Classical music is a part of the music world that I have always known very little about, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the audience of this project was the same. That’s just one of the reasons why I’m so pleased, and grateful, to have spoken with Caroline Taylor, an incredibly talented Soprano (and actor) who also happens to be an old school friend, about her experience of this quite extraordinary part of it. We discuss her re-directed route into the world of music, navigating life as a freelance Soprano, and what she truly loves about her job. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did chatting about it with Caroline.
For those who don’t know about you and your career, could you introduce yourself and explain what you do in the industry?
Of course: my name is Caroline Taylor and I am a professional soprano. I am a classical musician who sings classical music at high pitches! So that can be in opera, recital or concert; perhaps when you think of a choral concert you go to, I could be a soloist there. It's a varied career that has taken me to lots of different places and it's fully freelance, which is a blessing and a curse. You've got to be very good at lots of different things, but if you can hack it, there is nothing that compares, and I love it. I absolutely love being a soprano, I just love it.
I know you've just mentioned a little bit about what a soprano is, but to go a little deeper, what would you say, for example, is the ‘unique selling point’ of a soprano? To define it a little more.
Ok. How to really describe my particular kind of soprano... So firstly, a soprano is the highest voice type in classical music. My soprano voice sings both long lyrical passages - nice things that you'd want to listen to - as well as quite high, fast passages - known as ‘coloratura’. So really the USP of my soprano voice is what’s known as ‘lyric coloratura’. The roles I would do are often from the 19th century Italian repertoire - known as the Bel Canto period - like Adina in The Elixir of Love, a lovely, sweet and silly opera by Donizetti. I would also do roles like Musetta in La Bohème by Puccini and Vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen, an opera by a Czech composer called Leos Janáček. I will find repertoire in opera, concert and song that suits my voice as much as possible. The other voice types you've got are mezzo-soprano, which is lower. You've got alto and contralto - which are lower again - and then you've got tenor, bass, and baritone in there as well…and countertenor, which is very cool. Countertenors sing in a totally different and amazing way, quite high.
Where did music start for you and how did you get into all of this?
So, as you know, St Winifred’s was a gorgeously musical school - like a music-for-fun school - and my late grandma, she was always really keen for me to sing in choirs or to just sing for fun. I did have a few singing lessons that my grandma bought me as a gift, but it really wasn’t until I got to my final year of university that a teacher asked me if I had thought about applying for music colleges. I think because my family are not musicaI (it was just my grandma who dabbled a bit in theatre), they were quite keen that I got a degree or an apprenticeship, something as a plan B as well, something to be a more rounded kind of person. So, I came to music professionally quite late. But I'm grateful for that, because actually it meant that I had an interesting way into it – and this has allowed me to appreciate music in a different way.
Of course. Out of interest, what was the degree that you did before you went the route to music?
I did French, Italian and Spanish at St Andrews - so lots of languages - and I was fortunate enough, when the scheme existed, to do an Erasmus year abroad. Amazing but challenging. I was very impressed by the work ethic of the Parisian students - oh my gosh - but I also fitted in a lot of croissants and hot chocolates and the Eiffel Tower…I was trying to live my best Emily in Paris life and I succeeded to some extent. I passed the year, which I was happy about; and having that background in languages has been so welcome when singing in for example French or Italian (which are used all the time in classical music). The one language I didn't get to study to at university was German and I'm glad I've come round to it now, as well as the Slavic languages like Czech and Russian. These languages are used all the time and people often ask me: when I'm singing something, do I know exactly what I'm saying, do I speak the language? For me personally, that's the only way I can memorise these vast quantities of text - if I know exactly what I'm saying. So, when I did The Cunning Little Vixen in Czech, I had to learn Czech a bit in order to do that role, because otherwise it would be nonsensical to my brain. I know that some classical singers learn purely phonetically - just the sounds, like consonants and vowels, I, E, A, O, U and their different combinations. But for me, I need to know what I'm saying as well. So my languages degree has been really helpful here.
