Proof The Bible Is True

In my studio on New York City’s Upper West Side, I train professional opera, cabaret and Broadway singers right alongside talented amateurs from every occupation you could imagine. When I look out of my eighth-floor window onto Broadway, I know Frank Sinatra was right: If you can make it here…

Competition is fierce. But often it’s that competition that forges strong bonds between people. All different types of people. And it seems that every type of person has come through my studio. One February afternoon about three years ago, I received my most unexpected visitor ever.

I was giving a lesson to a young woman preparing for a Broadway audition. We ran through some exercises to warm up her voice, then I flipped to the show tune we’d been working on. I transposed the music into her best range as I played. She sang clearly and confidently. She just might get the part, I thought.

Halfway through the song, though, I became distracted. Something was different. I felt disconnected from the piano keys under my fingers, from the stool I was sitting on. I could hear the music so I knew I was playing the piano, but suddenly I was a member of the audience instead of part of the performance myself, watching my own fingers on the keys.

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