Tenor Darron Flagg has an impressive résumé filled with performances at prestigious companies, including San Francisco Opera, Sacramento Opera, and Oakland Opera. Attorney Darron Flagg’s résumé is equally impressive: he works in-house for one of the world’s leading technology firms. Does one person plus two careers equal burnout? In Flagg’s case, absolutely not—and he is not alone. There are many classical singers who successfully negotiate the challenges of two careers. I spoke with several of them to find out how they do it.
Specificity in Schedules
When it comes to scheduling, the singers I interviewed are detail oriented and strict. One soprano (referred to as “S” for the purposes of this article), who has a 40+ hour/week job, keeps a daily master schedule that includes “everything from what time to get up, a rotating workout routine, work hours (including a reminder about when to go home), meal times, relaxation, practice time, bedtime, and household chores.” Technology assists her—she uses a Gmail calendar on her iPhone with color-coded calendar entries that allow her to see what area of her life is at the top of her priority list.
Soprano Greer Davis—who has a full-time, work-from-home job—is another fan of Google’s calendar tool. “I set up a separate practice/learning calendar, say one to two hours per day if I can work it in,” she explains. “My calendar alert goes off five minutes before that time. I keep myself honest and really work for that scheduled time.”
Advance planning, too, is critical. Contralto Monica Reinagel, who makes her living writing and speaking about nutrition (Twitter @NutritionDiva), is careful to take on fewer assignments at times when she has a heavy performance schedule. “December, March, and April tend to be my busiest concert months,” she says. “If I’m going to be working on a big project like a book, I arrange the production schedule so that the crunch time falls in the summer or early fall, when not as much is going on in the music world.”
Singers who are not self-employed have a little more juggling to do. “I try to schedule everything as far in advance as possible so that I can foresee and avoid potential conflicts,” says one mezzo (referred to as “M” here) who works at a nonprofit. “I tend to be very stingy with using my paid time off and use it when I’m really sick, and otherwise save it for singing-related things.” Baritone Michael Trnik, a procurement agent for a public school district, takes a similar approach, using his vacation and personal time on days when he has to perform.
Early Preparation
Advance planning goes hand-in-hand with early preparation. Bass-baritone Tom O’Toole, who works in the advertising industry, notes that being a quick study can help but that “there’s no substitute for time. Short-term cramming can never substitute for months of immersion in a score.”
Davis takes a similar view: “It’s rare that I can cram practice in before an audition or rehearsal and have it go well. If I spend the same amount of time over a longer period, I feel much more prepared and much less stressed. To me, stress equals failure of time management and a weaker audition.”
It is not always easy to prepare when one has a full-time job, but singers manage it by taking every possible opportunity to rehearse, even when no practice space is at hand. As Trnik points out, “If you have a big role that you have to perform, you work on it when you get up in the morning. You learn it while getting ready for work. You learn it while you are at lunch. Youa learn it on the weekend while doing chores or working around the house. You learn it while you are taking a walk down the street or in the woods. You basically have to treat it as if it is the most important thing that you have to do in your life at that time.”
Soprano and travel advisor Christina Holms is another expert multitasker. A few years ago, she was working on La traviata while preparing food for a large family gathering. “I had my score open in the kitchen while I was cooking . . . while singing and glancing at my score from time to time,” she remembers. “My score was splattered with a bit of sauce, but no real harm done, and I got in twice as much practice time that day!”
Flexible Employers
Even if you can multitask as effectively as Holms, dual careers would be nearly impossible without flexible employers. “I have been lucky enough to work at a day job where my supervisors are supportive of my singing and vice versa,” says Trnik.
It also helps to be a valued employee. Davis was once offered a six-week YAP contract while she was working full time as a receptionist. She recalls: “I was very nervous to tell [my employer] at first, but the first thing out of my boss’s mouth was ‘Can you come back when you’re done?’ Everyone there thought what I was trying to do was so neat (and I was a good employee) that they were more than willing to work with me.”
Not all employers are flexible, however. Michael Spierman, artistic director of Bronx Opera (BxO), discovered this when he offered a role to a singer who is a party planner. Her boss wanted her to keep her schedule open, so the singer couldn’t guarantee attendance at rehearsals. Consequently, she had to give up the role.