Caroline Taylor © Alia Thomas 2025 | www.aliathomas.com | Please do not use without permission.
I can imagine. Your degree connects very well to what you do right now. Do you find it challenging learning all of these new languages still that come with the job?
Oh yeah, of course! And I think you do every so often get somebody who's a real polyglot and will just, you know, pick everything up super quickly. To an extent, I am able to pick new languages up quickly, but of course I have to work hard at it. The only way I can describe my hack is if you think about each language as existing in a different parallel universe - and each language has its own personality as well. It's such a joy to be able to communicate in these different ways. As a languages nerd, I love seeing how the grammar and the syntax can be very different when it's a Romance language versus a Slavic language versus English…it definitely keeps your brain fresh. It can be tiring, but it keeps you fresh.
I’d love to know what made you go the route of classical. Did you always have a love for opera and classical music?
No, not in the slightest. I grew up as a 90s kid listening to my mum’s CDs of George Michael, Simply Red, Ella Fitzgerald... My family sometimes used to listen to these kind of like, EMI ‘opera highlights and classics’. So every Christmas, they would get out the CD player and listen to a little bit of the Nutcracker or something similar. But no: I'm not somebody who grew up absorbed in classical music. Quite the opposite. In fact, a few years ago when I was doing a concert in Scotland, I got quoted in one of the papers saying that I absolutely love Britney Spears - because I do listen to Britney and absolutely love her. I mean, right now, I'm listening to Sabrina Carpenter, Addison Rae, Charli XCX. I'm listening to these people on repeat. I cannot get enough of this music alongside a mix of 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s. And then every so often I’ll stick on Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. So I don't listen exclusively to classical music and I think for me, there is so much that can be learned from other styles. Another artist I love is Dolly Parton. I cannot get enough of country music! There's so much soul in the voice. So I think to myself: how can I translate that into the way I sing? I think some people grow up listening to classical music and know that they always want to perform that way. Some people do what I did and they come to it their own way. If I had to mention one thing that set me off to wanting a career in classical music, it was hearing the final trio from Der Rosenkavalier in a lunchtime recital at university. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard in my whole life. It gave me goosebumps. Once I started having singing lessons, classical singing was a style that came to me quite naturally - but I love everything. I love Disney, I love jazz, I love crossover…I love everything. You name it. If it's a banger that I like, I will sing it. Just try and stop me. Ultimately I think it’s about finding the stuff that gives you goosebumps. That is how you know what you want to sing – and how you discover why you want to sing.
Within the different styles of music that you perform, is there something that you're drawn to most?
Absolutely there is. I don't have a word for it specifically, and it's not a genre, but what I’m drawn to most is a feeling. So: the music that makes me feel something, whether it's sometimes uncomfortable, it feels kind of spooky, or makes me feel weird, or sometimes even music that frightens me. Stuff like that. Or something that I just think is so beautiful it makes me want to cry, that's the music I'm drawn to, and for me that mostly comes in the form of Romantic composers like Debussy, Puccin, Verdi and Strauss. I love works from the Classical period as well, but generally the more dark and dramatic Classical works. Mozart is a composer known to many people – you may have heard of The Magic Flute or Così fan tutte, both of which are great – but for me, his more understated, slightly darker operas like Idomeneo or Mitridate are appealing. I especially love 20th century stuff, again mentioning Vixen; Janáček is a wonderful composer of this period. Also Benjamin Britten; and increasingly a wealth of female composers who are finally coming to the fore, like Rebecca Clarke, Judith Weir – who is actually a contemporary composer – so weirder and wackier and darker would be my general vibe. Very good, very good, I like that.
You've given suggestions of classical music to be different to opera, but for those who don’t know this world, what would you say that difference is between the two?
