We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emma Cerovich a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emma , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I vividly remember being in a voice lesson a few years ago. I was twenty years old, just finding my voice as a classical voice student. I was singing through an Italian aria and relishing every high note, every run, every luscious, indulgent sweep of the melodic line. Finishing the song with a flourish, I looked over to my voice professor, with expectant pride and confidence. She walked across from the piano to where me and my music stand held out posture like an Olympic gymnast sticking her landing. Gently and kindly, she looked me in the eye and said, “that was not your most beautiful singing. You have and can sound better.” I blinked confusedly. She continued, “Emma, this music is not for you to indulge in. You have to experience the music personally, but communicate beyond just what you feel.”

That key moment stands out in my mind: my music is not about me. Every aria I sing, every song I write, every stage I sing on, is not a soapbox for my own emotional gratification. In order to be an impactful voice and powerful musician, discipline must be coupled with delicate, raw emotion — the paradox of real communication without over communication. It’s a thin line, but I am learning that this is the difference between a good performance and a performance that really touches other peoples’ hearts and builds connection, community, and a greater experience beyond the music. An excellent musician’s song or performance is unique but gives a touchstone for someone to say, “me too, I get that, I understand that!” in the most beautiful, relationship-building way. At the end of the day, it’s those moments of humble onstage power that touch people through a note or a word.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Emma Cerovich, and I am a twenty-four year old from the mountains of Colorado currently pursuing a master’s degree in voice performance – aka, opera. I never imagined that my teenage dreams of being a pop singer and touring the country would have evolved into a world of a whole other kind of spectacular music…I’m humbled, to say the least. One year ago, I released my first EP of folk-pop originals, titled Heart Gone Wrong. It was my musical baby for several years, and one of my best friends and I spent eighteen months workshopping, recording, and producing these songs. I’m honestly still giddy that they are out in the public ear, and don’t quite know how to express my gratitude when someone tells me they listen to my music. I am still writing songs today in a small songwriter’s circle where we get to share what we’re working on, but my life looks a lot different from the year I took to produce that EP. In my master’s program, I teach voice lessons, voice class, work on my own classical repertoire as a student, and participate in opera. I spend my days researching composers in the library, singing in the practice room, and teaching vowel modification and resonance and other nerdy voice student things.
While just enjoying writing songs for the love of it, I have been simultaneously developing a musical alter ego as a classical singer. I have taken the last six years to fall in love with the world of opera and start studying it seriously. Opera and songwriting share two things: creating something original and telling a relatable story. Whether it’s making a German opera from two hundred years ago accessible to a modern-day English speaking audience or writing a three-minute folk-pop song, I have to get creative and learn how to communicate in new and artistic ways so that people can listen and say “I have experienced that. I’ve felt that way too!”

Opera and songwriting have another commonality: self-discipline and dedication to the craft. If there’s one thing I want readers to know, it’s that any musician you watch perform, stream their music online, or consider hiring them for an event: hours, months, and years of practice, work, and discipline have gone into the song, the setlist, or the audition. It is a concept I am just learning to grasp well, and I am grateful for the time and capability to hone my craft in this way.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal as a singer is to learn as much as I can about the voice and to be able to refine my own voice to be the most beautiful and free it can be. With that comes a motivation to learn the history of vocal literature, understanding of vocal anatomy, and a deeper intuition of artistry from the score to the music. It is an open ended and makes me into a life long voice student. :)

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the biggest factors that motivated me to want to pursue a career as a singer is the community connection it brings. Like my experience learning an aria, the payoff of being a creative isn’t just about my own emotional gratification – it’s the lasting impact on listeners in a way that makes them feel known and gives them deeper language to an experience they might not be able to put into words. Music is one of the most beautiful gifts from God to humankind: being able to be a co-creator in a story bigger than my own finitude.