Meet Stephanie Horowitz-Mulry: Classical Crossover Star Winner 2023 | Opera, Pop, Songwriter

[Music] thank you for tuning in to classical crossover magazine I am so excited to be here with Stephanie horret mry she is the winner of our classical crossover star 2023 competition so good to have you Stephanie thank you thanks for having me um I have had the treat of getting to hear you rehearse a bit here she's absolutely has a gorgeous gorgeous voice so can we go back to the beginning Stephanie um do you remember like did you start singing Because you were in a musical family or how did th

at all begin okay so kind of my dad used to play the bass and he wrote some songs on like the old 8s Yamaha Keyboard nice and so I grew up at that and then my grand father used to sing on my mom's side but he lost his voice from a stroke before I was born so I never actually really heard him sing so there's like bits of it but I wouldn't say it was like around every day like I wasn't in a family of stars but like there were some some scattered around yeah and my my grandma Sheed just she told me

that she played Maran in high school and the music man so there was that so there was always like a love and appreciation of music and a support for it which is really important um nobody was discouraging in any way and they were all very supportive of what I wanted to do they wanted to make sure that I had like ways of earning a living but other than that it was always like you know invest in the voice lessons and take you to the concerts and it was really good so I I was able to do it luckily

with their support oh that's great I think that's a big part of it is having the family backing behind you I really think so yeah and then what was so you studied classical school boys in college is that correct well yeah I I was like a theater kid growing up I was my first love is pop music I I would jam out to like Cindy loer you know and Whitney Houston and then I started going to Camp every summer because my parents worked and I went to Theater Camp and I fell in love with musical theater a

nd so that was it for me I was Broadway and um my family said we don't want you to go to school for musical theater we really want you to um have sort of a marketable career skill so I ended up going for music education but at the same time I was starting to really open up to classical music and my voice felt really good in it and by the end of high school I was like maybe I want to try this classical thing and so I went to the crane School of Music um and crane made me a musician I will say def

initely and I got um I had some great training along the way uh and I decided that after that I wanted to go to grad school for performance for vocal performance and so I really feel like at NEC I got really good experience and I learned the operatic rep and then I was you know pursuing it from there so it was an evolution um and now it's come full circle because now I'm kind of in this weird gray area between all of them so our favorite crossover C it's perfect so what was for your voice was it

something that was like very evident always that you had this high voice or how did that evolve for you no I um I I think I I wanted to do the soprano stuff and I wanted to be a belter and all that all the things I wanted to do but I remember showing up to my first voice lesson and saying I'm an alto and she was like let's see and now I do that all my students do like yeah let's let's see if you are an alto and within like a couple lessons she opened me up she was a great friend calman um uh sh

e opened me up and and I um I was singing Alto and all my choirs that I was in and then I started just branching up and they gave me a chance and they're like oh okay fine you can you can do that um and then that was that was it and I was in as I was a soprano so once you graduated were you trying to get work in that Opera sphere or were you also doing some Broadway and cabet because I know now you have quite a large list of things you do but when you first graduated do you have a sense of that

direction um when I graduated undergrad I was mostly focused on getting into grad so I think I I you know I kept doing that trajectory and then afterwards I was like I'm going to do Opera and I was like I'm G to I'm going to get in a company somewhere and and like people were just telling me like you're your voice is going this way you should go that way and I and I do and I and once I did my first opera I realized oh it's Music Theater so cool I like that stuff I like that um it's different mus

ic but it's still theater so I was very much into that I I did the the calls and the you know Studios and all that stuff Studios that aren't even here anymore unfortunately um and I I did okay like I got some com from Mario rolls and some covers in the city um and some some covers of major roles nothing like really took off though and I think part of the reason is because I'm like such a people pleaser I've been such I'm trying a recovering people pleaser and I wanted to just do it right I wante