That's a really good question. Let’s break it down. Classical music refers to the overarching content. Within that you have different periods of classical music and one of them, annoyingly, is also called the Classical period – which refers to music from around 1750 to 1820. So, much like in art you'd have Baroque, Classical, Romantic – and the way that Picasso is different from say, Rembrandt – you have the different periods of music too. And within these different periods again, you have opera works, orchestral or ensemble works, song… So: opera is a type of classical music involving singers, usually performed on a stage - and has a different sound world according to when it was written. A Baroque opera will usually feature a harpsichord, an instantly recognisable sound; contemporary opera is going to sound weirder and spikier and probably have a huge orchestra or strange ensemble in comparison. A contemporary sound world could be something like the Harry Potter soundtracks by John Williams - who is a contemporary classical composer. Basically the different periods make different sound worlds – but I like finding what unites them, and that is always, without fail, telling a story and communicating. There's a lot to it all. It takes years – and it’s always changing!
Caroline Taylor © Alia Thomas 2025 | www.aliathomas.com | Please do not use without permission.
It does seem so. When you're part of a show, of an opera performance, are you cast in the way that say, an actor is cast for a film for example? Does it come about in a similar way, and what's your sort of process of leading up to it?
That's a really good question too. So, I get the impression that if I look at the way actors are cast, generally they have a vibe to the roles they would do. I don't know why she's popped into my head, but someone like Lily James – who's done Cinderella, who's done Rebecca on Netflix (the Daphne du Maurier book adaptation) – she seems to get cast in this sort of young, quite ingenue type role. Opera singers also have a general vibe to the roles that they'll do. So, a role like Mimi in La Boheme is typically a lyrical soprano with a sympathetic presence that means the audience loves them and the audience falls in love with them. The casting of operas themselves will usually go through a team of agents and creatives, including directors and consultants. The process of preparing for a role well is mammoth. I recently saw a clip of Leontyne Price, an amazing singer of the past, talking about how she would prepare for a role and she basically said: you go to museums, you read books, you do everything as well as the singing, maybe you walk around being that character every day. Those kind of performers are instantly recognisable; I think, wow, okay. I'm hooked from the minute I see them. Now obviously I don't know what Lily James would have done to prepare for Cinderella or for Rebecca, but I expect that probably these actors are reading books, they're delving into the socio-political and historical context of their roles and they're doing their homework. So for opera singers, as well as the music, the pitches and the language, you have the movement once you get on stage, the costumes, everything else around you to think of, which is a huge task. It’s a lot of work and and sometimes a challenge, but if you put in the hours to prepare, the results can be extraordinarily rewarding. Sometimes of course time is a luxury and you might “jump in” to learn or perform a role in a matter of weeks, days or hours…now there’s a mad exciting scenario!
That's very true. Have you experienced that, where you’ve been part of a production where you don't necessarily align or gel with what you're doing?
Oh yeah totally. And it doesn't just extend to opera. In fact one of my very good duo partners who I work with all the time, we've had a lot of conversations about composers that we like, and composers we don't like, and interpretations that we like…and personally I love these kind of conversations, because if everybody agreed about everything all the time, it would certainly be a very boring world, and we'd never find this interesting middle ground where there's the ebb and flow of real creative process. It is a process after all, which implies it's not just going in one direction – it’s flowing all the time. Fortunately I haven't yet been in a situation where I’ve totally felt unaligned with the creative vibe. I think it's probably just a question of: do you like this interpretation/I prefer this interpretation. I think there are ways of making something your own and taking direction, which can be a real skill, because sometimes there will be a characterisation that you don't necessarily agree with and you have to find a way to make it work. Simple as that really, but you have to. You find a way to tell the story.
On a similar note, you obviously work with a lot of people in your productions. Have there been any challenging circumstances you’ve encountered with people you’re working with and how do you tend to handle these sorts of challenging working relationships?
