For nearly forty years, a small group of college friends and I have gathered in a different city every year for a long weekend. Apart from a couple years during COVID and a few others due to illness or health conditions, we’ve met every year. And even though we live in different parts of the country (Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin), we have prioritized these weekends above all else. They are sacred. That doesn’t mean it has been easy - far from it. But somehow we make it happen. Here is our story.

In May of 1986, I graduated from Simpson College, a small liberal arts school in Indianola, Iowa, with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance. My high school voice teacher had recommended I investigate the school as an option and, after visiting the campus, auditioning, and receiving a small scholarship, I made my decision. My high school friend, Mary, also opted for Simpson College (and also received a scholarship). So in the fall of 1982, my father drove us from suburban Chicago to rural Iowa in a 1980 Ford Crown Victoria station wagon, pulling a small trailer full of our belongings, with a hand-drawn sign taped to the back: “Iowa or Bust.”

As two kids from the suburbs of Chicago, going to a school in small-town Iowa was a bit of a culture shock. For them as much as it was for us. For example, our senior class was nearly 600 students and our sprawling high school campus counted more than 3000. In contrast, I learned some of my new friends had graduated in a class of fewer than fifty, and they knew nearly everyone by name! Also, our new friends were surprised (and amused) to learn that we had only been exposed to cows and other farm animals by visiting a petting zoo. “There aren’t many cows in Des Plaines,” I would say.

But what united my cohort was the work and experience of being a music student. Simpson’s total enrollment was approximately 1,000 students and maybe a quarter of those were music majors. Voice majors and music education majors made up the majority categories (my statistics may be off but you get the picture). We were together for daily classes, weekly Convocation performances, ensemble rehearsals, opera productions, madrigal dinners, music fraternity events, choir tours, off-campus church jobs on Sunday mornings, and random performances on campus for various functions. We spent a lot of time together, creating and strengthening bonds that would last for decades.

My freshman year would be the final year for Barrows Hall, the music building erected in 1902 with a long history of being a gathering space for music students’ classes and social meet-ups, and with a crumbling infrastructure to match. As my sophomore year began, we inaugurated the new (and current) Amy Robertson Music Center, a building with a modern design and late-twentieth-century aesthetics (grey and plum colors throughout, rounded white railings around the perimeter of studios and practice rooms with porthole windows, a skylight lobby, and cinder block hallways).

It was in those rooms and through those hallways and on those stages that our memories were made. The foundation of our friendship was forged in the singular experience of making music together: learning our craft, finding solace in our mutual frustrations and failures, celebrating moments of growth and transformation, delighting in the folly of harmless antics, and acknowledging the artists and teachers we were becoming. Oh, and getting high after choir together.

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Our reunions began in 1989 with a wedding. Dennis, my college roommate, married his high school girlfriend in their hometown of Ottumwa, a charming and historic town of about 24,000 tucked into the rolling hills of southeast Iowa. It was during that weekend that we decided to meet again the following year. And so in 1990 we spent New Year’s Eve in Coralville, Iowa, another small town but closer to Iowa City. Coralville may not be the first place you think of when celebrating New Year’s Eve, but during the early days, it was less about the place and more about being together.

Most of our group was still in the Midwest, so easy travel was a draw. We found a couple of available rooms at a motel in town. Julie brought the blender for drinks, Todd brought his mother’s famous chocolate caramel bars (we dubbed them “Sick Mother Bars” and they sustained us all through college), Jon packed some pictures, I grabbed some costume pieces, and everyone else joined for a long weekend of drinking, smoking cigarettes, and telling stories. And we never really needed more than that.

We continued to meet around celebrations and events. More weddings, mine in ‘91 in Chicago and Laurie’s in ‘92 in Sioux City. Jon was singing in Minneapolis in ‘93, so we met there. Dennis’ then-wife Joan had family in San Francisco, so we met there for a long weekend in ‘94, our first trip out of the Midwest.

After that, we started alternating the reunions between local and farther out; Julie hosted us in Minneapolis one year, then Jon hosted us in New York City the next. Mary welcomed us to Reedsburg (WI) one year, and Jon’s husband Sean introduced us to Missoula (MT) the following year. Along the way, we met at Julie’s home in St. Paul (MN) and cabin in Faribault (MN), the Wisconsin Dells, the Iowa State Fair, Jon and Sean’s home in Portland (OR) a few times, Dennis’ wedding to his husband, David, in St. Louis, and then to their beautiful new home in Ottumwa later.

In those first years, it was weddings and holidays. Then we started to have children, and the group swelled each year to accommodate the larger families. Then the children went off to college and eventually moved on. As in life, there was separation, divorce, and death, each time changing the structure of us. At one point, we mutually agreed that one person in our group should not continue joining each year because she objected to gay weddings (for “religious” reasons). So we excommunicated her from the group!

That decision could have split us and stopped the cycle of reunions, but it didn’t.

Then the children were getting married, and then they started having children, and we continued to grow, each time holding space for the newest additions to our group. As the years passed, some families moved around the globe, some jobs changed, but we held fast to our commitment to meet each year.

While we were students at Simpson, a few in our group sang at a church in Des Moines on Sundays and befriended an older lesbian couple who worshiped there. They quickly became part of our extended friend group, attending our performances at school, hosting us for lunch and dinner at their home, and showing off their beautiful gardens. As the years passed, they often joined us at our yearly reunions, and once they quipped that they’d follow us anywhere we went, like pigeons. So we dubbed them The Pigeons.

One year, when we met in Des Moines, we surprised The Pigeons with a concert, exclusively for them. Each of us sang a song, or read a poem, or played an instrument, including our children, all in their honor. We presented them with a scrapbook we created chronicling the years of reunions in pictures and letters, congratulating them on their long partnership and showing them how important they were to us. And each year after, they would add pages to that scrapbook with new pictures and stories. A treasured memento, indeed.

At the end of each weekend, we decide where and when to meet the following year (it’s to be Julie and Larry’s cabin in Minnesota again next year!). And before we know it, we’re back together, telling the same stories, sharing the same memories, eating more food than should be allowed, and reveling in a group of friends that has lasted for so many years.

Our group is a touchstone that we can count on as the world spins and the busyness of our lives consumes our time. The reunion weekend is our North Star: something to point us, direct us, and remind us that we will gather again.

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In the spring of 2012, I was in a vulnerable place. My husband of more than twenty-five years had just moved out of our home and I was now a single father, trying to navigate life on my own.

I was lost, honestly. Living without a partner was uncharted territory and I had no map to guide me. So to find my way that spring, I took refuge in music, as one does. Adele’s “Someone Like You” (released earlier that year) and Bach’s “Erbarme dich” from St. Matthew Passion (released 285 years before) played on a loop in my headphones. Definitely an odd couple but don’t judge me, I was deep in my feelings!

I spent the summer cleaning out closets, sorting through boxes, and spending time with my sons. In the fall, I went back to work at the opera house, full of hope with a new chorus director and an exciting season ahead. I started to see a therapist each week to make sense of the recent split. Getting to know myself as a single man was a process and I just needed time to adjust.

By November, I was starting to feel a kind of loneliness I hadn’t experienced before. While I was starting to like the man I was becoming, I realized I was also missing the companionship and physical touch of a romantic partner. It was time to start dating. But how? I had never dated before!

A friend suggested I try using a gay dating app. While most people found that to be an easy way to find sex, there were also many success stories of couples finding romance and happiness. So I jumped in. I made a profile and started scrolling.

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The Beginning

One night, I got a message from a very handsome young man less than a mile from my suburban home. It started simple: “What are you looking for?” “What do you do?” “That’s cool, tell me more.” “Let’s meet for a drink!”

We met at a local brew pub a week later, just after Thanksgiving. Connor was 29 years old, just a couple months shy of his 30th birthday. He was 6’2, 185 pounds, wavy blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, with the whitest teeth and widest smile I’d ever seen.

He was the kind of guy that everyone noticed when he walked in a room. He was well-dressed, funny, with a life-of-the party attitude. He loved 80’s pop, taking silly pictures, bragging about his family, dancing in the rain, quoting Mean Girls, and snuggling on the couch watching a corny Hallmark movie. I couldn’t believe someone like that would be interested in someone like me. But it was happening.

Our relationship moved fast. We took weekend trips to Saugatuck, MI (a gay-friendly resort town on the eastern coast of Lake Michigan). He spent Christmas Day with my family. We danced late into the night at gay bars in Boystown and ate tacos at 3am and spent lazy days watching old movies.

He often bragged about his family. His father was a lawyer, a judge, and once mayor of a large city in an upscale community. His brothers were all Ivy League graduates doing important work in the world. And I learned that his younger sister was killed in a car crash years before. He was closest to her and the wound of her death was still evident when he spoke of her.

He explained that he was the free spirit in the family, with no real plans for his life other than enjoying his youth and spending his father’s money. His only plan was to eventually find his way back where his mother was living (they were very close) and where his red 1993 BMW 325i convertible was waiting for him, a gift from his grandfather.

