Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Cresswell

Hi Jenny, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

Oh, wow. Life has taken me on quite a journey so far! In terms of my music, I always knew I wanted to sing. My mother sang in church a lot, so I grew up hearing beautiful singing at home. After seeing a movie with opera in it when I was eight, I announced to my piano teacher that I was going to be an opera singer, and I never really changed my mind, even if life sometimes tried to get in the way.

I moved to New York City just a few hours after graduating high school. I can’t say that I would recommend that others do that. My early years there were difficult, and I dropped out of conservatory training several times due to money and also due to the fact that I was trying to learn how to be an adult in a city that can be challenging even for people with much more life experience. I don’t look back on those years and see them as failures though. I created a lot of art in different mediums, and I did what I needed to survive and gained a great deal of wisdom about people and what drives us all. I also gained many chapters’ worth of stories someday when I sit down to write my memoir.

It wasn’t until my children were in school full time that I went back and finished my undergraduate degree (fourteen years and four schools later), before continuing on to get my master’s and doctorate. School can seem very difficult when you’re young, especially if you’re a first generation college student like I was. By the time I started graduate school in my early thirties, I was much more grounded. I had moved back to the midwest, learned to balance having two children just one year apart, and was learning as much as I could so that I could advocate for my older child, who had received an autism diagnosis. Even though my studies for my degree were in music, because I had a full scholarship, I took that opportunity to audit classes in special education and learn all about the rights my child had so we could successfully navigate the public school system.

I kept performing throughout my studies and working in adjacent fields. When my children were young, I worked at a small opera company, translated and arranged adaptations for school tours, directed the children’s opera chorus, hosted a classical music show every day for public radio, taught adjunct at a nearby college, and substitute taught at my children’s elementary school. After graduate school, I took a job full-time teaching music at a high school for a couple of years. I am proud of the work I accomplished while there and I am still in contact with a handful of the students I taught, but inside, I was stifled. I had no time to create or sing.

Then, in 2018, I won what I call my “golden ticket.” I had been accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Michigan, fully funded, and with health insurance and a small stipend to teach while I was a student there. The fifty-mile distance was close enough to commute and it would provide a lot of opportunities. I was also starting to sing in Detroit more often, and there were many days that I would spend more than four hours in my car driving the triangle from Toledo to Ann Arbor to Detroit, only to return late at night, get up early to get the kids ready for school, and do it all over again the next day.

Then, just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, I became a single parent. Life changed a great deal then, for so many of us. In truth, I became a lot happier and my determination grew during that time, even as the world seemed to be crumbling around us and there was so much grief happening in so many people’s lives. Thankfully, no one in my close family endured loss or serious illness during that time. In my own house, my children and I became an even tighter-knit trio. They were still in elementary school and I was only halfway through my degree. Somehow we made it work.

I graduated and was recognized by several organizations on campus for my contributions to the field, My final dissertation project, a new opera called “Interstate,” was picked up by an opera company and turned into a movie. I’m so proud that a piece that I helped create appeared at half a dozen film festivals. My family has spent the last three years moving from city to city with temporary work, either for teaching or singing gigs. Last year when we moved to Detroit, I created an app and took to TikTok to fill in the gaps between performance contracts. The arts are still very much recuperating. The resiliency of my children is remarkable to me, and I am very grateful for them for trusting me as we forge ahead. For this year, I took a visiting position at Simpson College, in Iowa. My family lives by the motto that life is a great adventure.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

It has definitely not been a smooth road. Sometimes people talk about a glass ceiling. I think, sometimes for me, it felt like I was in a glass maze. I could see my peers following a much more linear path, and sometimes I would manage to crawl beside them, but then my life would take a sharp turn and I wasn’t able to continue in the same direction. Some of this is due to some of the trauma I experienced as a young woman, but I prefer not to go into those details now.

Outside of that, both the arts and academia have a long ways to go in the ways they view and accommodate mothers, and especially single mothers. The opera world is just now coming to a place where some women feel comfortable sharing their motherhood experiences, and some companies are trying to be more accommodating with scheduling or providing childcare information. However, it still remains that if you start a family once you are established, it is celebrated far more than when you have children in your twenties and try to become established as a professional when you are already a mother. Because I am so active on social media, I have been asked many times in interviews about my children (legal or not). There is also the reality that what academic institutions and arts organizations are offering for salaries is often far below what it costs to support a family. It’s like there’s this unwritten expectation that your income is supposed to be supplemental to whatever your spouse earns, or that the fact that you are a mother is something to be punished and you shouldn’t expect to be paid a wage that can provide basic needs for a family of three. We know, statistically and with all skills being equal, fathers are paid the most, followed by men without children, then childless women, then married mothers, then single mothers.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

Both as a voice teacher and as a performing artist, I think what sets me apart is that I have such a strong commitment to authenticity and to breaking down the gates that have been locking out so many for so long. As a teacher, I created an app called GoPractice that is meant to help those who want to be serious singers but are maybe not in a place to study one on one. Last year, I also started a monthly Pay What You Want online studio day that I offer through TikTok. It serves as a type of vocal clinic where anyone can sign up for a thirty minute slot and pay whatever they like for that time. I have worked with all types of singers, music teachers, and even public speakers battling vocal fatigue. In total, I’ve worked with over 250 people from five different continents in this format. I’m very grateful to be able to give back in this way.

As an artist, if anything sets me apart, I think it’s my fearlessness. I have not always had the gentlest life, and I think that has given me the gift of being a true chameleon on stage. The stories in opera don’t often see women being treated well, and with the beautiful music, it’s easy to forget just how brutal some of these stories are. I try to set an example for my students and for the younger generation.

I am available for residencies, master classes, and public speaking events.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?

Without a doubt, resiliency and the ability to keep going have allowed me to be successful. I believe strongly in getting the work done, no matter how you feel about it. If you wait around for motivation or for someone to hand you something, you might turn into a mummy. There is inspiration for creativity in every single day. I like to take long walks. This has always been true. I think up things, or build characters or write poetry on these walks. I marvel at the fact that every single person I come into contact with has hundreds of stories inside of them that are worth telling if we’re willing to listen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cresswellvoicestudio.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jennycresswell861
• Other: TikTok: @dr.jenny_soprano

Image Credits

Elizabeth van Os
Gillian Riesen