Yes, very much so. I think there are always going to be challenges, whatever industry you're in, but especially in the creative ones, where it can feel like there’s so much at stake. Sometimes creative relationships can be challenged by circumstances like lack of time, when there are many moving parts to a concert or a show. In those scenarios, I think the best thing is to take a step back and to try and see why the challenges are happening. If something is related to a circumstance out of everyone's control, then you work together and you solve it. If a challenge comes from working with people – which is unfortunate and I'm happy that it hasn't happened to me very often – you put your professional hat on and get the job done to the best of your ability. I always try not to take things like that personally, because you never know what someone else has going on in their life. I recently came across the idea of ‘finding your tribe’ and I love it, because your tribe is your support network that you have on hand for when days are tough – friends, family and colleagues who pep you back up. Navigating these situations whilst also maintaining professionalism can be really tough, but it is an art that you have to learn.
Absolutely. Now your work takes you to lots of different places. Do these performances take you all over the world, or certainly over Europe?
At the moment, UK and Europe. I definitely have big dreams. I would love to perform all over. You name it… Antarctica. Concert for the penguins, perhaps?
It must be quite tricky being away from home a lot, from your partner. I appreciate you're in the same field, but I suppose there must still be quite a lot of time away from each other?
Yeah, definitely, and you have to remember to remain grounded. I think that's a really big thing, because especially if you're touring, or if you're doing a lot of performances that you're spending a lot of time away from home, it can be really easy to just get swept up in all of it, so just remaining feet on the ground is really important - and you know what, we all get homesick all the time. I think it's finding the joy in the travel, whether it's just, I don't know, finding a quiet moment in a nice AirBnB, or you found a really nice coffee shop just around the corner from an opera theatre… These are the nice things that you can hold on to. But being away from home - and being away from your loved ones - I do think that it makes you appreciate them all the more, so that then when you are reunited, you really make the most of it. It’s a blessing and a curse, I'd say, like everything in the freelance life!
Caroline Taylor © Alia Thomas 2025 | www.aliathomas.com | Please do not use without permission.
When you’re touring shows, you must be with the same people for quite a long time. Do you feel you create almost a family within the crew?
Definitely, and that can happen just generally in contracts. What you find is, if you're doing a contract that is, I don't know, anywhere between two and six weeks of rehearsals, and then even if it's just a run of shows in the same place, or if you then take it on tour, you do become very close with your other cast mates, with the production team - and it can be sad once it ends, you know. Just today I've seen a post about a show one of my friends was doing that's just ended, and she's spoken about the post-show blues, which are a genuine thing, because you've been on such a high, all these endorphins pumping around - and then the next day you think, “oh, right, well then, on to the next thing”. I saw a clip recently from a wonderful opera singer, a mezzo-soprano, Joyce Di Donato, and she said something along the lines of “the career is sometimes going to feel like all the highs up here, and all the lows down here, and neither one of those is the career, because the career is somewhere in the middle.” I think it's really important to always go back to your middle, however you get there. For me it's meditating and exercise and eating well, which sounds kind of naff and boring, but it works - and it works for a lot of people - and seeing family and things like that, or just reading a good book, binge watching a bit of Netflix. These things…anything that can help you return to that middle ground.
That makes a lot of sense. I suppose the ‘post-tour-blues’ are a pretty universal experience for musicians and actors, production crew in general, working together in such close proximity for such a length of time.
Totally, and it can be bizarre as well, especially if you're doing a few contracts back to back, you know: you bond with one family - and then you're gone - and then you do the next one - and then you're gone - and even with recitals as well…I definitely had some post-recital tour blues recently. Especially if it's a programme that you absolutely love. But then, you know, that's kind of the sign: back on the bike and off we go to the next thing, let's make it happen.
So, within the classical world that you're in, apart from the ones that we've discussed already, has there been any particular challenges that come to mind that you’ve experienced over the years?