He was renting a room in a private home in the same suburb I was living and when his lease was up in the spring of 2013, I asked him to move into my home with me. I was planning to sell the big house I could no longer afford and I could use the help getting the place ready. It seemed like a good idea.

The Chaos in the Middle

Soon after we became roommates, I started to notice some odd behavior. He would disappear for a couple days at a time. When he’d return he was angry, defensive, and short-tempered for a couple days, followed by a stretch of days when he would be overly loving, attentive, and apologetic. He became obsessed with picking at his skin, convinced there were ingrown hairs, causing bumps and welts to appear under his neck and around his scalp.

Whenever we went out, he would often be confrontational with people. The lady behind us in line at Walgreen’s bumped his foot with a stroller (baby tucked inside) and he started a scene, accusing her of intentionally hitting him. The man passing us on the street mumbled something and that was enough to set Connor off, accusing him of saying something rude and eventually inviting him to fight. An old friend of mine was visiting and he made a remark about how good-looking I was. Later we fought because Connor was convinced I was sleeping with him behind his back.

And then I found the meth, or, more accurately, methamphetamine, tucked inside a pair of his work pants. A small bag of shiny crystals. When I confronted him, he confessed that he liked to “party” sometimes and that it wasn’t a big deal. He only did it occasionally and it was a way for him to relax and let off steam. He assured me it wasn’t a problem, that he would never use it in my home. I had zero experience in meth and its effect on someone’s health, personality, and behavior. So I naively believed him.

On the morning of December 10, 2013, everything changed. On that cold and snowy morning, I learned that my ex husband had taken his own life overnight. I have told the entire story in a previous article here on Substack, “Let’s Talk About Kevin: Part 1 (The End)”. Suffice it to say, my world was shattered.

The next morning, I needed to be alone to collect my thoughts and grieve in private. I went to a local restaurant, found a quiet corner away from everyone, and scrolled through the hundreds of text messages and posts on Facebook. It surprised me how cathartic it could be sitting in a booth at Panera, crying into a cell phone. When I returned home a few hours later, Connor was furious. He was convinced I sneaked out to meet someone behind his back. His jealousy was heartless and poorly timed.

The drug use escalated and the jealousy got worse. He made me call a friend, whom I contemplated dating before I met Connor, to tell him I was “off the market” and dating someone seriously. I went to a classical music concert with a friend and was inundated with phone calls the entire time, accusing me of being somewhere else and demanding I turn on my phone’s location so he could track me.

When I sold my home in early 2014, I moved into a two-bedroom apartment not far from the home we were in so my son could finish high school. Connor moved into the city with a friend. I helped him move his few belongings, cleaned and painted his new apartment with him, and once he was settled in I broke up with him. I had enough.

A year or so later, I was awakened by a loud banging on my apartment door. Connor had somehow found me in the suburbs and in a drunken stupor, demanded I take him back. We argued and it got heated. I sent my son to a friend’s house so he would be safe. Connor wouldn’t leave so I picked up the phone to call the police. He grabbed the phone and threw it across the room, pushed me up against a wall, and slapped me across the face hard enough to send my glasses flying across the room and my body crumbled to the floor. I somehow managed to get the phone back and ran outside, dialing 911 on the way out.

When the police arrived, Connor was belligerent and resistant, yelling obscenities at the officers and at me while being dragged out into the cold night. I barricaded my front door and sat vigil all night, afraid he would come back and hurt me further. The next morning I went to court and filed a restraining order against him.

The Tragic End

I had met Connor’s mother and aunt once when they visited and I still had his aunt’s phone number. I called to tell her what happened. It was then that I learned the truth about Connor. His father was not a lawyer, was not a judge, and was never the mayor of any city. Instead, he was a “deadbeat ex-husband” that didn’t pay child support. His brothers were in local community colleges, not Ivy League graduates. He never had a sister that was in an auto accident. He doesn’t have a red BMW 325i convertible waiting for him at home. It was all a lie.

In the months and years that followed, I heard that Connor was in and out of rehab programs. He would start to get his life together (according to his aunt) and then escape to the streets. I found an article in their local paper online that said he was arrested for theft and criminal trespassing. His mugshot was alarming. The once handsome, engaging, charismatic life of the party man had been reduced to someone I hardly recognized. He eventually became homeless and was living behind a dumpster in a Walmart parking lot.

In the fall of 2021, his aunt called with news. Apparently Connor got into an altercation with someone on the street and it got very heated. An off-duty patrol officer showed up and Connor got into a scuffle with the officer. In the chaos of the fight, the officer’s gun was discharged and Connor was shot and killed. He was thirty-eight years old.

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Final Thoughts

As I have said, I never actually dated before meeting Connor. I met my late husband in college and lived a great life with him for twenty-seven years, but we had emotional blinders on. Neither of us ever took the opportunity to learn basic relationship survival skills, like setting boundaries, leaning into difficult conversations, recognizing red flags, talking honestly about sex, facing problems head on, or working through disagreement in a healthy way. For all the wonderful memories made and healthy parenting we did, not having those skills was the downfall of our marriage.

So it’s no surprise that I was ill-equipped to endure a relationship with someone like Connor, whose addiction to meth was no match for me. I kept telling myself “Maybe this is a lesson I need to learn,” or “I can see he’s hurt but I can change him by showing love,” or “I’m willing to do anything to help this man.” At the same, I was losing my identity, my autonomy, and my safety. For anyone caught in the cycle of a drug-fueled, abusive relationship (emotional, physical, or otherwise), these thoughts will surely resonate.

I have seen first-hand the deleterious effect that methamphetamine can have on a person and it’s not pretty. Because I was vulnerable and naive, I was an easy target. But with the help of an excellent therapist and weekly visits, I now have a stronger set of interpersonal skills in my toolbox. My current partner and I work together on building these skills, both with each other and individually. So looking back on what I endured and how I let myself be swept away and victimized is hard to face.

But these are lessons we learn. Hard-fought lessons that make us stronger for the next emotional hill to climb, better equipped to be a more authentic partner, and possess a clearer vision of what a healthy relationship looks like.

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m trying. And that is where I find strength.

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For the past thirty-five summers, I have sung with the Grant Park Music Festival, a ten-week summer classical music festival offering free performances in Chicago’s magnificent Millennium Park. Situated between Lake Michigan’s rocky shore and iconic DuSable Lake Shore Drive, and the towering skyline with its mix of high-rise office and residential towers, the open-air pavilion, dramatically lit Pritzker Stage (designed by architect Frank Gehry), and sprawling lawn offer an enticing oasis of serenity on a summer evening.

This summer, the festival’s ninety-first season (a feat in itself) is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of its chorus director, Christopher Bell. I’ve written about Maestro Bell and my time with him as a chorister in a previous article here on Substack, “A Community of Utterance.” Yes, go read it.

Over the years, the chorus has sung most of the major choral works that are part of the orchestral repertoire. This summer has been notable, however, in that three separate requiems were programmed: Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem and the Requiems of Gabriel Fauré and W.A. Mozart. From a singer’s point of view, each poses a unique set of challenges, both in narrative and in performance practice. And while the three composers generally use the same liturgical texts (with modifications and additions), each is asking different questions.

Mozart’s unfinished and deeply personal version asks ‘what happens to me after I die,’ Fauré’s consoling and lyrical setting asks ‘what does peace look like,’ and Frank’s historical and political version (with additional Spanish lyrics by contemporary playwright Nilo Cruz) asks ‘whose death gets to be mourned and whose story gets to be told,’

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Conquest Requiem

One of the busiest and most prolific composers of her generation, Gabriela Lena Frank is a Grammy-nominated pianist and composer whose work draws on her multicultural heritage (her father is Lithuanian Jewish and her mother is Peruvian of Chinese descent). In the 2025-26 season, Lyric Opera of Chicago performed her opera, El último sueño de Frida y Diego, which premiered in San Diego in 2022.

The Conquest Requiem grapples with the Spaniards’ conquest of Mexico, combining elements of the Latin liturgical Mass, added Spanish lyrics provided by Cruz, and native Nahuatl texts. The piece calls for a large orchestra and chorus with soprano and baritone soloists. The soprano portrays La Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf of Mexico who was given to the Spaniards as a young slave. Being proficient in many languages (Nahuatl, Spanish, and various Mayan dialects, for example), she converts to Christianity, becomes a translator for and eventual mistress of Cortés, and eventually bears his son, Martín.

The score is broken down into seven sections with titles one would expect in a requiem: Introit, Dies Irae, Recordare, Confutatis Maledictis, etc. But woven throughout each movement are Spanish, Nahuatl, and Mayan texts, sometimes sung by the chorus but most often taken by the soloists. Frank often gives the chorus repeated clusters of chords on a “hum” to give space for the soloists to tell their story. I recognized this technique from the Frida opera we just performed last season at the opera house, and she employs it here again evocatively.

The opening Introit begins on the word “Requiem,” in keeping with the mass setting and similar to Fauré and Mozart. But this Introit is subtitled, “Cuicatl de Malinche (Song of Malinche),” and the soprano sings of her agony in losing her native land to the colonizers, sung both in Spanish and in Nahuatl.

