We live in a country where opera is not only an import, it’s an art form that allows just 1 percent or so of the cream of the crop to really make it. For the modern singer to survive, it’s often necessary to have another career in tandem with singing. But jobs like waiting tables and temp work can be mentally damaging, especially when you’re faced with such a large possibility of not succeeding in the opera world.
Few singers consider a second career as an entrepreneur, even though it can sometimes be the perfect counterpart to an opera singer’s unique skills. Even the word “entrepreneur” is musical: “the director or manager of a public musical institution,” says the venerable Oxford English Dictionary.
I thought up the idea for my company, Sittercity, Inc., during my senior year at Boston College. Bruised from a recent close rejection for the Marshall scholarship that would have sent me to the Royal College of Music in London, I spent much of my time brooding on how to afford a music career. One night, after a baby-sitting job, I realized that a database that contained the profiles of all the college baby sitters in the city of Boston would be extremely helpful not only to my singer friends, but also to every mother I had ever met in the area. I figured that running a company might also give me the financial independence to pursue an opera career without having to constantly wait tables.
My crazy life as an entrepreneur and opera singer began directly after college graduation. Unable to get funding for my idea from local male investors in the Boston area, I decided that I would post flyers at every major college in the city of Boston and create a database of 500 baby sitters myself. Days found me working a job at IBM while taking lunch calls with the designer and programmer I had hired to create my Web site for me. Evenings found me walking the dorms of local Boston colleges, slipping flyers under doors. My boyfriend, Dan, an entrepreneur himself, supported me—but he also questioned my sanity. Befuddled, he would watch me tear into his apartment to Band-Aid my blistered feet before racing off to understudy for Longwood Opera company.
In the spring of 2002, I was accepted into Northwestern University’s School of Opera, so I moved Sittercity headquarters from Boston to Chicago. My first year in training was filled with success in both music and business. Sittercity had expanded past its original Boston home to seven other cities. Phones were ringing off the hook, from investors, childcare liaisons, and news shows wanting to share in a piece of the story. At the same time, my voice was growing, enabling me to win a local competition and begin auditioning for Young Artist Programs.
But the dual stress of keeping my lives separate was taking its toll. Convinced that no one in the opera world would take me seriously if they found out that I was running a national corporation, I would secretly take company calls in practice rooms, and laugh off my opera training as a “hobby” to my employees at work. Things came to a head when my coach, Richard Boldrey, told me he was concerned by a tendency that I had to be sloppy with my music. I broke down in his office and cried.
“I feel schizophrenic,” I told him. “I am two people at once: a singer and a CEO—and I don’t know which is really me.”
He replied with unforgettable words.
“They both are,” he said.
That statement helped me pull my two lives together into a whole. I’ve realized that the dual skills required to be a singer and an entrepreneur are extremely compatible. Frequent singing appearances have helped erase all traces of stage fright from my television interviews. Exposure to hiring and marketing plans has allowed me to see the mechanisms at work behind opera companies.
When the amazing Maria Zouves, an entrepreneur herself, introduced me as “a fellow CEO” on a concert program, I was pleased instead of awkward. My teacher, Sunny Joy Langton, watched me interview on the Chicago Tonight show and gave me feedback. I solicited an ongoing childcare partnership with Operamom.com, and Chicago mezzo-soprano Karen Brunssen gave me a tip about a business partnership with a local gym chain that we maintain to this day.
Unable to stop creating things, I’ve also started a non-profit organization in Chicago with Dan. We call it the Chicago Society of Music (www.csomusic.org), and we’ve recently kicked off a Sears Tower concert series for young opera singers with a concert that opened with the incredible duo of Sherrill Milnes and Maria Zouves as presenters. Seeing this, singer friends of mine have started telling me that they have business ideas they want to pursue. We give each other business tips while moving through the morass of Young Artist Programs and opera companies that we are constantly asking for opportunities.
But the difference is this: If the opportunities aren’t given to us, we’ll create our own.