Absolutely. I mean, I think anybody who's here in 2025 and pursuing a classical career, the biggest challenge they'll talk about is the pandemic - and as somebody who graduated from the Royal Northern [College of Music], the lovely, lovely college where I was studying in Manchester, my graduation ceremony was December 2019. So a bit of a weird one there, because of course nobody could have really predicted there was going to be a global pandemic, that, frankly, on the whole, across the board, I think, took out about anywhere between one and a half to three years of peoples’ careers, because there were productions cancelled and backlogs and everything just kind of went a few rungs down the ladder - that’s the only way I can describe it. As a just-graduated artist, it definitely felt like any momentum that I had worked really hard to build was suddenly lost. So, you know, I think all of us had to think long and hard about whether we could continue pursuing this, and whether we had it in us to keep pursuing it. With hard graft and some luck, I figured out a way to move forward and I'm really fortunate now to be working more and more - but it's been a huge challenge and I know a number of people who are existing in the classical world through side hustles, to use the kids' lingo. I think a lot of people that I'm seeing at concerts now, you know, they're doing either an admin job on the side, or they're doing something else on the side, or teaching, lots of teaching. Nobody on the whole in my cohort seems to be just performing all the time. But I think that's okay as well, because it can be a portfolio career - you are making music at the end of the day and it's about finding the positivity in it. The dream I’m working to make a reality is to be able to make music with my voice all the time. I think as well, if you look at statistically, my particular voice type of soprano - and actually women in the classical opera world generally - we can face challenges for different reasons. A few years ago a very prestigious young artist program published its number of applications by voice type, the figures showing that from soprano voices, there are about 450 applications. Mezzo soprano, I think it was maybe 200. Tenor, maybe 50. Baritone, 100, and bass, something like 20 or 30. The odds for what I do as a soprano were…pretty alarming. Another challenge that I think is now being addressed for women is something like conducting: historically, there has been a much greater number of men working as conductors vs women. There are probably all sorts of factors at play here, but what I’m glad to see is many more women on the podium, conducting epic works at epic venues all around the world. You look at someone like Barbara Hannigan - who not only sings, but also conducts and sometimes both at the same time - and you think, wow. That is some talent. Ultimately, what we want to see is a balanced classical music industry where everyone is just able to focus on making the music - because this is such a powerful tool for positive change. If you’re a women working in classical music, I think you have to really find your USP and you have to look at things from another perspective. I know I'm quoting all these people, but Baroness Brady, Karen Brady - I love her when I see her on The Apprentice. She said once in an interview, “I don't hear the word no, I hear: find another way.” I think that is just so relevant for our times. Find another angle, find another perspective, and do it with integrity and positivity, and you'll make it, you'll get there.
That's a rather universal challenge as well, isn't it.
Totally, across the board. Across the board, all creatives and further as well - everybody needs a USP. Just generally. I mean, even, you know, you think about people looking for investment. Okay, well, what makes you different? Why should I invest in you versus that person? Because they have a passion, they have a fire in the eyes, they have something. They have something that you cannot quantify that gets you drawn in and hooked.
Caroline Taylor © Alia Thomas 2025 | www.aliathomas.com | Please do not use without permission.
Now, we did touch upon it. Your partner is in the same field and I believe you met him when you were performing your show together?
That’s right. I was wearing a hideous wig too, so I'm really glad he fell in love with me. Thank God for that haha.
How is it being a couple in this field? How do you navigate working together, and then not working together and being apart?
Yes, for the record, my partner, he's wonderful, he's a baritone, sort of middle-low male voice type, and we met doing this opera in 2018. We were doing a British Youth Opera production of a pastiche, which is basically like, to break it down, it's kind of like a greatest hits opera of lots of different composers set to a new story. Okay, so that's how we met, and this was a Baroque pastiche by a director and composer called Jeremy Sams, who wrote this fabulous translation for it. Well, libretto would be the word - rather than translation - Jeremy brought all this music together and made a new text and story for it. And working with my fiancé, well, I mean, what can I say, we fell in love, so it was wonderful - and when we do get to work together, it's joyous because there's no greater pleasure for me than making music…and if it's with a loved one, brilliant, even better. I think the good stuff of being with an opera singer, as an opera singer, is they know that you're going to be knackered after a long day of rehearsal. They know the kind of support that you'll need, and they know the vibe of the life and you can support each other - but you can hold each other accountable as well. If you know you've got to have an admin day or you know you've got to reply to all these emails with all these biographies, you keep each other accountable. At the same time, because you're so close, if you're looking at, OK, well: my partner is really busy right now and I'm not busy, sometimes it can make you look inward in a way that's not helpful, thinking “I must not be doing a good job” - but it's so important to remember that it's just ebb and flow…because then the balance will shift again, as it does with all freelance work. And it goes both ways. We'll both have periods when one is busy and the other is not and the other is busy and the other one is not, and finding, you know, hobbies to keep you busy as well as just enjoying freelance life, taking a trip here and there if you can, usually on quite a strict budget. You have to get creative. But remembering fundamentally that you are a team is really, really helpful, and I feel very lucky to have such a supportive partner in the same world.