The Dies Irae movement (Day of Wrath) begins with an extended orchestral introduction portraying the chaos and drama one normally hears with a choral start, e.g., in Mozart’s score. When the chorus enters, however, it’s the hushed women’s voices that almost sneak in quietly before the full chorus takes over in a disjointed rhythmic pattern, before finally giving way to the baritone soloist.

Here, the baritone portrays Martín Cortés, son of La Malinche and Hernán Cortés. In Spanish he sings, “I am Martín Cortés, the first mestizo [a term used to describe people of European and Indigenous American ancestry], son of La Malinche, the traitor, and Hernán, the deceiver.”

Throughout the work, I would describe the chorus’s music as rhythmic, staggered, harmonically layered yet evocative, while the soloist’s vocal lines are often expressive, plaintive, and lyrical. The composer weaves both forces together vividly to express the narrative. Like Mozart, who reprises some opening musical elements at the close of his Requiem, Frank returns to fragments of the Introit’s “Requiem” theme in the final pages. And unlike the Fauré setting, she frames the piece as a circle rather than a straight line.

Fauré Requiem

Premiered in Paris in 1888, we don’t fully know why Fauré composed his Requiem. Perhaps in response to the death of his parents just a few years before: his father in 1885 and his mother in 1887. But the composer is quoted as saying “My Requiem wasn't written for anything – for pleasure, if I may call it that.”

The work is scored for orchestra, chorus, organ, and two soloists: soprano and baritone (similar to the Conquest Requiem). In the opening Introit, the first sixteen bars are given to the chorus to introduce the text we expect at the opening of the Mass for the Dead (Requiem): “Requiem aeterna dona eis Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis,” (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let your perpetual light shine upon them). After that, the tenors sing the same text but now it’s a peaceful, lyrical solo line. I always enjoy singing that line (and there are other similar solo-ish choral tenor lines in the piece) but I’ve always wondered why Fauré didn’t include a tenor soloist and give those lines to him.

It is notable that Fauré doesn’t include a Dies Irae setting, with its fire and brimstone, Day of Judgment text. Whereas Mozart uses orchestral and choral declamations as drama to drive home the message of terror, Fauré here opts instead to include a Libera Me (Deliver me, O Lord) section and includes the Dies Irae text within the framework of a pleading, gentle prayer. As a singer, each composer asks for something different here. Mozart’s setting is terror-driven and dramatic, almost operatic. Fauré gives us more of a lullaby with its hushed, legato lines. Mozart is dramatizing the fear of judgment, and Fauré is dramatizing trust in the hereafter.

One of my favorite parts of this score happens during the Libera Me. Here, the baritone soloist introduces the plaintive main theme before handing it to the chorus. In turn, the chorus repeats this theme in unison for the entirety of the text. As a singer, my ears attune to the voices around me to find a balanced, blended unison. For the listener, the melody seems to lift off the page and fill the space with peace and beauty.

Fauré then breaks from tradition by including two sections not part of the liturgical Mass for the Dead: Pie Jesu, here scored for solo soprano, and In Paradisum, which comes from the burial rite, sung as the body is being taken out of the sanctuary and heavenly angels lead the soul into paradise. By ending the piece this way, the composer again is choosing to express comfort rather than reckoning.

Mozart Requiem

For those familiar with the 1984 movie, Amadeus, Miloš Forman’s period drama about the life and final days of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as seen through the eyes of Viennese composer (and imagined rival) Antonio Salieri, one of the most moving scenes happens at the end. As Mozart lies on his deathbed, he is dictating parts of the Requiem to Salieri, who is feverishly transcribing what he hears onto staff paper, feather quill pen in hand. It makes for great movie drama but it’s generally fiction. It is true that the Requiem was unfinished at his death and only a small portion of the work is from the actual hand of the composer. But there is more to the story.

Now, I am not a musicologist… I am just a tenor in the second row. I have, however, learned a few things from people who know more about Mozart than I, including conductors, directors, and fellow singers. In addition, I have done a bit of my own research.

Herr Mozart was commissioned to write a requiem by a count who wanted to honor the memory of his late wife but wanted the composition to be “his own.” In the last month or so of his life, sometime between November and December of 1791, while he was also finishing the opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Mozart began to write the commissioned Requiem. But during this time, he became ill and died before finishing the piece. His wife, Constanze, desperate for money, had Mozart’s assistant, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, complete the work using the sketches that remained and composing the rest as he was able. She had the finished score copied and sent to the count to collect the much-needed fee. This is the version we have known for some 200 years.

Over the years, there have been many attempts to correct and adjust the orchestration and some of the choral music to better reflect Mozart’s intentions (such as we know them) and do away with some of Süssmayr’s dubious composing. The edition we used for this summer’s performance is yet another “new edition,” completed and edited by Robert D. Levin, a highly respected pianist, composer, and musicologist.

From a singer’s perspective, the changes are generally subtle, apart from an entirely new Amen fugue that follows the Lacrimosa and some minor changes in voice leading throughout. Most of the other changes can be heard in the orchestra, particularly in the Benedictus. After the solo quartet, there are some added measures of music before the return of the chorus’s Osanna in Excelsis. The added horns and low strings close out the section in a somber, funereal tone, which sounds like it could be taken from Don Giovanni.

There are moments inside this great work that enable the performer to experience a particular emotion which is difficult to express. It is a mixture of reverence, beauty, sadness, empathy, and ultimately joy. Weaving through the fast-paced Amen and Osanna fugues, reveling in the angelic treble voices’ Voca Me Cum Benedictis, thundering through the majestic Rex Tremendae and the terrifying Dies Irae. These are the significant instances that are engraved in our hearts and in our voices. They are the reason we come back to this piece for generations.

Apart from these I’ve described here, there are requiems by Verdi, Berlioz, Brahms, Cherubini, Gounod, Duruflé, Bernstein, and countless more, each with a distinct perspective, musical style, and form. But having the opportunity to experience these three particular settings of the requiem in one summer has been both pleasure and privilege.

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I have never been a good test-taker. The anxiety of knowing the exam will test my knowledge about something in real time and having to regurgitate enough information to pass a grade-threshold was enough to set my sympathetic nervous system into overdrive.

This exercise in anxiety-inducing trauma (my term) also holds true for auditions, a necessary evil in the music world. For those unaccustomed to an opera audition, let me set the scene, using myself and a specific day as examples.

Sometime in the fall of 1996, I sublet a friend’s New York City apartment in the heart of Times Square. The building was situated on West 44th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, above the famed restaurant, Café Un Deux Trois (recently closed after forty-eight years). I was there for a few months because I was told by most opera industry professionals that if I wanted a career in opera, I had to be in NYC to audition for all the casting directors that go there each fall. So, I went.

While I waited for the auditions to pour in, I worked as a temp in a Manhattan office building. It didn’t take long for me to feel like I fit in with the chaos and bustle of the city’s streets. Each morning, I would grab coffee and a bagel, walk to the 42nd Street station, and take the N train down to 14th Street, where my Union Square office building awaited me.

As I went through the mundane tasks I was assigned (alphabetically filing paperwork into already-stuffed vertical file drawers, typing correspondence using the “word processor,” or taking messages for people I didn’t know and relaying information I almost always noted wrongly), I would listen to my mix tape of various tenors singing my audition arias on my Walkman.

My first audition finally materialized. An unnamed group of casting directors from various regional unnamed opera companies was casting for unannounced specific roles in, you guessed it, unnamed operas. And to top it off, the audition was to be held in the iconic Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

The pianist I had hired to accompany my audition did not show up that afternoon. Because it was the pre-cell phone era and with little time to find a new one, I begged one of the pianists already there with another singer and he obliged (paid in cash before the audition, of course).

At most operatic auditions, singers prepare five contrasting arias, usually in different languages and styles. A menu of said arias is given to each member of the listening panel, along with a current resumé and head shot, upon entering the audition stage. The object is to show the stone-cold, expressionless folk at the table in the back what you are capable of, or at the very least, are willing to suffer through that day.

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The singer begins by announcing the aria they’ve chosen to start with, nods to the pianist as if to say ‘Hit it, baby,’ and singing commences. If anyone wants to hear more after the first selection, they can request something on the menu.

“Let’s hear the Mozart,” or “Oh, I haven’t heard this one today, how about the Stravinsky?” And then I sing the Mozart. Or the Stravinsky.

On this day, I start with Nemorino’s aria, “Una furtiva lagrima”, from Donizetti’s opera, L’Elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love). Poor and dumb, Nemorino has fallen in love with Adina, the rich and smart daughter of a wealthy family. He plays the country bumpkin for an idiot until she finally relents and professes her love after two and a half hours of operatic silliness.

The aria went fine until the key change on page four. In Italian, I sing “…to merge my sighs with hers. Heavens, I could die!” And on “heavens,” I nearly died. A full-throated croak resonated throughout the grand hall and woke the table of casting directors from their lunch coma.

