It all started when I was 5 years old —piano and violin—with the Hilger sisters in Freehold, NJ. I would sit, but hardly could contain my excitement when Greta would give me new piano pieces to learn each week. Week after month I went, never missing. By my early teens, I was winning local piano competitions, playing at the PNC Arts Center and the Count Basie Theater, beginning to be featured as soloist with orchestra’s locally, and garnering good reviews.
I then began my studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. There I really began to expand my musical life. I started to play for singers in their lessons, absorbing as much technical and interpretive analysis as I could in languages and in opera. During the summers I was granted a fellowship at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara to work with singers, the Virginia Opera Center, as well as the Tanglewood Music Fellowship to work in their Vocal Program. I had the great honor to work and study with great artists like Leonard Bernstein and Phyllis Curtain.
Coming to New York, I entered the Manhattan School of Music on scholarship in the Accompanying Department and began working with many of the area’s smaller opera companies, from the Amato Opera to the NJ State Opera. I also began coaching younger singers in the Manhattan School of Music’s Preparatory Department. Last stop on the conservatory train was the Juilliard School where I took on a fellowship at the American Opera Center and worked with singers on every aspect of full productions, as well as lieder and art song.
In between the opera scores, diction classes, and my own singing lessons, I began playing in restaurants and clubs all over town, including Jim McMullan’s, Ruppert’s, O’Neals’, Windows on the World, the Metropolitan Museum, and at private events for luminaries such as Princess Margaret, George Bush Sr and Ron Perelman. I developed a repertoire and added singing to the mix. I began to create my own unique arrangements, reworking the American and Pop Songbook, creating avant-garde, jazz and classical influenced pieces. I performed solo shows at clubs like Eighty-Eights, Don’t Tell Mama’s, The Triad, etc and earned a Backstage Magazine Bistro Award, and garnered great praise from the New York press.
I began appearing in larger venues here and abroad like Maxim’s, the Rainbow Room, the Essex House, the Plaza Hotel, the Algonquin, Bayrischer Theatre (Munich), Weill Recital Hall, Metropolitan Room, Town Hall, Elba Music Festival (Italy), and Munich Staatsoper Festival among many.
In 1987, I had the great fortune to meet Sting and began a working relationship that spanned many projects, including concerts, TV and radio appearances, and studio recordings. I’ve participated in six Rainforest Gala’s, appeared on CBS and ABC, featured on the CD Nothing like the Sun, recorded “Someone to Watch Over Me” for the title track of the film. On a personal note, Sting wrote and dedicated to me “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” on his album Mercury Falling.
I've even added acting to my credits with the role of "Manny Weinstock" in Terrence McNally's Masterclass, produced by New Conservatory Theater Center in San Francisco.
I’ve also performed and worked with Jessye Norman, cellist Han-na Chang, Whoopi Goldberg Harvey Fierstein and Coco Rosie. A dedicated fundraiser for HIV prevention and research efforts, I’ve produced events for Equity Fights Aids, performed for Hearts and Voices, and co-produced an event for the Elton John Aids Foundation “From Grieg to Gershwin,” raising over $25,000.
I have continued vocal study with Dr. Brian Gill, vocologist on the faculty of NYU. I've pursued studies of Vocal Anatomy and Physiology and Acoustics at Westminster Choir College, and am a member of New York Singing Teacher's Association.
Throughout these incarnations I have always continued working with private clients on all aspects of technique and artistry in singing.
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