d to do it right I wanted to do it right I wanted to do it Mozart's way pini's way and I stopped I I lost track or maybe I didn't know that like we're supposed to be artists and we're supposed to have points of view and things to say and to bring the joy to it and it was just really obvious that I was just trying to get hired and just trying to get like the um the acceptance and the recognition and I didn't there was one audition season where I didn't book anything nothing and I was like okay th

is is about me this is not like the bu this is about me and um my teacher is like well you're just trying to get a job stop trying to get a job and I was like oh and so I had to really regroup and find the joy and then I found that I was finding the joy but I was also finding the joy in things besides Opera and so um I when I was like close to turning 30 I was like what am I doing like pushing this other stuff away in favor of this thing that is not working for me right now you know and once I s

aid let me just try some things so I I did a cabaret workshop and I um I did some I did some New York City Cabaret and I was put into a jazz Orchestra and I sang at restaurant I got a restaurant like pop gig playing at the piano behind the bar and it just all opened up for me and it was like oh like this makes sense cuz I was always like singing karaoke on the slide you know um the secret you know and I was like why am I keeping this a secret why don't I just do it and once I did that a lot open

ed up for me and I was able to still sing classically I felt more balanced I felt like I didn't like need it to like validate me you know and then I could bring more joy and a little bit more perspective into it um and I found that I really like exploring music that like isn't one thing or another it really just kind of uses different styles and different performance practices from different styles yeah um I really like that I think it's something new and I think that there's a place for it you

know like it's not it's not the purity of the classical music and the very specific uh things that it asks of you all the time but it does have elements of that and there there is a space for the experimental within that you know little pop classical well obviously that's what we love classical cross for magazine um but I just think too it's like you mentioned being true to yourself cuz all these things that you talked about it's something you had along your journey um so I think it's not like s

ometimes you just go oh I just want to do just because and it's a bit put on versus this is who you they know they know like if you're just trying to show up and do it right like what are you giving that somebody like someone else is going to come there and bring all the love and passion that you're not bringing and of course they're going to get the job to them you know you can blame whatever you want to but I um and it's funny because I ran into a one of my mentors uh teacher I studied with fo

r like N9 years and I ran into her in Trader Joe's I was talking to her about like everything blah blah blah and she said to me in a very non-judgmental way and she was like you don't love it enough you don't love Opera enough to do it at the expense of everything else and I was like yeah yeah it's like not that I don't love it I love it but I just I have room in my heart for all of these other things and I can't dedicate the time that it takes to like get where I really need to go there and I n

eed to be honest about that so it's not a um you know it's it's nothing to be ashamed of is just be honest about who you are and what you want and I think that people once I did that too like people started paying attention more to what I was doing and not less Y is that when your songwriting also started or was it kind of also always there in the wings okay so this is interesting I I always wanted to write songs as a kid and I my high school boyfriend wrote songs and was a composer and I he was

he's good he's he's still doing it um and I was really inspired by him and he taught me about chords so by the end of high school I was writing a show I was writing like songs like pop songs in different styles and like show tunes and then when we broke up I was so devastated I wrote like a whole musical about him and so I came into college thinking I'm going to I'm going to sing and I'm going to compose and I'm going to write music but um I took by the time I took composition um I got really d

isheartened because everything I would submit he would just be so knowledgeable and say well this is derivative of this language used in this Century by these people and this is derivative of this thing used by these people the and then where's the new sound where's the new sound and so I eventually found it my my like final composition was I got a good grade on it and people liked it but I was like that took everything I had and I don't think I have that in me so I literally stopped writing mus

ic for like 10 years like and I was like fine that's not my gift it's fine and cuz I'm like I'm just not I'm just not a composer and then it took [Applause] me I'll tell you what it took me um in 2017 or so I had um like a bad bronchitis and mixed with autoimmune issues and Medicine switching issues and I had a uh I developed a vocal condition of throw condition yeah and I had to cancel all my gigs and shut up for a while and be quiet and that was in a way devastating in a way completely lifesav