The problem, as it was forming in my head at that very moment, wasn’t the single note itself. I still had half a page of music left to sing, which included a tricky unaccompanied cadenza rising to a high A, followed by what should have been ardent singing of the final phrase, “Si può morir d’amor,” I could die of love. The best I could offer was an unrecognizable stretch of notes barely forming a cadenza, rising almost to an A, and an approximation of ardent. Even the pianist, with cash in pocket, played a happy G that should have been a sad G flat.

“Thank you,” came a voice from the back of the hall, translating to Please, no more.

And that was it. Mozart and/or Stravinsky and the others would have to wait. I took my book from the pianist, walked out of the room and back onto 7th Avenue, fighting back tears and consoling a shattered ego.

This is but one example of my audition experience. There are so many more. And like those anxiety-ridden exams in my younger years, auditions had become opportunities to crumble instead of chances to shine.

To be honest, auditions became better and easier as I aged. But by the time I was able to enter a room with confidence, sing my opening aria with an appropriate amount of drama and flair, follow up with a second selection from the menu of arias with equal panache, I was too old for anything. The tenor waiting to go in after me was younger, cheaper, and prepared for battle.

I don’t audition much anymore, apart from the required re-auditions to keep my job as a chorister at Lyric Opera and Grant Park. Most of my other work comes from people that already know me, people to whom I’ve been recommended, or those that have worked with me at some point.

And yet, that voice that says “Please, no more” still echoes in my brain, ready to activate my fight or flight response. But instead of falling into the trap of believing it and crumbling at an audition, I recognize that it’s there to keep me humble, grounded, and ready for anything.

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The first time I saw him, I knew I wanted to be part of his life. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but it was something like that. I was nineteen years old and could barely understand my own complicated emotions, let alone recognize such a powerful romantic connection.

In the fall of 1983, I was a sophomore in college, getting my music degree in vocal performance in a small Iowa town, and solidly still in my gay closet. When I walked into Mr. Sangayllo’s orchestration class on the first day, Kevin was sitting on the floor under the chalkboard, scribbling musical notes onto staff paper.

White jeans cuffed at the ankle, soft brown leather shoes with a crepe sole, gray sweatshirt, sleeves pulled up to the elbow. His hair was a tangle of brown curls, casually forming a soft mullet around a handsome face. As he spoke, I surveyed his features: scruffy beard, warm blue eyes, a small tuft of hair escaping from his sweatshirt below his neck, and a wide inviting smile.

“Hey,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Kevin. And I already know who you are. I saw you sing at convocation last week.” I was mortified knowing that Tuesday’s butchering of “Il mio bel fuoco” was my introduction to this man.

During our brief conversation, I discovered he was also a sophomore, a theater major, but was taking music classes because he loved to play the piano and write music. After some sly investigative work later, I also found out he had a girlfriend, Jennifer, a year older than us, and also a theater major.

My journals are filled with entries about this encounter and similar meetings over the course of the next couple of years. I knew the car he drove and looked for it around town. I encouraged him to join the music fraternity I was involved in. I took an acting class he was part of. Since he grew up in town and still lived at home with his parents while putting himself through school, we would occasionally have lunch at his house between classes. He introduced me to his favorite Broadway cast albums, and I played Schubert lieder and Pavarotti’s greatest hits on my Walkman, sharing a set of headphones.

By the time our senior year came, Jennifer had moved on to graduate school. That fall, the theater department produced Leonard Bernstein’s operetta, Candide. Kevin was cast as Candide, and I was the Governor. I strategically hosted the opening-night cast party at my off-campus apartment because I had finally gathered the courage to tell him my feelings. I had fallen in love with him, although I still didn’t understand what that meant. And I didn’t know if he was even remotely interested in me that way. But I had to find out.

The night arrived, and I gave him a bouquet of flowers with a note, saying that I wanted some time alone with him at the party to tell him something important. A note I still have, by the way. The party went late into the night, and at the end, only a few people remained, including Kevin and my friend, Beverly. She was a sophomore voice major and, unbeknownst to me at the time, also had feelings for him.

“Kevin, can you drive me home? It’s really late,” Beverly pleaded, sinking my chances of having a moment alone with him. I remember the look on his face, as if to say ‘What else can I do?’ I sat on the front porch and watched his Dodge Dart disappear up Buxton Street and out into the night. Maybe it was better this way, I thought. I wouldn’t have to express my big feelings and potentially get hurt. His affection was not guaranteed, and my infatuation would eventually pass.

But just as I was about to go inside, his car came rambling down the street, tires screeching to a stop. He climbed up to the front porch and wrapped me in his arms, hugging me tight, his scruffy chin buried in my neck. My breath drew him in, and the lemony musk scent of his Halston cologne tickled my nose.

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And then we talked. For hours. I professed my love, and he surprisingly reciprocated, although neither of us had the vocabulary to express exactly how we were feeling. He said he was scared. “Me too,” I said quietly, as he held my hands in his. That was November 17, 1985. It was our Day 1.

The rest of my senior year was a race to the finish. My recital was less than stellar, and all my classes suffered. I was only focused on spending my hours with Kevin, and nothing else seemed to matter.

He came back to Chicago with me over Christmas to spend time together, away from the confines of small-town Iowa. I showed him my city: Marshall Field’s and the Sears Tower, the ice-cold beaches of frozen Lake Michigan, the opera house and Navy Pier. We shopped on Michigan Avenue, ate dinner in the Walnut Room, and he held my hand under the Christmas tree in Daley Plaza.

And at night, we finally consummated our relationship on a pull-out sofa in my father’s basement. He was gentle and timid at first as we explored each other slowly, eventually finding passion, tenderness, and mutual desire.

In the spring of 1986, as the end of our senior year approached, Kevin was offered a job in the theater department at Northwestern University in the fall, and I was set to start graduate school at the University of Michigan. We knew that our time together was coming to an end and that our lives would take us in different directions. We set graduation day as our last day together, which also happened to be Kevin’s twenty-second birthday. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best decision.

Because as it turns out, that day was filled with even more anxiety and stress; I had to say goodbye to the man I’d fallen in love with, he was also trying to celebrate his birthday, we were both graduating college, I was violently ill with 101-degree fever and bouts of vomiting, and my entire family was in my small apartment preparing a celebratory meal in my honor. Both my mother and my father AND my father’s current wife were all together for the first time in my life. On that day. And did I mention I was very sick?

Having somehow survived, I spent the ensuing summer singing with a musical theater ensemble promoting tourism in southeast Iowa, and missing Kevin terribly. We wrote to each other every day, and those letters helped me endure the loneliness. And through those letters, we decided that I would forgo graduate school and come back to Chicago to start my singing career and begin our life together.

We would eventually go on to build that life; we got married in 1991, we lived and worked in Portland (OR) in 1995-96, Kevin studied art and design in England in 1997, we bought our first home in 1998, adopted our first son, Santago, in 2002, moved to a bigger house in the suburbs in 2005, and welcomed Anthony, our second son, to our family in 2010.

In November of 2011 (11/11/2011, to be exact), I suffered a heart attack. At the same time, Kevin and I were struggling in our relationship, and he started to see someone else. By the spring of 2012, he had moved out, and a year later, he was gone.

This is life. Everyone has a story to tell. If you’ve stayed until this point, you have an idea of what my story with Kevin was like: the good, the bad, and the very ugly.

There is much more, of course. There always is.

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On a cold December morning, during Chicago’s 2013 polar vortex, with temperatures hovering around 10 degrees and a heavy snowpack covering most everything, I was moving boxes into my friend Mike’s pickup truck. A separation from my partner almost two years earlier left me with a mortgage I couldn’t afford on my own, two teenagers at home, and a sprawling four-bedroom suburban house that hung around my neck like an albatross. I was moving (and downsizing) into a two-bedroom apartment in a neighboring town.

My phone rang. The caller ID displayed the local police station. When I answered, an officer on the line asked if I could come down to the station to talk about Kevin. Since our separation, Kevin and I were negotiating separate lives for the first time since our early 20s.

After 27 years together, our lives were so enmeshed that figuring out how to live as two instead of one was difficult and stressful, both emotionally and financially. More for me, honestly, since I was burdened with a house I couldn’t afford which had recently gone into foreclosure and both teenage boys didn’t want to give it up. Unfortunately, Daddy’s cool new apartment in town was small and couldn’t accommodate them.

I asked the officer for more information but he wouldn’t elaborate, only saying that I should come to the station as soon as possible. Mike finished loading the truck so I could take off. My mind was reeling. I was left to fill in the blanks on my short drive to the station.

He got caught in a financial scheme.
He got drunk and got into a fight.
He caused a “domestic disturbance” with his new boyfriend.

At the station, I was led to a windowless room and asked to wait. I’d seen enough NYPD Blue episodes to know it was an interrogation room, complete with a heavy metal desk, two cold metal chairs, a camera pointed at me in the corner, and an iron ring bolted to the wall, presumably where criminals are cuffed.

An officer came into the room and closed the door. He first asked how I was related to Kevin. I explained that we were together since college, some 27 years. We were married in 1991, decades before legal same-sex marriage. Our “Civil Union” provided us scant legal protection at that time. But we wanted it anyway. I explained that he moved out of our home in early 2012 to be with someone who “understood” him, in a way that I couldn’t. During our time together, we also adopted two young boys, now 15 and 19 years old.

