We all started singing in response to some deeply felt emotion. What emotion drives you to sing? Do you have strong memories of music from childhood? Did you become addicted to the thrill of recognition from the audience? Are we in some ways trying to fulfill a wish to be the most popular girl in the room, all decked out in diva wear and costume jewelry?
The desire for fulfillment of our emotional needs can spur us on at the beginning of our singing lives and keep us going throughout our pursuits. But the difficulties of the profession can shock us over and over again. In order to make music at a high level, win that recognition, or become that iconic diva, a singer has to walk a lonely path. A singer’s life can involve rising early for a day job she doesn’t like, practicing rather than enjoying other pleasures, paying her dues with unsatisfying gigs, and absorbing a steady stream of rejection.
At any career level, a girl needs some support. Surely the best people to understand her would be other singers. Who else would know what it’s like to explain to your mom that you have to miss Christmas again for your church job, or sit across the table from a blind date who doesn’t understand why you would want to spend so much time on anything that doesn’t pay well?
At the same time, our interactions with the musical world are what build our professional reputations. Auditions happen not only in front of opera companies, but every time we show up at a rehearsal or post a message on a forum. The mindset can also extend to our personal lives. Will your soprano colleague recommend you for a gig if you tell her that you’re depressed because you haven’t won an audition in ages? What will your conductor friend think if you mention that you have doubts that you’re up for a role you accepted? The competitive nature of the profession encourages us to build a buffer of hype around ourselves, sometimes at the expense of building a personal support system.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. “You need people who will allow you to just be you,” says Deborah Wood, PhD. She notes that singers need to make efforts to “not confuse their public persona with who they really are as a person.” Developing a friendship means making yourself vulnerable—sharing ups and downs with someone and trusting them to support you. But our emotional needs are often directly opposite to our responsibilities as professionals. “You don’t have to be flawless in your personal life, but part of building confidence is pulling through things that are challenging,” Wood adds. In creative ways, online and offline, through formal organizations and informal networks, a singer can find a way to actively pursue her career while building a circle of support with like-minded people.
One such organization is the Professional Women Singers Association (womensingers.org). Founded in New York in 1982—before YAP Tracker, Facebook, and even Classical Singer—PWSA exists to provide informative support and camaraderie for working singers. Through masterclasses, group e-mails, annual meetings, and resource sharing, the group encourages its members to exchange information and support each other in their careers and lives. As a strictly networking organization, singers do not compete with each other within PWSA, and some members have stayed on for years because of the friendships they have formed.
“It’s a really nice group of women who are all on the same page about this difficult career,” says Beatrice Broadwater, president of the executive committee. PWSA offers an intergenerational perspective, as singers at the beginning of their careers can learn from older members about family, career, and life challenges. “Young singers come to meetings and ask, ‘I’m having a baby—how do I deal with that?’ or ‘Where do I find a job?’ and can expect good-natured advice and ideas from other members,” Broadwater says. Membership is in two levels: affiliate, which is open to all, and performing, which is by audition. Performing members receive slightly more promotion (and pay higher dues) than affiliates, but there is no age limit, and auditions are conducted by an independent panel of professionals from outside the membership.
Outside of major cultural centers, “you have to have better networking skills, because there are fewer cattle call auditions,” says Laura Loge, a soprano living in Seattle. That small community of working singers shares resources and information with each other, even as they compete to perform with the same groups. “Networking and friendship goes hand in hand,” Loge says, who explained that she started making friends after she started getting gigs. But, still, “you do have to go out of your way to make time for those donut dates,” she concedes, noting that friendships have to be cultivated outside of time spent working on music projects together.
On the pros and cons of working in a small scene, Loge observes that while there are fewer people to compete with, the smaller number of performing organizations means that you have to constantly reach out to conductors and music directors, perhaps more so than in a place with more opportunities. Does this constant competition in a small musical community make it difficult to sustain friendships? “I don’t have ‘frenemies,’” she says, “but I did feel some of that energy when I lived in Boston.” She also notes that she achieved in a year and a half in Seattle what it took her three years to achieve in Boston—though she says that her experience as a student and post-graduate in Boston might have given her the tools she needed to use as a professional.
“Boston Opera Collaborative (bostonoperacollaborative.org) wasn’t really started as a support network,” says Brooke Larimer, one of the co-founders of the three-year-old opera company. “But at first we all worked together because we had to—then we did it because we wanted to and started to care about each other’s success.” BOC was founded by recent graduates looking to bridge the gap between their studies and professional work who observed that Boston lacked places for young singers to perform opera. In addition to the opportunity to perform in several productions each year, members are required to assist with the company’s operations, helping with fundraising, marketing, production work, and other business responsibilities.
In the course of working together so closely, singers form friendships beyond their experiences as colleagues. Because of BOC, “I’m friends with people I otherwise would never have met,” Larimer says. “The camaraderie started when we were working together toward the larger goal of supporting an organization and not just on our own agendas.” By now, “there is very little jealousy among the people committed to the organization.”
Prospective members are auditioned and interviewed by current BOC members and artistic leaders. Because the group’s main focus is to provide performance opportunities for its members, the audition process ensures that no single voice type is overrepresented. Consequently, membership for sopranos is especially competitive. During casting auditions, BOC also considers non-members for roles if they are unable to cast the role from within their own ranks. With more than 70 members, BOC accounts for a sizable proportion of the Boston singing community, and members turn to each other first to find teaching or church subs or to recommend each other for jobs.
And while each production cannot include each and every member, BOC still creates an important community for the singers and other artists involved. “BOC has been really successful in helping people figure out what they want to be by providing them with a safe place to try things out,” Larimer says. “When one person is successful, everyone is truly happy for them.”
From the new graduate trying to figure out his next career steps, to the mother of three trying to get back into singing, finding emotional support from colleagues is a valuable and fulfilling way to build confidence and a career. While any singer’s path is challenging, performers will be pleasantly surprised by the friendships and support they can find from colleagues working toward the same goals. In addition, Wood recommends that singers cultivate interests and pursuits outside of singing to keep themselves balanced and to create an identity that is not entirely based on their success as a professional.
“Life still happens while auditions are going on,” she says. So take a poetry class, go on vacation, or learn to sail. Even better, do it with that singer friend you’ve been meaning to call up for a donut date.
