It makes no sense for me to be a singer. I spent my adolescence on a farm, which was common in the small town I grew up in. The town only housed a population of 323 people. I lived in t-shirts and blue jeans and was comfortable walking barefoot on the gravel driveway. My ambitions only reached where I was comfortable: a farm and horses. The dream of owning and managing a successful, sprawling equine farm filled my thoughts and dreams.

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Music was also present in my childhood, but it was never at the forefront of my mind. My parents enrolled me in piano lessons when I was four years old, and singing in church was habitual. I refused to sing alone in front of people after an embarrassing mishap of forgetting the lyrics, which deterred me from performing solo for several years. Musical Theatre was where I learned to love singing again, and my continued studies in piano developed my musical skills. However, my idea of a fulfilling life centered around the equine industry, and I pursued that career path with all that I could muster as I entered my college experience.  

I only auditioned for the music department because I needed more tuition assistance. I decided to take the leap and audition for the vocal department even though I had never taken a voice lesson in my entire life. I took my few experiences in musical theatre with me into the audition and obtained a music scholarship. It only required that I be a music minor and participate in an ensemble. At the end of my first semester of college, I faced a crossroads, but the decision was straightforward. The only conclusion was to switch my major from Equine Management to Vocal Performance. The equine major and industry were causing me to be miserable, juxtaposed with the music major filling me with joy and excitement. The decision to take that scholarship transformed my life forever.

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I had never taken a voice lesson when I entered the vocal program. I had no expectations for what my teachers could help me achieve. Still, I began to grow exponentially, and my education on living as a musician opened my eyes to a world filled with beauty, understanding, and opportunity. My aspirations are to find an avenue to bring together my academic and performance interests and present individual, social, and cultural questions through music, education, and conversation.

 

In a time where everyone is accessible, and ideas are ever-changing, music is a constant medium that presents us with the platform to challenge ideas, face emotions, provide beauty, and ask difficult questions. Composers write in ways that express the feelings I could never convey with words, and these spaces of performance allow us to share that with audiences. Self-glorification and the pursuit of success is a hollow ideal for me to pursue. Music has bestowed and altered my life in unbelievable ways, and planting beauty back into the world is a source of immeasurable drive forward in my career. As musicians, we can provide a space away from life's troubles and screens and make a sacred space where we express emotions honestly and vulnerably and pose uncomfortable questions. The space we create as artists can change audience members as much as music transforms the performers.

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We can sing for joy and bring joy to those around us.

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