“Well,” the officer began. “He didn’t show up to work this morning and we were instructed to conduct a well-being check on him.” Kevin taught English and was the technical director in the theater department at the local high school. To say he was a popular and well-loved figure at school and in the community would be an understatement. In addition, he was reliably at work every morning by 7:00 a.m., rarely missing a day in his entire teaching career.

“Kevin was found dead in his apartment this morning. Apparently, he took his own life sometime last night,” the officer revealed.

It was as if someone sucked the air out of that small windowless room, leaving me gasping, frozen in place, and numb, all at once.

My mind started flashing images of our life together; meeting in the music building my sophomore year in college, signing our first Chicago apartment lease together, driving to Niagara Falls, singing at the piano while he played, hundreds of family functions, smoking cigars with my father, July 4th holidays with his mother under the hot Iowa sun, and watching him play and love and teach our young sons. That two-year separation, fraught with emotional and financial turmoil, evaporated instantly.

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Our younger son, Santago, was a freshman at the very high school where Kevin taught. The principal had pulled him out of class that morning after discovering what had happened and, in a crowded conference room full of counselors, the principal, the dean, and various staff, told Santago what happened to his father. Further, he was in the room next door to mine at the police station, waiting for me to bring him home.

“Do you have a number for his parents that I can call?” asked the officer. Kevin’s father had died a number of years before and his mother worked at a car dealership in suburban Des Moines. She would be there now and the thought of a stranger calling her at work to give her the devastating news was too much for me to bear. Kevin and his mother were very close, talking almost every day and multiple visits every year.

“Please,” I pleaded, choking back tears. “Let me call her.”

Marlene and I had become very close while Kevin and I were together. She treated me like a son and I loved her like a mother. But we hadn’t spoken in almost two years. Nevertheless, it was the most difficult phone call I’ve ever made.

News of Kevin’s death spread on social media and throughout the halls of the high school. I was inundated with messages on Facebook, text messages, and phone calls. My older son, Anthony, was staying with a friend in southern Illinois and he found out before I had a chance to call him. I was devastated and he was gutted.

That night, I canceled the singing gig I was supposed to do in order to be home with my boys. I did what I had become very good at: compartmentalizing. I put my grief and sadness and confusion into a box, on a shelf for later. Not out of reach because I would come back to it soon enough. But I had work to do and nothing could happen if I was broken to the world. My sons needed Papi (Kevin was Daddy, I was Papi) to get them through this.

The following weeks are a blur. Santago had finals. Anthony moved out. Kevin’s funeral in Iowa, the church decorated in holiday greenery and twinkling lights. I finished moving out of a large house and into a much smaller apartment. I unpacked, bought Christmas presents, bought a small Christmas tree and decorated it, then made an early Christmas dinner for the three of us. I got a bike helmet. Santago and Anthony got headphones. I flew to Portland to celebrate my friends’ New Year’s Eve wedding.

A colleague and friend of Kevin’s called me days after his death to say she found an envelope in her desk, with instructions to give the contents to me. Inside were three envelopes: suicide notes. One for Anthony, one for Santago, and one for me. In Kevin’s handwriting, each had instructions for when he thought we should open them.

The boys were instructed to wait until they turned 21 years old. I was instructed to wait until my wedding day. Presumably he figured I would marry again and wait until the eve of my wedding to open his letter to me. Think about that.

I told no one about the letters. Instead, I buried them in a drawer while I contemplated what to do.

After returning home on Christmas Day with my family, I lay in bed and let the events of the past two weeks wash over me like a tidal wave. Anger, confusion, despondency, and deep sadness. I was emotionally vulnerable and raw. What better time to read the suicide note, I thought. So I did.

And that’s when it all finally came out. I opened the floodgates that once protected me and the tears flowed out of me in unstoppable, heaving waves.

“Papi, are you ok?” It was Santago at my bedroom door. The paper-thin apartment walls could not contain my sobbing and he was worried about me. I invited him in, told him about the letters, and we held each other for a long time. I gave him his letter, explained why I hadn’t told him about it, and let him go back to his own room to read in private.

This time, it was me that heard his crying and went to his room. We sat on the bed and held each other, finally feeling the weight of where our lives had taken us. I wanted more than anything for Anthony to be there with us at that moment, to know our family wasn’t broken, that we would be alright, that we would recover and find our way together. When I did eventually give Anthony his letter, he cried in my arms and begged me never to leave. “Never,” I promised.

Santago would eventually get a memorial tattoo on his chest: doves flying over a bright sun with the inscription, “Stand tall, Son, and know that you are loved,” a line taken from the letter. Anthony had his letter framed and hangs it proudly as a reminder of the man who inspired, taught, and loved him. He knows every motivational word from the letter by heart.

My letter is stored away with the other artifacts from a life that was, making space for the life that is.

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In January of 1979, just a week before my fifteenth birthday, my high school music teacher took me to see Luciano Pavarotti in recital at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. We sat in the very back row of the 3,600-seat Art Deco designed theatre and from that vantage point, Mr. Pavarotti’s towering frame was reduced to the size of a pea.

But it was his voice that I remember. He sang songs and arias by Verdi, Bellini, and Puccini. I didn’t understand how the human voice could produce such a thrilling and luminous sound yet at the same time be so warm and velvety.

Dressed in a black tuxedo tail coat with his signature oversized white handkerchief wrapped around his fingers, he looked every bit the stereotype of an Italian tenor. After each selection, he lifted his head to the upper balconies (to me?) and smiled brightly, arms stretched out wide, then nodding to his accompanist before giving a gentle head bow to the appreciative audience.

For context, I was a freshman in high school. My choir director saw that I had an interest in and a talent for singing and very serendipitously took me to see the world’s greatest tenor in recital. What I didn’t know then was the extent to which Mr. Pavarotti’s influence would have on my life.

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Prima volta

I heard on the radio later that evening that the tenor would be appearing at Laury’s Records (which eventually became Rose Records) in downtown Chicago the next day. He was signing records to promote the release of his newest album, “O Sole Mio: Favorite Neapolitan Songs.” So I skipped school the next morning, took a bus to a train from my home in the northwest suburbs and eventually found my way to the store on Wabash Avenue. To my surprise, the line to get in wrapped around the building and I ended up waiting in the rain for nearly two hours.

Once inside, Mr. Pavarotti was seated high above the crowd, at a table that could accommodate six but only he was seated, surrounded by pitchers of water, a collection of fountain pens, and a couple of small plates of apple slices.

When it was finally my turn for an autograph, the tenor’s handler asked me what I brought for him to sign. I handed him two things: the program from the previous night’s recital at Lyric Opera and my book of tenor arias that I had just bought for voice lessons. I stared up at Mr. Pavarotti as he signed the program and then thumbed through the book of arias, as if he’d never seen that music before.

“You sing, yes?” he asked, looking down at me.

“Yeah, I guess so…” I stuttered.

“Hmm,” he said with a smirk. He signed the inside front page (which I had framed and still hangs on my wall) and handed it back to me.

“Good luck.”

It was as if the heavens opened and the mighty hand of God scooped me up and hoisted me onto His shoulders. My stomach fell, my head was spinning, and I was on cloud nine. And I wanted to stay there forever!

Seconda volta

Fast forward twelve years. It’s the spring of 1991 and I am singing with the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Sir Georg Solti is conducting a set of concert performances of Verdi’s opera, Otello, later to be released on Decca Records. Luciano Pavarotti is to sing the title role (a role he had never sung up to this point), along with soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (Desdemona), baritone Leo Nucci (Iago), and an international roster of singers in all the supporting roles.

As a member of the chorus, we were often given the opportunity to understudy some of the roles. I was given the assignment of covering British tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson, singing the role of Cassio. Luckily, Cassio’s music often interacted with the chorus (most famously in the raucous drinking scene). Instead of learning just the parts that cued the chorus, I decided to learn the entire role. It seemed silly to do otherwise.

The day of the first orchestra rehearsals arrived. The principals were called early afternoon to sing through the score with Sir Georg conducting the orchestra, and the chorus was called later in the day. I was at my day job working as an administrative assistant in a law office downtown, not far from Orchestra Hall when the phone rang.

It was the chorus manager at Chicago Symphony asking if I was available to sing the principal’s rehearsal. Anthony Rolfe Johnson was ill, and they needed me to sing Cassio. My stomach dropped. Thank God I learned the entire role, I remember thinking! I told my boss the situation and then ran across town, score in hand.

When I arrived, the stage was filled with orchestra musicians, Sir Georg at the podium, and all the principal singers on a raised platform behind the orchestra, situated in front of the choral risers. There sat Luciano Pavarotti, covered in silk scarves, seated in the center in a large leather chair that was built specifically for him and specifically for this event.

I took my seat between Dmitri Kavrakos, the Greek bass singing Lodovico, and John Keyes, a local tenor singing Roderigo. They looked at me with a confused expression, and I explained that Mr. Johnson was ill and I was his understudy.