ing cuz I was able to bounce back I had voice therapy and I basically just got on a new autoimmune medicine and it kind of help me but um during that quiet time I started hearing the music again and I was like I don't care if this is good I don't need it to be good because no one else is going to hear it I'm going to do it for myself because I still have Music Inside it was kind of my way of being like I'm not done y you know like I still I'm going to find a way to be having a life of music I do

n't know what that looks like yet and so I started writing these kind of jazz and pop songs and I'm like it's fine it's fine if it's derivative it's fine if it's derivative and then um I ended up taking a songwriting mentorship with Kathy heler who's um now like a kind of a guru of wisdom I don't know for everybody um and she basically said we want familiar things in pop music we want that it's comforting you can't just give us everything completely new then there's nothing for us to hold on to

nothing for us to relate to and I'm like oh and in this like moment I was like I'm not a composer I'm a songwriter and like bam and then I was like that was it that was it and so I figured since my voice was like a little janky that I could just pivot and become a recording artist and like write songs that I could handle like you know saying things I want to say about things I care about and messages that I really want to share um but put it in a way that I can handle it and then I can record it

so if I feel like I'm not strong that day I can stop if I feel good I can hop on the mic and record and I don't have to worry about being at the peak of of good voice all the time yeah um and then through that process I started to heal and then um Co gave me a real big break so I could rest and then all of a sudden I was like oh I I like things were coming back and then I had these new um coping skills to help with um certain areas where I didn't feel comfortable so so in some ways like I'm bac

k some ways I'm like not quite back and in some ways I'm better than I was before so um that was what gave me the songw writing back it was like a long Hiatus where I didn't I didn't hear music and now I allow myself to hear whatever comes through and if it's crap like fine like no one has to hear that crap and I I think that's something that classical music does not cover is like we need crap we need crap you need crap you need to go in the studio and make crap and sound like crap right and jus

t embrace it and like that's your personal time right and then if you keep working at it eventually something Good's going to come out and that's what you show people I just I think that this art of crap is lost on everyone and that was like a really big thing to give permission to myself to just play um because we have this idea of perfection and this the striving for this ideal and this IDE ideal is something that was given to us by somebody else you know so I feel like if we play we can find

the new ideal of what is our inner wisdom's ideal you know what I mean so that's I don't remember even what the question was I'm just rambling now no we're talking about song writing so that's perfect and this leads into our first song Stephanie has uh it was her audition song for the competition and um I'm excited for you to hear it can I tell a quick story about it yeah okay so um I really thought like in that injury time I really thought that like Stephanie Haro with soprano was like dead I t

hought that was gone um and I started getting this like Pang like when I would like see a show like I used to I would see a show or see a concert and be like why am I not doing this why am I not auditioning for this why am I not submitting for this and I was like why are you bothering me with inspiration right now why like why are you making me feel this way I can't I can't step forward anymore I've seen too much and I've been through too much I'm not I'm not perfect anymore and this very overwh

elming um wisdom from wherever came and said then you step out imperfectly and you be broken and you be unfinished and unhealed and somebody else will see you do that and feel okay to step out also and just own it you know just be okay with the fact that you're not perfect because even if you think you are you're not so that's where this song came from I really feel like it was like me almost like rebirthing myself in a way cuz it's like I'm here but I'm not the same as I was and and that's okay

so that's that's where the song came from [Music] I am the shadow of vibrancy I miss the girl that I used to be where were you then when I was [Music] Fearless life has battered and broken me so far from where I'm supposed to be and yet you up here as I pick up the pieces and I can meet you at the top where there's Glory but I know down here at the bottom there is Grace so here I stand just as I am do you receive me here I am worse for the where do you see me I am bruised I am broken but I am b

lessed broken and [Music] blessed from the wreckage I saw the glow I heard the mess message I need to know it gave me the strength to re awaken and I can't offer you Perfection but I know if I can't be perfect I can be brave so here I stand just as I am will you receive me here I am worse for the where do you see me I am bruised I am broken but I am blessed broken and I don't have to be perfect to be deserving [Music] I can stand in my purpose and be worthy worthy of your praise worthy of your g