Sometimes it is the performing organizations that are inflexible. Spierman recently hired a singer in a YAP and worked around the YAP rehearsals when scheduling BxO rehearsals. Subsequently, the YAP added extra commitments after the original schedule was published. A similar situation arose with a singer in a graduate program. In both cases, the singers chose to relinquish their BxO roles rather than bring the newly created conflicts to the attention of staff at their respective programs. “Why are these young singers so convinced of the rigidity, short-sightedness, and possible vindictive responses of these folks?” Spierman asks.
M could answer that question. She has encountered inflexibility on the performing side, even though she is always honest and forthcoming about her work-related conflicts. Some companies, she concludes, are more understanding than others.
Technology
The good news is that it is easier for employers to be flexible today than, say, a decade ago, because technology allows singers to work from anywhere. Holms, who lives in Connecticut, is grateful for her BlackBerry, which she takes with her when she travels to New York City for coachings, voice lessons, and rehearsals. “I never miss a beat with my clients,” she says. Davis, too, can easily work remotely: “As long as I have my computer and an Internet connection, I’m all set,” she states.
Flagg even managed to discuss a multimillion-dollar joint venture with the opposing counsel during a rehearsal at San Francisco Opera, thanks to his PDA. “In the middle of a staging rehearsal, my work PDA vibrated,” he recalls. “Fortunately, my section had just finished, and I was able to slip away from the stage to a quiet area in the opera house to take the call.” Although it was, as he puts it, “not the best of environments for legal discussions,” his PDA made the situation viable.
Challenges
No matter how talented a singer is on stage and at work, there are sacrifices involved in dual-career success. Many of the singers I interviewed have experienced sleep deficits and stress. Through trial and error, they have learned to keep from crashing. They do not overbook themselves, even if it means turning down an attractive opportunity. To get a good night’s sleep, Flagg and Trnik sometimes book hotels close to a rehearsal venue when they have late-night rehearsals. S power-naps in her car before such rehearsals. They practice healthy habits. When they work late or are too tired to practice, they don’t chastise themselves. In short, they do the best they can do within the limitations of a dual-career lifestyle.
They do not feel sorry for themselves, either, recognizing that they made a choice to pursue this path. O’Toole points out that most people have challenges of some kind—ranging from childcare to health concerns—whether or not they are full-time artists. Furthermore, he observes: “The greatest singers of the previous generations lived in a world much dirtier than today’s, non-climate-controlled, and full of smokers, with day-to-day concerns far more profound than ours, and yet they thrived.”
Benefits of Day Jobs
Despite the challenges created by two careers, there are noteworthy advantages to having a day job. “One of the benefits of having a non-musical job is that I can, in most cases, afford to cover expenses to fly or drive out of town,” Flagg says.
Other financial considerations abound. Lessons and coachings cost money. Few people make a living from singing alone, and fewer still have the financial wherewithal to support their full-time pursuit of a singing career. This is where a day job can help.
Day jobs also enable singers to reject opportunities that do not appeal to them artistically. As O’Toole says, “It’s easier to say no to projects that aren’t right—those a [full-time] singer may feel compelled to accept for financial reasons, connections, etc. . . . You can carve your own destiny as an artist and take things at your own pace.”
They also lighten the pressure of auditions. There is not so much at stake: If you don’t land a certain gig, you can still pay the rent.
Some singers even prefer the dual-career scenario to a full-time singing career, the ultimate goal of many others. “Choosing a hybrid path can be a positive choice and not a compromise,” says O’Toole, who informed me that Charles Ives was an insurance executive. “‘Artist’ is not a job title.”
Regardless of your views of day jobs, one thing is clear: It is possible to have a career as a singer and a career in another industry. Holms is a case in point. Not only does she have two careers, but she is also raising two young boys and finishing college. As she says, “Life does not always fit neatly into a square box. Sometimes you can bend and wiggle to make things fit, and sometimes you have to custom-make your own box.
“It is a real balancing act,” she concludes. “But you can have it all if you are willing to work for it and never give up.”