Sir Georg lifted his baton and the rehearsal began. When we got to Cassio’s first solo entrance, I stood to sing. “Non bevo più.” Sir Georg stopped and glared at me. I had come in too late and missed my cue. He gave me a quizzical look as if to say ‘Who are you?’ Someone from the music staff came to the podium and explained the situation. With an expression of annoyance and impatience, Sir Georg motioned for the orchestra to try again.

Perhaps I was too naive to know any better, or perhaps all of this happened so fast that I had no time to acknowledge my nerves, but I suddenly felt a wave of calm confidence. This was my chance and I didn’t want to screw it up. Especially with Mr. Pavarotti just feet away from me. But also, I realized I was actually having fun!

The afternoon continued, thankfully without any more embarrassing mistakes. When it was time for the chorus to join the rehearsal, they noticed me on stage with the principals, and I was greeted with excited smiles and waves.

At the end of the rehearsal, Sir Georg congratulated everyone, naming all the principal singers by name, one by one, starting with Mr. Pavarotti, of course. When he got to Cassio he read my name, and the room erupted in applause. I looked around and caught Mr. Pavarotti’s gaze. He looked at me squarely and mouthed “Bravo.”

To say I was inspired and encouraged by that day would be an understatement. Validation and praise from my hero meant the world to me. And for at least one day, I felt like I belonged on that stage. A feeling I would chase for my entire career.

The day in early September of 2007 when I heard the news of his death, I dug out my recording of Otello and let it play. I thought about that day he said ‘bravo’ to me and the day he reached down with my aria book and said ‘good luck.’ And all the times I turned to his recordings when I was feeling down or defeated or unsure of my place in the opera world. His voice was my refuge, I realized. It protected me, soothed me, and inspired me.

They say ‘Never meet your hero.’ In this case, the old adage was wrong. I was grateful I had the chance to meet mine. Twice.

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It’s nearly 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Outside, a clap of thunder announces a downpour, creating an insistent drumming on the skylights overhead. I’m sitting in a choral rehearsal room, hidden in the maze of hallways under the Harris Theatre in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Christopher Bell, the meticulous and magnetic conductor of the Grant Park Chorus, wastes no time. He takes his place on the podium and opens his score. We’re preparing the Fauré Requiem and he starts by asking the assembled chorus of about 80 professional choristers, “How many of you have never sung this before?” One hand goes up in the alto section. There is an audible gasp of surprise, followed by a ripple of chatter as we acknowledge to each other how often these iconic choral works are programmed.

But instead of relying on past practice and the collective muscle memory of the chorus, Christopher spends the rest of the three-hour rehearsal fine-tuning each musical phrase as if we’ve never sung it before, bringing nuance, balance, and a fresh perspective to the score.

Moments like this resonate deeply with me. Although I sing in an opera chorus for a living, we are not singing with one voice. We are asked to be many: villagers, soldiers, courtiers, a crowd with a story to tell. A choral ensemble is asked for something else entirely. They are two very different worlds, similar but separate. Robert Shaw, the grandfather of American choral music, described singing in a choir as a “community of utterance.” That phrase has stuck with me all these years, and I think of it often.

I have spent most of my life surrounded by other singers, literally. Being in a choir (or chorus, if you prefer) is a group activity in which each member contributes their part in a collaborative way, devoid of ego, and for the collective good. Whether at a place of worship, an elementary school music room, a community center basement, or the grand orchestral stages of the world, being part of a choir is a unique experience. And for me, it has been a place of refuge, inspiration, and pride.

Like most of us, I can trace my success back to the influence of teachers.

In middle and high school, I was lucky enough to have encouraging, supportive, and inspiring music teachers. As a high school freshman, Jerry Swanson saw more potential in me than I saw in myself. He realized that I had some talent and encouraged me to join the Concert Choir, an ensemble reserved for upper grades. So my first year in high school I was the sole freshman in that upper choir, which earned me the nickname “Nine” from my classmates (my grade year). My career path was being forged before I even realized it.

From Mr. Swanson I learned many valuable skills: how to mark my score efficiently, how to blend with the inner voices, how to train my ear to hear intervals (essential in learning to sight read), how to hold a music folder properly in performance and, most importantly, how to shake hands with confidence. To this day I think of him every time I offer a firm handshake.

My first professional singing gig was with the Chicago Symphony Chorus. Margaret Hillis, the founder and director of the chorus, hired me at my audition. During our brief discussion after I finished singing, she asked if I had found a voice teacher. I hadn’t, so she set me up with one and even provided a small scholarship to help pay for my lessons.

From Miss Hillis I learned how to comport myself as a professional, the value of silent score study, and the importance of being on time as a sign of respect to my colleagues. I learned, sang, and even recorded many of the great symphonic choral works under Miss Hillis. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (”Ode to Joy”), Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Verdi’s Requiem, and the epic Mahler 8th Symphony are just a few. It was with the Chicago Symphony Chorus that I met my hero, Luciano Pavarotti. That is a story for another time.

In 1992 I joined the Grant Park Chorus. Originally hired by its founder, Thomas Peck, I have spent the last 34 summers in the tenor section of that esteemed group. Back then, the chorus was a hodgepodge of local singers with varying degrees of experience and quality. I mean that with love, of course, because I was part of the hodgepodge. But over the past twenty-five years Christopher has crafted something very special, voice by voice, year by year. What was once a socially focused, informal summer chorus has become one of the finest choral groups in the country.

It’s now 10:00 p.m., rehearsal has end and Christopher sends us out into the night. We gather our scores, say our goodbyes, and scatter back into the city. Tomorrow there is another rehearsal, and next summer there will be another season, and I will be in the tenor section for both. That is what choral singing has taught me about belonging. Not that I am necessary, but that I am part of something that is. Shaw called it a community of utterance. I have spent my whole life inside it, and there is nowhere else I would rather be.

I step up to the microphone on the dais for the mic check and the sound engineer gives me the okay.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light…” I begin. My voice booms throughout the arena and my face is framed on every giant monitor. All activity stops for a moment.

“What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming…”

I’ve been awake since 4:00 a.m. to get my voice warmed up and ready to phonate properly.

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air…” I skip to the end so the sound engineer can hear the highest note and set a proper level.

“O’er the land of the free…” Angelique, the stage manager next to me, gives me the okay to stop. Sound check complete, the crew continues setting the chairs and stacking the diplomas, staff in black graduation robes and headsets resume their final preparations and I find a quiet spot upstairs for a cup of coffee until my call at 7:45 a.m.

The first time I sang The Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem, it was a cold and wet early morning in front of thousands of runners assembled in Daley Plaza, ready to run the Chicago Marathon. And for a number of years I opened the race by singing the anthem until the organizers wanted someone to sing who would also be running. And that was the end of that.

Since then, I have also sung the anthem at a number of events, including the American Lung Association’s 20k run, the Kevin Dowling golf outing (a charitable scholarship fund), a Chicago White Sox game, a Chicago Bears game, and for the last 15+ years, the graduation ceremonies for DePaul University.

Along the way, someone asked me how it was that I’m able to sing such a famously difficult song so often (with its wide range, easy to mix up lyrics, and usually in a high-pressure situation). My response was simple: find the right key and don’t forget the words.

After some trial and error, I settled on a key that fits my voice (D major) and I rarely stray from it. I only accept offers to sing the anthem when I can control the key. If I’m singing along with a recorded accompaniment, its usually too low for me. When there is an orchestra or organ or a choir singing along with me, most often the key is also too low. So singing a capella (without accompaniment) is my preferred method.

I visualize this song in three parts.

Part 1: In D major, I start on an A and descend down to a D; that is a comfortable place to start. Even though that D is near the bottom of my singable range, I don’t “live” there for too long and I’m able to enunciate the text clearly while maintaining a fully supported sound. The first two stanzas generally stay in the same octave range, ending with “…gallantly streaming” on that low D.

Part 2: When the second part begins “And the rockets’ red glare”, the line suddenly jumps up to an F sharp, which in the tenor voice is squarely in the ‘passaggio’ (the transition area between vocal registers). So I adjust the placement of my voice higher in order to deliver the text, lifting “red glare” on high A’s. This is my favorite part of the song as it lies in a comfortable register (I am a tenor, of course) and with a supported sound, I can easily move to the end of the phrase “…that our flag was still there.”

Part 3: I approach the third part of the anthem with a little more drama and anticipation. As I begin “O say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave”, I linger on “O…” for a few beats before landing on “say”, then a quick breath to set up the rest of the line. In my head, I imagine a crescendo drumroll under “O” and then a cymbal crash on “say”. Dramatic, like I said.

What most listeners of the anthem wait for and what most singers dread is the ascent up to “…o’er the land of the free”, which in D major takes me back to a high A. Since it’s in a comfortable and sustainable part of my upper range, I linger a bit on “free” to exploit the drama (and give the listener some satisfaction) before finishing the phrase and ending the anthem on a confident and hopeful tone “…and the home of the brave.”

