was not in her future.
She was a shy child who dreamed of being a singer but would never sing in front of anyone. It wasn’t until college, when she joined the gospel choir Angels of Harmony, that her passion outweighed her fear. She became a soloist — traveling to Egypt, Brazil, and across the United States with the group. Despite being nervous every single time, she got up and sang.
After becoming a mother, Krissy chose to homeschool her children — wanting to help them find their gifts sooner and learn how to give those gifts to the world. She spent years searching for a curriculum that connected music, science, geography, art, and culture in a way that matched how children actually learn. She couldn’t find one. So she built it herself.
Animal Alphabeats was born from a mother singing with her children during the hardest chapter of their family’s life and realizing she had created something that did not exist anywhere in the world. She writes the songs. She designed the curriculum architecture. She teaches every group class at Halo Music Studio. She is a songwriter, a licensed massage therapist, and a woman who discovered that AI tools were the creative instrument she had been waiting for her entire life.
Ryan Olock — Musician, Teacher, Producer
Ryan Olock has been a musician for forty years and a teacher for twenty. He grew up in the Philadelphia area, played in bands across the Philly and New York music scenes — Momsug Dojo, Kintala, The Citizens — and built a career that moved fluidly between performing, teaching, producing, and creating.
He founded Evolution Music Studios in Collegeville and Trappe, PA, where he didn’t just teach students to play instruments — he developed who they were. Rock Band programs where students formed real bands and performed together. Summer camps where songwriting was woven into everything. Large concert recitals that gave students a stage and a story.
The outcomes at Evolution were not typical. A student nobody else thought to notice became an award-winning filmmaker because Ryan saw that potential and developed it. A girl whose parents said she had no musical talent eventually sold songs to Nashville. An autistic student whose parents assumed the lessons would be glorified babysitting found genuine musical expression and now plays professionally. A drummer who never touched a kit before his first lesson is now a touring professional musician.
Ryan is also a music historian — his YouTube channel Real Music History reflects a lifelong obsession with understanding how music shaped culture and how culture shaped music. He teaches guitar and bass at Halo Music Studio with the same philosophy he has always carried: see who each student actually is, and build from there.
How They Found Each Other — And Built This Together
Ryan and Krissy met on New Year’s Eve 2012 — their first date, December 31st. They were together from that night forward. He played music; she came to his shows. One night at an open mic he said: “Get up here.” And everything opened. They played in bands together, sang acoustic duo gigs, and became creative partners in the deepest sense.
When they became parents — Solvi, now 8, and Sandro, now 4 — they chose to homeschool. Krissy developed Animal Alphabeats for their own family first. Ryan heard the songs on the drive home from work and played them on repeat. He brought his filmmaker’s eye, his production instincts, his decades of knowing what makes a creative project land. She brought the curriculum vision, the songs, the educational philosophy. Together, they built something neither could build alone — while Solvi and Sandro sang along.
The moment they recognized that the studio and the curriculum were always meant to be one — that Halo is the live home for Animal Alphabeats, and Animal Alphabeats is the soul of Halo — everything reorganized itself around a new center of gravity.
Larry Connelly — Drum Instructor
Larry Connelly has been Ryan’s drummer and bandmate since 1995 — they met in Momsug Dojo in the Philadelphia music scene and have played together across three decades. Beyond his musicianship, Larry brings twenty years of early childhood education training from working in Philadelphia school districts. He understands how young children develop, how to hold a beginner’s attention, and how to make a student feel genuinely accomplished on the very first day. He is the drum instructor at Halo Music Studio.
Halo Records
Halo Records is the family’s independent record label — the catalog home of Animal Alphabeats music and future studio productions. Every original song in the curriculum is released through Halo Records, connecting the studio, the curriculum, and the music under one creative roof.
The Mission
Uniting families through music, learning, and shared creative experience. Animal Alphabeats wasn’t born from a business plan — it was born from a family singing together during the hardest chapter of their lives and discovering that making music together was the thing that pulled them through. That experience is what we bring to every family who walks through our door.
Come See What We're Building
484-941-2631 · contact@halomusicstudio.com · 60 B Diller Ave, New Holland, PA 17557