That’s really lovely. Now, the music industry has always been rather male-dominated, and more so in some genres and circumstances there’s been (and still is) clear gender inequality. You touched upon it earlier, but do you see much of this in your space of classical and opera, or particular challenges facing women in the classical world?
I mean, the challenges for women in the classical music industry are certainly there. The biggest one, I'd say, for me, is the one I mentioned just in terms of statistics. So as a soprano, I'm already competing with so many other people versus a man who's a tenor or a bass or whatnot. And I think that maybe not so much now, I'm really pleased to see, but perhaps in the past, this has created this atmosphere of an almost disempowerment, because everyone is fighting to get stuff, when really, we should all be empowering each other and working together. That's why I'm so happy to collaborate with female creatives, especially because I just think, you know, empowered women empower women. It's as simple as that. As we’ve seen today with you and this amazing project! And likewise, you know: nobody likes going to an audition where you can see there are like a bunch of us all there and everyone's kind of sussing each other out. If you want to get into your own space, that's totally cool. Do that. What we need is good, supportive, nice vibes as best as possible. Simple as that. So if there's any way that as a woman in the industry, I can help lead by example by just being nice, supportive, professional and also knowing my worth, then I'm keen to do that. Another area that it’s interesting in terms of opportunities for women is casting operas: companies seem to be more vigilant now about operas that have more female roles. That's a big thing. Because if you look at something like La Bohème for example…you’ve got Mìmì and Musetta - so that's two female roles - and then you've got Rodolfo, Colline, Schaunard, Benoît, and Alcindoro. It’s a fantastic opera - but there's a disparity already. It seems that people who are programming these seasons, they are taking into account more and more that maybe we need one opera that has a female heavy cast so that we can make use of all these fabulous singers we have. It's not always the case, but when it happens, it's nice. A final thought is on social media. So if you look typically at social media now, you will find there is so much pressure on women to look a certain way. I mean, if you just look at all these filters that are leading the way, it's crazy. Are men experiencing the same thing? I don't know, because I'm not a man. I can just speak to what I'm seeing, but I think that there is a tremendous pressure on women generally, and when that filters into the creative industry, it's like, well, I have to look a certain way to do a certain role, and I have to do this and this and this. It can be quite a suffocating feeling, and it can stifle one's integrity, and your true voice. So when talking about challenges, I always like to try and find this Baroness Brady perspective shift and switch it to how I can think about the way to overcome it, which for me is: okay, so we need to have more integrity. Don't listen to this, this and this, telling you, you must look like this, and you must do this and this. Just be yourself. Sing what you're meant to sing, what your voice is capable of singing well and healthily. Obviously don't show up to an audition looking like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards - come looking presentable, looking professional, and do a good job - and ultimately, that's all you can do, and hopefully in the end, you'll get where you're meant to be. But it's hard, and I think you need to find a way of addressing these challenges as a woman that comes from a place of positivity, and not a place of jadedness, or sadness at missing out on something. Okay, so you didn't get cast in that. Fine. That's all right. You can go and find something else. Don't hear “no”. Hear find another way.
That’s it. Such a powerful sentiment.