Aside from controlling the key, the other thing that makes or breaks my performance is the text, which has sunk many a singer. Years ago I was watching the local news and during the sports report, the sportscaster showed a clip from the previous evening’s Cubs game broadcast. Apparently, the anthem singer (who happened to be a friend of mine!) forgot the words and got very lost. I vowed never to fall prey to a memory slip. So for years, I carried the words in front of me when I sang. I’ve since weaned myself off that crutch and instead I can trust my memory after so much repetition.

By the time the graduates file in and their families are seated around the arena and I make my way to the microphone, I’m focused on keeping the starting pitch in my head and reviewing the lyrics. And I remind myself of the most important reason I’m there; to give them a confident start to a big day. And after all these years, that's a job I'm grateful to keep.

I was 15 years old and I didn’t even understand what I was watching or hearing or feeling. I just knew that I wanted to be up there, doing what they were doing.

I couldn’t have predicted that just 7 years later, I would land my first professional (paid) singing gig with the Chicago Symphony Chorus. The late Margaret Hillis, founder and conductor of the chorus, hired me in the fall of 1986, fresh out of college and with zero professional experience. I learned much under her tutelage, most importantly how to look, behave, and sound like a professional.

Soon after I was hired to sing at the Holy Name Cathedral as part of their professional choir. It was a short-lived tenure, however. I was in over my head; I didn’t get along with the director, Richard Proulx, himself a towering figure in the church music world, and promptly found a better fit in a smaller and less-visible church choir.

Then I joined the Oriana Singers, an a capella vocal ensemble that performs a staggeringly wide variety of music from Renaissance songs to contemporary jazz. That led me to be hired by the late Thomas Peck, founder and conductor of Grant Park Music Festival’s chorus. It was a summer residency job, learning and singing choral classics alongside some of Chicago’s premiere singers, and performing all summer on Chicago’s beautiful lakefront.

So while most of my friends took the usual route from an undergraduate education directly into a graduate program, which afforded them time to grow and learn with their preferred teacher (then directly into young artist programs that also afforded them time to develop and learn and network), I cut my teeth on choral work.

Yet I longed for that immersive operatic experience that only a young artist program can afford. In the world of opera, a young artist program (YAP) is a training initiative associated with a major opera company designed to support and develop emerging opera singers and musicians, providing them with performance opportunities, mentorship and professional development. Many of these YAPs include workshops, masterclasses, and other chances to perform in mainstage productions, helping them transition from academic training into professional careers. And I felt I was missing out on this opportunity.

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So I started auditioning. I first sang with Des Moines Metro Opera for their summer season, an intensive seven-week training program smack dab in the middle of Iowa. But at the end of the season’s exit interview with the director of the program, it was suggested that perhaps I didn’t have what it takes to make it in the opera world. Ouch.

Around this time I was accepted into the full-time chorus at Lyric Opera of Chicago, a job with income stability, exposure, and a chance to work in one of the world’s best international companies. After just two years, however, I left to pursue more training programs and solo opportunities fearing I was being left behind. I was told by more than one industry “professional” that my road to success in opera meant no more choral singing.

In 1995 and 1996, I was an apprentice in back to back summers with the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico, the premiere summer opera festival, where I was exposed to agents and directors scouting for new young talent. Many of my fellow apprentices have gone on to have major careers; world-renowned mezzo soprano Joyce Di Donato powerhouse tenor Brandon Jovanovich, and tenor Jim Cornelison (Chicago Blackhawk’s anthem singer), chief among them.

Between those Santa Fe summers, I was a young artist with the Portland Opera (OR), a 10-month contract full of classes in diction, stage combat, movement, and role preparation. We sang roles and covers in mainstage productions as well as performing outreach programs in local schools. Imagine singing Rossini and Mozart at 9:30 a.m. to a room full of 8-10 year olds, twice a day, for weeks, while traveling around rural Oregon in a van of opera singers. Yeah, think about that.

It was the late 1990s and I found myself at a crossroads. My then-husband and I wanted to start a family and we wanted to buy a house. But the life of a traveling opera singer can be lonely, isolating, expensive and, in my experience, unfulfilling. Living out of a suitcase at a different hotel every six to seven weeks going company to company left little time for family obligations. I needed to decide how to have the career I wanted and still build a life with my partner at home.

So I went back to the chorus at Lyric Opera where I found everything I had been searching for. Numerous opportunities to sing and understudy roles on that great stage, work closely with the very best world-class artists in my field, enjoy a consistent income with which we bought our first home and adopted our first child, and still left me with enough time to sing with most of the major choral organizations in Chicago.

I spent years chasing the career I thought I was supposed to want. What I found instead, after every detour and rejection, was the one that actually fit. That fifteen-year-old kid would be proud, even if it wasn’t the route he imagined.

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The concept was simple; the audience was seated on the stage with the performers. At cafe tables dotted around the stage, the patrons got to eat and drink and be as close to opera singers and one can be. Each performance had a theme (Food and Drink, The Four Seasons, Battling Baritones, Animal Kingdom, Viva Italia!, etc.). I would sometimes perform but most often I hosted the event by providing narration and guiding the audience through the performance with notes about plot synopses, translations, anecdotal information, and the like.

When a new executive director came to the center and didn’t share my vision for what opera programming could be going forward, I decided to take my ball and go home. But instead of letting the concept fade away into history, my partner Alex and I decided to rebrand the concept to be an in-home supper club; cuisine, community, and opera!

So this past April, Alex created a menu based on a Spring theme, I chose a handful of arias and songs that also fit into that theme, and we invited a bunch of friends and fellow online influencers to give their feedback and thoughtful ideas. They all loved the concept and Opera Up Close was re-born. With momentum on our side, we immediately started to plan the first ticketed event, setting our sights on a PRIDE themed evening for mid-June.

In my planning for the event, which we’re calling A Rainbow Revue, my first thought was to gender-swap arias and songs; meaning that I would sing arias and torch songs you would normally hear sung by women. And to go along with that idea, I wanted to perform in full drag! There are many very popular opera artists performing in drag around the world. Creatine Price, Monét X Change, and Sapphira Cristál are just a few of my favorites.

I have appeared once before in drag. In early 2025, Lyric Opera of Chicago staged Terence Blanchard’s opera, Champion. It is based on the true story of welterweight boxer Emile Griffith who, in the 1960s, struggled to come to terms with his homosexuality. In one scene in the opera, Emile visits a gay bar and is welcomed by a trio of drag queens. I played one of those drag queens and it gave me the opportunity to be on stage, in drag, and inhabit an unnamed character (whom I referred to as Miss Shapen). Wearing the dress and the wig and the heels transformed me! Since then, I’ve been eager to find an opportunity to go further with this character.

But as excited as I was to introduce Miss Shapen to Opera Up Close, I realized she wasn’t a fully formed person yet. This was someone else’s dress and someone else’s character. I want Miss Shapen to reflect me. ‘I am my own special creation’, so the song goes (more on that later!). I need more time and more opportunity to give her a vision and a personality before also negotiating music that I don’t normally sing.

So I pivoted. I chose an outfit that leans “feminine” and sparkly but stays true to my cis-gay style. And I chose repertoire that includes mostly music I’ve loved for years but have never sung. Musetta’s aria from La Bohème, “Quando m’en vo” and Lauretta’s pleading aria from Gianni Schicchi, “O mio babbino caro”. But also Mame’s song “If He Walked Into My Life” (from Mame by Jerry Herman), the heartbreaking torch song “Fifty Percent” from the musical Ballroom by Billy Goldenberg, Marian’s love ballad from Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man, “Till There Was You”, and finally some Eliza Doolittle (from Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady), “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

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The dining table in our vintage Chicago apartment seats 12 at most, which includes myself and my pianist, Paul Hamilton, capping the number of tickets we can sell at 10. After just a few days posted on social media and listed on a ticketing site, we sold out!

Alex chose a menu based on what he describes as “the gayest meal of all… brunch”. A selection of quiches, oven roasted potatoes, labneh topped with Shirazi salad, everything-but-the-bagel focaccia bread, and a yummy bread pudding with raspberry sauce are just a few of the items on the menu.

During the cocktail hour, everyone got a chance to meet each other while Alex served tomato basil lemonade cocktails. I sang my first set of songs, opening with “Nessun dorma” as a statement to say “you came to hear opera and I’m a tenor so this is what you get”! But also, my personal hero Luciano Pavarotti brought this aria into pop culture in 1990 when he sang it at the FIFA World Cup in Italy and that performance quickly become No. 2 on the UK Pop chart. And since the USA is currently hosting the World Cup, it’s yet another reason to open with this.

After the two aforementioned soprano arias, I ended the first set with a Richard Hundley song called “Come Ready and See Me”. Hundley started life as an opera chorister in NY and then became a prolific composer of vocal music. The song was written for a friend of the composer’s that died too young. A sad yet hopeful message and a beautiful song.

Dinner was full of interesting conversation, lots of laughter, story telling and getting to know each other. The food was delicious and Alex worked hard for days to ensure everyone enjoyed a beautiful meal.

