We recently connected with Anna Hashizume and have shared our conversation below.

Anna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I knew I wanted to be a performer since I was very young and when you’re young, you dream really big! I dreamed of big stages, movie sets, and glamour. I thought that was the measure of being a successful performer. As I got older, my perception of success shifted. I still think I’m a big dreamer, but I think I’m able to balance those dreams with my reality and I’ve struck a happy medium. This is all to say, once I graduated with my masters, my dream was to be a working artist. I wanted to be able to sustain myself with my art. I didn’t want to have to work a job I didn’t love or feel like I had to clock in hours at a place about which I wasn’t passionate.

When I was in grad school, I worked at the front desk of a salon. I actually really enjoyed my co-workers and it was a really great work environment, but I knew that, at some point, I wanted to get out of there. It took several years to get to a place where I felt like I could leave the stability of that job, however.

Back in 2019, I opened up a private voice studio and started taking students. I never imagined myself being a voice teacher. I remember my voice teacher in grad school encouraged me to teach when I was done with school and I told her that I didn’t think I would be good at it. But after school, I thought I’d give it a shot! And lo and behold, I grew to love it. I loved being able to see students grow to love their voices and it started helping me look at my own voice more critically.

I continued working a day job, teaching, and performing. I knew that teaching was going to be a part of my life moving forward, now that I grew to love it so much. Then the COVID-19 lockdown happened in 2020. I was furloughed from the salon but I was able to teach lessons virtually. My studio really grew during that time and I was lucky to be a part of a number of virtual performances.

When the salon opened back up, I went back but was really struggling with being there. So, I applied for a remote job and got it. As theaters started opening up, I was still teaching, working at this new remote job, and starting to perform again.

Cut to late summer 2021 and I was chatting with a friend on her porch. Now, this friend happens to be a life coach and I was lamenting my work situation to her. She asked me what would make me happy – what was the life I wanted to live. I told her, I just want to teach and perform. She told me to crunch some numbers and asked me to see if raising my teaching rate slightly and getting a few more students would make my financial need for a day job go away. I found it that it would! As a few more higher profile performing and teaching jobs fell into place, I finally took the leap and quit the stable day job.

So, I’ve officially been sustaining myself with my creative career – both teaching and performing – for about a year now! As you can see, it’s taken awhile to get here. It definitely didn’t happen overnight and there have been a couple of months where it got a little dicey, but overall I’m happy. I’m sustaining myself in a fulfilling way. My advice is to be practical about the numbers and just take the leap – you’re never going to feel fully “ready.”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Anna and I’m a singer-actor and voice teacher.

I started performing at a young age. I was actually on an episode of a short PBS kids show when I was in 2nd grade and I asked my parents if I could do more of that. So they signed me up for some acting classes at The Children’s Theater in Minneapolis. Then, my mom saw an audition in the newspaper looking for specifically Asian/Asian American child actors and I auditioned and got in!

As I got older I started taking voice lessons and getting really. into music and musicals, and dabbling a little in classical music with my teacher. I started to really fall in love with singing classical music. I applied for and was accepted into Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music where I really continued to cultivate my love for opera.

I returned to the Twin Cities for grad school and got my masters from the University of Minnesota. I did a few Young Artist Programs (basically, internships at opera houses) but I was starting to get really unsatisfied with the industry of opera. So, I leapt back into musical theatre and theatre. Minnesota has such a rich performing arts community and I wanted to get more involved!

Ever since then, I’ve been performing on stages in Minnesota and throughout the US. Performing opera, musical theatre, and theatre. More recently, I’ve been getting into film too!

I really like being a versatile artist! I love that I can be working on and performing an opera one month and then turn around and be working on a world premiere of a new play the next. I think I’ve made a name for myself being versatile. Plus, I truly never get bored with what I do because it’s always a little bit different!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The opera world has a lot of rules. Part of the reason I started moving away from pursuing work within that industry was because I started to feel stifled by all of those rules.

Opera typically relies heavily on tradition and what’s “supposed” to be done. When I was in school, I very much fell into that way of thinking.

To make a long story short, I had to unlearn a lot of the “shoulds” of opera in order to come into myself as a performer.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I always knew my colleagues and friends were resources I could tap into, but I really didn’t take advantage of that for a long time.

I think I was really anxious about people perceiving me as not smart or capable. So, instead of asking questions, I just acted as though I knew what I was doing. And, don’t get me wrong, there can be some value in the concept of “faking it until you make it,” but I also think opening up and asking for help or advice from trusted individuals isn’t a sign of weakness.

I wish I had asked more questions when I was young.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.annahashizume.com
• Instagram: @annahashizume, @sing_with_anna

Image Credits
Image 1: Lily Lancaster Image 2: John Borge Image 3: Dan Norman