And you know, I think as well, in terms of aesthetic, there is this ageing issue that has been conditioned in society with women for years and years. I genuinely believe that inner beauty and this inner peace when you are truly content in your career and in your being and integrity - that comes out in your essence and in your performances. We see that it's the same way. Like if you see someone on stage who is absolutely in their character and owning every second of it, you can't look away. You forget that you're listening to an opera. You forget that you're listening to somebody singing. The biggest compliment I had recently was when somebody said, “when I came to see your Vixen, the music was wonderful, but I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just thinking: there's that really sweet vixen, what’s going to happen to her next?.” So, you know, when I think about how unfair it all is that women have this pressure to look a certain way, to not age, to not get a grey hair, you just think…what about all the amazing ways that they just radiate beauty from the inside out. When you combine that inner beauty, peace and integrity with classical music, if you truly love what you're doing, it’s irresistible.
Caroline Taylor © Alia Thomas 2025 | www.aliathomas.com | Please do not use without permission.
What piece of advice or words of wisdom would you give to young girls, women, who are looking to take the plunge into the classical world, or do something similar within music?
What would I say? I would say do another degree or an apprenticeship or a foundation or travel first, so that you have something that you can come back to, or you have something with which you can combine your musical career so that you're not panicking always about how the next bill is being paid. The statistic I gave you about the 400 sopranos: it’s a real statistic. It's tough. After you've done something else first and decided that you love music more than anything in the world, cultivate a sense of inner peace and integrity. You need to be able to stand there and take criticism, read a bad review, face rejection…because that is horrible stuff. You can't be everyone's cup of tea, so make peace with that. Work hard. Don't just pretend you're working hard, you know, really work hard. The results are extraordinary when you're on stage and the orchestra's playing and you're absolutely flying. Think of that and approach everything with an open mindedness, being ready to receive and open to the universe. If you maintain that hard work, open mindedness, inner peace and integrity, it will lead to professionalism. Nothing is sexier than a really professional person when it comes to their job. I think that's amazing. There are probably loads of other things I could say, but one more would be: find your USP, find the things that you want to do and have fun doing them. I keep coming back to it, but I think if you can always find the joy and the positivity in your work it really helps, because times will be hard and you’ll have to find a way to navigate through that. Positivity and grounding.
It's so important. I think for anyone. People don't realise how much they need to be able to see the little things that are so good.
Yes, exactly. I was rehearsing in a room recently and there was a beautiful big window. Now, some of the rehearsal rooms I've been in don't even have a window. So for me, sitting at this piano – you can see the birds outside, the sunlight streaming in. That was a genuine moment of joy for me. And it can be as small as that to as large as ticking a bucket list venue off your list, performing for an audience of thousands, whatever. It can be something like that as well. But yes, it’s crucial to find these little moments of joy.
Absolutely, and I’m completely with you on that. Lastly, I would love to know what you love about what you do.
To make people feel, with music. Being able to feel goosebumps and being able to give goosebumps through telling a story. If I had to sum it up, it'd be that, because classical opera, classical song…what I do at the end of the day is just a form of storytelling. So if you remember that, you're happy as Larry because you're connecting with the story yourself. You're connecting with other people and you are experiencing it – and they are experiencing it too. To help this, I try to have an idea of a beginner's mind with everything I perform. Even if you aren’t singing something for the first time, someone out there will be hearing it for the first time. How amazing! They might hate it – and that's good too, because that's the point of art. Art is to provoke, to inspire, or to make people, you know, walk out. They can't stand it. Or perhaps they fall totally in love with it. Music is exactly the same. What an awesome power it has.
One thing I truly love about music is how it connects, or in this circumstance, re-connects people! As an old school friend I’d not connected with for many many years, it was lovely to re-connect with Caroline over our mutual love of music. I’d like to thank Caroline once again for being a part of this project, and for her willingness to share her experiences of her career and the classical music world she’s part of.
You can find her on X and Instagram at @carolinetaylorsoprano, and see details of her upcoming shows on her website here.