Dinner guests for A Rainbow Revue

After dinner, more singing and chatting while enjoying coffee, after-dinner drinks and Alex’s bread pudding with raspberry sauce and fresh whipped cream. Everyone seemed to appreciate my take on those torch songs I listed earlier and I was so happy to finally be able to sing them for an audience. As an encore, I sang “I Am What I Am” from Jerry Herman’s iconic musical, La Cage aux Folles, which is considered a gay anthem and a perfect way to end an amazing evening.

With our first successful Opera Up Close ticketed dinner behind us, we’re already working on the next one; an Americana-themed evening in July, with many more ideas already taking shape. Follow along on social media or visit www.operaupclose.net so you don’t miss your chance to join us.

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In 1998, my then husband Kevin and I bought our first home in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood.

We both had good jobs, a new home, a basset hound puppy - we were ready to be fathers.

After doing some research we found a local adoption agency that specialized in placing African-American newborns into same-sex households. We learned of the hierarchy in adopting a black child; biracial girls are the most sought after, then biracial boys, followed by black girls and then (’hardest to place’) are black boys. This was delivered in such a matter-of-fact way, we were shaken. But we didn’t care where on the list our child ranked; we just wanted a family.

The process was not easy or inexpensive but we had confidence that working with this agency would enable us to start a family. The agency had lawyers at our disposal that knew how to work through the legal system (remember, this was now 2001 and views on gay parenting hadn’t fully evolved), counselors to help manage the emotional issues that would inevitably come up, and mandatory parenting classes in racial sensitivity training. We are both white and bringing a black child into our home immediately makes us a “black family”.

What social and community organizations will we be involved in? How will our faith beliefs inform our parenting? How will we address practical issues like managing hair and skin care, which are specific concerns for the black community? We had so much to learn.

With all our paperwork, homestudy, and classes complete, we found ourselves in the waiting period. Kevin bought a roomful of children’s furniture and toys from IKEA, instantly transforming a guest room into a nursery. I bought cans of formula and boxes of disposable diapers and bottles of lotion and bags of cleaning cloths.

A few weeks later, we got a call. Instead of a newborn, as they instructed us to expect, the agency had a 3-year old biracial boy that needed to be placed. That night Kevin and I had a difficult conversation but ultimately decided that we would wait for a newborn. We wanted the full experience of raising a child from infancy and decided to stick to the plan.

But a month later, the agency called again to say the boy had been placed but returned for reasons we were not told. I lay awake that night with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat imagining this young boy in need of a home.

As soon as the office opened the next morning, we phoned and set up a time to meet.

Everything from that point happened so quickly, I can barely put together a timeline. We met Santago and his mother in the agency’s offices a few days later. Kevin was immediately on the floor, tumbling and playing, laughing and chatting with Santago while I sat frozen in my chair. The reality of how our lives would change after that day dawned on me and I was surprisingly frightened. Terrified, to be blunt.

That weekend, we arranged to take Santago for a full day with us. We drove to the west side of Chicago on a sunny spring morning and picked him up from his grandmother’s home, where he’d been staying while his mother worked.

We drove to our favorite park and played on the swings, had a picnic lunch in the grass, laughed and ran and jumped and took lots of pictures. At the end of the day, we returned him home to his mother, who waited on the street for us. Pulling away and watching them in the rear view mirror broke us. Through tears we assured each other that our mission was to make Santago our son and the sooner the better.

Within days, Santago was in our home. Full-time. Despite there being a schedule we were expected to follow, which included a number of home visits and overnight stays before placement was permanent, everyone involved felt comfortable moving forward with an expedited placement.

And just like that, we were fathers.

Seven years later, Kevin accepted a position at a high school in the south suburbs of Chicago, teaching English and theater. We moved into a large four bedroom home on the fourth hole of a private golf course and life just seemed to embrace us.

As much as we were thriving in this new community, we knew it was time to add an addition to our family. We went through the process all over again, including a new home study, classes in parenting, etc. And just like our first experience, during the “waiting period” as we prepared to accept a younger sibling for Santago, everything changed.

Kevin returned home one evening and said he wanted to cast a 16 year old sophomore in a show he was directing at the school but was advised not to. It turns out Anthony was in the foster care system and taking a cab to and from school every day from a shelter on the south side and wasn’t allowed to do any extracurricular activities.

We discovered that Anthony had been removed from his home and disowned by his single mother because... he was gay. She simply couldn’t handle a son who didn’t live up to her expectations of how a boy or man should act or behave or dress. So instead, she put him out. He was living in a shelter with everything he owned stuffed into a plastic yard waste bag.

The story broke my heart. We seemed to be exactly what Anthony needed; two gay parents that modeled love and acceptance.

So instead of waiting for a newborn adoption to give Santago a younger sibling, we instead took Anthony into our home and he became Santago’s older brother.

I reflect on those happy years with a grateful heart and a mind full of core memories. Sadly, Kevin passed away in 2013. His death is a story in itself which I’ll share another time. But losing him was devastating to all of us. We had been together for 27 years at that point. Santago was just 14 years old and Anthony was 19. With all the trauma and turmoil those two boys had endured up to that point, losing Kevin was the hardest blow of all.

Life is full and wonderful and complicated. This story of how I became a father is just the beginning, just a teaser to how life has unfolded for us over the years. I look forward to sharing more about me, and us.

To every man who showed up, stayed, and loved without condition I wish you all a Happy Father’s Day next week!

Opera found me when I was sixteen years old.

In 1980, my high school music teacher took our choir to see a student matinee at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. We saw the iconic Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème”, with it’s wild young artists living the Bohemian life in late nineteenth century Paris.

I clearly remember sitting on the main floor, surrounded by my classmates, watching the action on stage and feeling overwhelmed by the music and the pathos and the grand scale of it all. The memory of red velvet seats and gold embossed filigree all over the walls and surrounding the Art Deco proscenium are as ingrained in my mind as the music itself.

The hopeful, soaring strains of act one when Rodolfo falls instantly in love with Mimi and they close the act singing high Cs in unison as they walk offstage and into their future. The pageantry and joy of the second act as we meet their group of friends watching the parade of life unfold before their eyes while seated at a street-side cafe. The cold, snowy landscape of act three where we find the couple, now months into their relationship, struggling with jealousy and bitterness, but hopeful that spring will rekindle their love. And the tragic events of the fourth and final act as Mimi’s sickness takes hold while her friends sell their possessions to buy medicine in hopes of staving off the inevitable. And the final cry of Rodolfo as he holds the lifeless body of Mimi in his arms, curtain coming down, lights coming up, revealing my face covered in tears and quietly sobbing in my seat. I didn’t fully understand what was happening on that stage but I remember fully the sense of knowing I wanted to be up there, singing with those people, living their lives with them, watching the audience respond with tears or laughter or applause or shouts. I wanted it all!

After high school, I received my Bachelor of Music degree (BM!) in vocal performance from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa in 1986. As soon as I graduated I wasted no time and moved to Chicago to start my career. My first professional job was singing with the Chicago Symphony Chorus (CSC). I was hired by Margaret Hillis, the founder and director of the chorus, who became my mentor, supporter, and friend. Just as my high school music teacher instilled in me a love for opera and classical voice, Miss Hillis taught me how to be a professional. Once, after arriving late to a rehearsal for the second time, Miss Hillis pulled me aside and lectured me on the importance of being on time and how that showed my colleagues and the music staff that I valued them and their time. I was mortified. And I was never late again.

My time with the CSC was rewarding and full of core memories. We recorded Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy) and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Sir Georg Solti. I understudied the role of Cassio in Verdi’s opera, Otello, which we performed in Chicago and New York’s Carnegie Hall, and recorded with Luciano Pavarotti and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in the principal roles. We toured Vienna and London with Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust. And I spent my summers singing at the Ravinia Festival, the orchestra’s summer home in the far northern suburbs of Chicago.

Fast forward to early 1993 and I was home with my (late) husband having dinner when the phone rang. In those days, we actually had phones mounted on walls… remember? “Hi, this is Josie Campbell from Lyric Opera of Chicago,” a pleasant and professional voice announced. “I saw your performance last week with Lincoln Opera,” (a small company with which I had just finished a run of performances of Offenbach’s “The Tales of Hoffmann”) and we’d love to have you sing a house audition here at Lyric Opera.” I was immediately transported to 16 year old me, sitting in the opera house with my music teacher while Puccini’s lush score washed over me and set me on the path to a life of opera. That audition led me to be hired by Maestro Donald Palumbo, then chorus director of the Lyric Opera Chorus, just a few months later. My first opening night as a member of the full-time opera chorus in 1993 was Verdi’s opera, “La Traviata”. Since then, I’ve appeared in more than fifty different operas in seven different languages spanning centuries of composition. I literally “do what I love”. Every day.

As with any story, there is more to tell and more to share. This introduction serves as an invitation to join me here on Substack. I want to write more about opera and having a career in music and what life is like spending most of it onstage. And I have other interests, as well, like poetry, travel, entertaining at home, movies and books, relationships, parenting, word games, and trivia.

Until next time, you can find me on the Tenor Line. Follow me and Subscribe so you we don’t miss each other.

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