Faces of Long Island celebrates the uniqueness of everyday Long Islanders. In their own words, they tell us about their life experiences, challenges and triumphs. Newsday launched this social media journey into the human experience to shine a light on the diverse people of this wonderful place we call home.

‘I was always interested in music. I started singing in church a little bit growing up.’

Lynbrook

“I was always interested in music. I started singing in church a little bit growing up, and I met my first voice teacher that way, Julia Sergey. I remember after seeing Wicked’s ‘Defying Gravity,’ on Broadway, I was like, ‘Performing is incredible.’ I had this feeling of ‘I want to do this. I want to be onstage.’

“From then on out, I was always involved in my elementary school drama club, and then it became more serious. I’ve been a cantor at church since I was 12. Once I was in high school, I did all of Sacred Heart Academy’s theater programs. It was really exciting when I played Belle in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ my sophomore year, and I went on to do other leading roles in that.

“I’ve been in several summer programs at the Manhattan School of Music, Broadway Artists Alliance, LIU’s Summer Honors Institute for musical theater, the Oyster Bay Music Festival and the Queens Summer Vocal Institute. When I was 15, I started studying both classical and musical theater styles with my current voice teacher, Tammy Hensrud. Now, I’m a senior vocal performance major with minors in drama and musical theater.

I am passionate about a lot of different areas of theater and bringing stories to audiences who want to watch.

“At Hofstra, I feel I have the opportunity to really grow my classical voice and my interest in opera. I always knew I loved musicals and being onstage, but at Hofstra, I had the opportunity to be in several operas. This year, I just performed the lead role of Sesto in ‘La Clemenza di Tito.’ I feel it gave me an opportunity to really feel some growth vocally. Something else that I really loved being a part of at Hofstra is different ensemble works like chorale and chamber choirs as well as opera scenes.

“Everyone who’s a vocal performance major has to do recitals. I did one honors recital last year when I was a junior, and then I did my junior recital. For my senior year, I was very honored to receive the William B. Rosencrans Honors Recital, the highest-level recital for vocalists awarded to one person by the faculty.

“Now, I’m going to grad school at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College. I’m just excited for the future. Opera is a very specific track, but I am passionate about a lot of different areas of theater and bringing stories to audiences who want to watch.”

Interviewed by Victoria Bell

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