I’ve sung in choirs all my life, and you’re usually hired to pull other people along. It was much more fun than I expected… not that I was expecting that it wouldn’t be fun! The experience of working with 80, or sometimes over 100, singers - that many great voices in one room was a rush. Just in the past couple years I’ve formed some special relationships with musicians I collaborate with regularly and, given the schedule at the Met, it will be a little more difficult to do gigs with them during the year. I was a little bit torn, because there are a lot of things I really loved about the freedom to create my own performing schedule. It has been in the back of my mind since the beginning.
All three singers hoped for an full time position with the chorus. Patrick is also married to a singer and has a five year old daughter. I was going to be home for extended stretches. I wanted to be closer to my family, so doing extra chorus work meant spending time with them. I realized that this is another way to have a singing career.Īs a soloist, unless you are in a situation where you’re working with a particular house, (like the Met), that’s hiring you frequently enough, you’re traveling a lot, you’re staying in hotels, you’re out of town for weeks and sometimes months on end. I can't believe I didn't hear about it earlier on in my career and education. I did the audition to be in the extra chorus and when I did my first extra chorus show here, it was just eye-opening to learn about the full time position. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I even knew you could be a full time singer in the Met chorus. So I went and auditioned and got into the extra chorus and I just kept doing that.īrian is married to Christina Thomson Anderson (also in the Met Opera Chorus) and has four children, ages 20, 17, 8 and 5. Especially since my daughter was born in 2011. I’ve been doing extra chorus for three years now.įor the past 5 years, I would say I’ve been more or less transitioning to staying in New York more and traveling less. It also conveniently coincided with the birth of our daughter. Five years ago I started working in the extra chorus it was a great "side job" and provided stable, dependable pillars of income and family time throughout the season. But then when they went belly up that source of income dried up for me.Īfter I finished the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, I worked professionally for 10 years, singing leading roles mostly with small to medium-large houses along with my wife, who is also a singer. I was covering and singing second cast kind of stuff but it was great because I could be home. Then I ended up making my City Opera debut and latched on with them. I traveled a lot from the time I finished my Adler. For the past few years, I’ve been focusing more on concert work with symphonies and chamber music ensembles and doing recitals. In the beginning I did mostly opera and quite a bit of new music. Since I graduated in 2007, I’ve been doing young artist programs and building up my career as a soloist. Here are their stories:Īll three singers have had solo careers throughout the country and worked in the extra chorus at the Metropolitan Opera. To get a sense for what it means, I sat down with them to listen to their experiences and the path that lead them here. It has been a career and life changing transition for all of them. This year, three new singers have joined the ranks of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus as full time singers: Sara Heaton, Patrick Miller and Brian Anderson.