What makes you a singer?

When do you lose the right to call yourself a singer?

Live performing arts in the US have been at a virtual standstill since the pandemic’s spidery red claws stretched over us last March. Today, the Met canceled the remainder of its Fall 2020 season —- all of it, leaving its furloughed artists, orchestral musicians, designers, stagehands, dressers, hair and makeup artists, wardrobe personnel, sound and lighting engineers, set builders, and staff unemployed.

Some European companies have resumed live performances; but Europe is also on the brink of a second wave. Here in the US, the second wave may well find us still drowning beneath the first, with no end in sight. Those who can least afford to be sick are forced to risk their lives to keep the rest of us fed, safe, educated, transported, and yes, entertained.

All hope is not lost. After a summer of digital content, much of it recycled, many arts organizations have come up with creative ways to continue their season plans. Michigan Opera Theatre’s new artistic director, Yuval Sharon, is staging a drive-through Götterdämmerung (Götterdämmerung, people!) in a parking garage. Tomer Zvulan of Atlanta Opera announced a company of twelve well-known singers who will perform a re-imagined 2020-2021 season. Chicago Opera Theatre is offering a season of open-air concerts and opera delivered digitally.

Still, we know that paid performance opportunities, for the foreseeable future, will be even more competitive than they were before COVID-19. We know that the arts world will need to be rebuilt (a wonderful opportunity, but also a formidable challenge). We know that it’s not going to get any easier for a long time yet. We know that some of us will not be able to stay in the business, at least not in the capacity we did before. This, my friends, is trauma layered over trauma, like a sticky, stinking mud cake.

What do we make of it, we the artists who aren’t working as singers right now, or for the foreseeable future? What about those of us whose careers or education were still in development when the pandemic snatched our world away overnight? What of those whose dreams of a life on the stage were stolen by illness or injury, lack of funds, the needs of a loved one, prejudice, racism, sexual assault, blackballing?

What do you do when the thing you love and have trained for all your life is suddenly unavailable?

Are you still a singer when you are not singing?

This suffocating, unavoidable trauma has stolen our opportunities, our income, our profession, and, for many our voices. Whether you have felt unable to sing or have found your voice in the darkness, the identity crisis is real. Artists, even established artists, are dropping out of the industry, taking sustenance jobs or seeking to leverage their skills as artists to related roles. Performing artists are famously adaptable. But no matter how adaptable we are, for a great many of us there is a deep anguish associated with the merest thought of “giving up singing”.

I don’t believe in “giving up singing”. I don’t believe it’s possible to stop being a singer, if that is who and what you truly are.

I believe that Artist —- and that special flavor of Artist known as Singer —- is far more than just an appellation, a career path, or even a lifestyle. It is who we are on the very deepest level of our being. We were born Artists, with the need to create and to be seen and heard running like gold threads through our red blood, every bit as nourishing and essential as oxygen. We became Singers through our affinity, talent, passion, and long, hard work.

You can leave the singing industry, friends. You can be driven out by harsh economic reality, personal tragedy, or some other horrible occurrence. But you can still be a singer, if you want to, if the injury to your heart and soul will allow it.

You do not lose the right to call yourself a singer because you’re no longer working as a singer. You don’t get kicked out of the club. You know, you know in your very bones, what it is to be a singer, what it is to be on the stage or in the rehearsal hall or alone in a hotel room saving your voice. You bear the scars and the glitter, and you’ll never get rid of either.

Now, what do you make of it? That’s entirely up to you.

Some of us need to heal for a while longer before we feel like singing.

Some of us need to forge ahead. Maybe we never stopped.

Some of us are pivoting to non-performing careers, or careers entirely outside the arts. Some of us were already there.

Do what is best, truly best, for you, but if you are one of the people who is in anguish because you believe these changes mean you can no longer be part of the Singer Club, consider thinking of it this way: percentages.

Maybe there was a time in your life when your career was 100% singing; or 80% singing and 20% teaching voice or driving Uber or what have you. Maybe your percentages were more like 75% driving Uber and 25% singing. You get the idea. Chances are those percentages changed from time to time. Even the 100%ers went through a period here and there when they were 80/20 or 40/60. They don’t always tell you that in conservatory, but that is normal.

Well, it’s part of that famous new normal everybody is talking about now, too. The percentages have changed, shockingly. For most of us, percentagewise, it was never possible to be 100% singer 100% of the time —- we’re portfolio artists. Multi-hyphenates. Or else we had a trust fund.

For the time being, the percentages have shifted and very, very few of us will manage to be 100/100 career singers. For the time being, we’re ALL portfolio artists. But we are still artists. We can still make art. We can still sing. Opportunities are still there —- they look and feel different, but they are there —- and after all, it is our job to create. It may be a long time since you had to create your own opportunities, but here we are. It’s that famous new normal.

Like so many of us, when COVID hit, I had contracts canceled. I didn’t sing myself for months after lockdown — instead, I found comfort and healing in creating opportunities for others. The interesting thing is that when I was ready, performance opportunities began to come my way. I have three gigs lined up for the fall. None of them are big. None pay anywhere near what I was getting before COVID. But they’re bringing my percentage up.

You get to choose. You get to say. Only you know the answer, and it’s allowed to change. You’re always welcome back in the club.

Are you still a singer?