Passion: Heart Smart

     Follow your passion! I started school because I was so driven to study linguistics and anthropology after having found myself at a glass ceiling in banking just before the crash – around 2005 – someone doing five jobs in one and deserved to be paid much, much more. I had so much experience in the administrative and project world, but I completely adored the thought of college and I loved the fact that I could tie culture into the evolution of language…eventually I found myself immediately enrolled in vocal music courses in addition to anthropology.
     I was so excited to be joining choir again after so many years. After a semester or two, I figured out that music was calling me directly by name. I had joined choir, immediately joined the honor choir, and was selected via auditions for special conventions and was a leading student in the music department.
I knew by 2010 that music was my mission. I began my trek as a vocal major and enrolled in every music course possible, including private lessons with an incredibly gifted vocal coach. Also, by early 2013 I had so much music theory training that I was writing so much music. I found that I couldn't stop writing music. I wanted to experience various time periods, various moods, various instruments...and WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
     I am constantly driven by the memory that I started at a place where music in my head would remain just there: in my head, and I was bound to be eternally depressed and oppressed! I never thought that I would ever live in a world where I understood what that bass guitarist was thinking, just with his eyes, or how much I enjoyed the playful banter with my accompanist, where she points at me and says I'm singing the wrong note. I'll especially remember those experiences sitting near major choral composers who admitted what they were thinking (by candlelight in isolated cabins) when they composed their major works, or reading the advice of more contemporary composers such as Ken Ueno or Laura Shigihara.
     I love the challenge of getting it right. I love the challenge of trying to understand what the previous generations of composers were trying to say - through the rules and the deviations. In May 2013, I began writing a comprehensive piece, the first of its kind, for me. I have written other pieces and discovered that my true passion was making music and not just singing it. Why go into a field that isn't specific to what you really want to do? Someone has yet to explain that to me who is completely happy and following his or her passion. Learn what you love and learn it well.

Special thanks to friend Stel Pavlou for changing my life path.
Check out his site at http://www.stelpavlou.com/