About Me
Born into a family rich in musical DNA, with a multi-generational appreciation for music and the arts (and no shortage of actual expressed talent in the family), I am a life-long singer who loves music and the arts, and who also has a passion for the spiritual and healing arts!
One of my first memories as a child of three years or less was a revelatory experience of hearing a recording of a piano concerto with orchestra; this piece (which I think – but am by no means certain – was by Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky) awakened me, for the very first time in my conscious recollection, to music brought forth by the great masters, and to an expansive state of inner excitement this kind of (thrilling!) music elicits, such was its impact on me, even as a small child.
Around the age or five or six, I was captivated by Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony (Eroica) and other pieces of classical music that “just happened” to be a part of my parents’ collection of LP albums (along with various musicals that I would come to know and love, and eventually sing songs from). Around the house, my father (a beautiful, natural bass voice) would wake me and my siblings at dawn’s early light with his vocal rendition of Reveille (“I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up, I can’t get ’em up in the morning!”) followed by recordings that echoed through the house, of Dad’s favorite barbershop quartet, the Buffalo Bills. (And of course, he would always sing along!) My mother not only loved music, but was a consummate whistler; my sister is still a recognized performer and personality in our hometown, having spent some time as a professional singer-guitarist, on the road and at home. Various other relatives, aunts, uncles, and cousins, along with both my brothers (one of which put together a quite successful rock band “back in the day”) all showed proficiency and interest at one level of musical expression or another.
I was recognized for my singing as early as age five, having begun to sing at an age too early to recall. As a five-year-old child, I was taken by my kindergarten music teacher to a voice class at the university of KY where she also taught, to show off my “correct diaphragmatic breathing” to her college students. She had me stand on top of a table and sing: “Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot, Trot Little Pony, Trot!!!” (This, in hindsight, led me to the experience of my first ever (but certainly not the last) extremely nerve-wracking case of “stage fright!”)
Around the age of seven I began to study piano. And although it was one of my first “ambitions” to be a concert pianist, when I entered puberty, around the age of thirteen or fourteen, other things soon took my time and interest, and my piano lessons fell away as that early ambition faded from view. My interest in singing, however, only grew and grew, and as the years passed I began to sing more, and be known for my voice….I had music classes and choir, every year, all the way from kindergarten through high school (including orchestra!). At age sixteen, in our local Junior Miss Pageant, I received a five-minute standing ovation for my talent (or so I am told by people who were there, it was all a blur to me) the singing of “Bali Hai.” (But other than that standing ovation, no “formal” recognition in that contest, where I was the obvious audience favorite, “small favors”….!!!). And from the time I was a wee girl, I was always told I was a “natural singer” as I received solos, recognition for my voice, various awards, and ovations along the way, but, interestingly, never had a voice lesson until I entered university as a very “green” (unsophisticated!) singer, at age 18!
During my university years at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I performed several leading operatic roles to acclaim, was the ‘it’ girl of my class (for a minute) (!) (and as far as I know) and competed in vocal competitions, winning first place at least once, in a regional NATS (National Assoc. of Teachers of Singing) competition. My university years and experience (which lasted approximately a decade, as I was to a degree, in and out of uni and attending, instead, “the school of hard knocks” – ie, the ‘real’ world – before I returned to finish my performance degree) are far more colorful than the above description perhaps implies, having occurred in the midst of the Vietnam war, and the hippie, flower power, consciousness revolution of the late 1960s and well into the 1970s. After a two semester lay-over at the University of Wyoming music school in Laramie, where I was initiated into the world of UFO experiencers, hypnotic regression therapies, cattle mutilations and more (during the time when Close Encounters of the Third Kind was in the theaters and Devil’s Tower was the current rage), I eventually completed my Music Degree in Voice Performance in Boulder, at the University of Colorado College of Music. From there, spurred on by the example of my teacher at the U. of Wyoming (the then first-place winner of the San Francisco Opera Auditions, who was heading east to take up her new life with a singing contract in Germany) I left behind my interim part-time employment as the manager of a Singing Telegram company (Boulder’s “Singing Bees,” which some will recall), packed up my meager belongings, and drove east, to New York City, to pursue further vocal studies and performing, fame and fortune (and goodness knows what else), and not having the slightest idea what spiritual and other adventures lay in store for me as a result of that decision and move!
My singing career – in retrospect, a life-long unfinished project, has been eclectic and quite unique. It has included operatic leads and performances, solo concerts, singing telegrams delivered in a (now infamous) bumble bee outfit, amateur and professional choruses and chorales, New York City credits in the 1980s, and singing appearances in three quarters of the globe! And a lot of accolades. My decade in the NYC area included creating, producing and directing my own a cappella quartet (“What the Dickens!”) and singing business, which netted such prestigious clients as the Plaza and Waldorf Hotels (and who was captured on video, in a Christmas performance on the streets of Fifth Ave., then featured on Good Morning America’s Christmas Eve broadcast.) Upon hearing our Christmas quartet at a famous NYC floating restaurant, Liz Smith, well known NYC gossip columnist gave us a glowing review in print: “We also heard ‘What the Dickens,’ with thrilling operatic voices….!!” And in case you were wondering if I ever sang at Carnegie Hall……well, yes, I did, and I AM that one in 70,000 who have actually sung at the hall (and even got paid) as part of a solo octet in a choral performance!
After my escape from New York and becoming an “inveterate spiritual traveler,” in the late 1980s, and then during the 1990s, I was blessed to sing in a number of countries, and in various “exotic” venues around the world, including an ashram in Ganeshpuri, India. In the late 80s and early 90s these spiritual journeys, including my years in New York inspired me to record two musical albums where I am the featured solo voice and voiceover (as well as the layered choral voices); I still dream of making more recordings that reflect some past ‘themes’ as well as current interests. In more recent times I performed a 45 minute benefit concert in a living room, of excerpts of duets and solos from Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, prior to that highlight, I spent a number of years singing for delighted and delightful audiences at local retirement centers in the Boulder/Longmont area. (Some of my best unsolicited testimonials have come from those experiences.) To think of it all really, actually, fills my heart to bursting. In a good way!
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