race here I stand just as I am do you receive me here I stand worse for the where do you see me on my [Music] quest I am bra I am broken I am here [Laughter] and I am blue BL broken and [Music] blessed [Music] your [Music] well thank you so much for sharing that beautiful beautiful song Stephanie thank you uh I was just telling you in the break that I resonated so much I've been kind of on a similar vocal journey and I think a lot of people are and because of the classical background it's someth

ing hard to speak about yeah if you admit that you have been vocally imperfect it's right that's true you're kind of brandish with that and no one wants to work with you so now that you've done this I know you're a teacher too so you know you've made these personal discoveries how is that now with your students CU I feel like that's such a blessing them it's it's different I I can help so many more people like I used to really because the job of a voice teacher is to someone on a podcast had thi

s very eloquently on the vocal fory podcast they said our job is to habilitate the voice but our job is not to rehabilitate the voice that's someone else's job an SLP or a laryngologist um but I can help you know in accordance with that I can help so many more students with so many more issues um because of the skills I've learned in my own healing process and I I think it's important to talk about honestly because we're not indestructible we're people we're fleshy fleshy people and um like thin

gs happen you know pictures they get the the pitcher elbow whatever and they get surgery and nobody's like well I think you weren supporting our pitching and it's like it's not about that M mine had nothing to do with singing mine was just bronchitis and other things but um I will say that I was a little in denial about it so when I was healing I went back to gigs maybe a little too soon but um but even if it was it's like we learn things and we grow and there's there's never going to be someone

I mean maybe if you have zero vocal problems forever like cool for you that's fine but we need to talk about it I'm very vocal about it um no pun intended but I I won't I talk about it cuz it happened and and there's I need people to know there's another side and I also think that like the old school way of teaching is like using nodes I don't have nodes but like using nodes as like a a scare tactic listen to what I say because you might get nodes if you don't and so um we're so afraid of this

word right um and I've even had kids come to me and be like I'm really afraid to get nodes and I'm like who told you about that I didn't tell you about that um and I'm like okay well then let's talk about that because there are ways to there are people who sing with noes all the time and you don't know y um so and there are also other ways to fix it so I I think it's important it's important to talk about so if anyone needs support for that hit me up I will support you absolutely I love that cuz

like like I said the same experience at 11 I heard about it and my whole life it's just in your your brain scared yeah but fear is not a way through anything right so absolutely not so now that you're kind of on this other side tell us about the different styles you're mixing together cuz class school will always be part of you but what else are you mixing into it I'm too like I've I've lived with it for too long now that it's in my blood all the time like um but but I will say it helps me ever

ywhere because um if I'm in like a songwriting session even with like a pop person and they go we don't know what to do with this chord blah blah blah blah and I'll I understand the structure of music and all of those like voice leading examples we did in college and I'm like you know well this um you can maintain the common tone here and just switch the chord this way and they be like oh well that's easy you know I just know you know I have released a pop album at 39 um and that's fun I really

love writing pop music's title uh it's called Stevie M my nickname but um it has fun pop music in it I'm working on a second EP with that too uh and I love I love incorporating pop music I I am a I'm a theater person through and through so that always kind of bleeds into everything I do but also I think that theater has changed and I think there is a hole that used to be there that it moved on from and I want to explore that whole like like the the beautiful singing and the lyrics and the um eve

ry a lot of things are dance-based and like more pop based and very high belty and I love that I'm not going to say I don't love that cuz I do love that but um my fair lady all those old classic that yeah and the way that they sing those now is different if you ever notice it's it's a different style and I I want to explore bits of what is now and also what was but in a new way and saying things that actually relate to people's lives now because like as much as I love The Magic Flute like I'm no

t going to sing a suicide ARA you know like it's like it's not related to my life now so there's a there's a place for that but um I really want to talk about ideas that I think are important for people to know now in their lives now um and sometimes a classical media will work well for that and sometimes not so I I just have a whole jumbly bunch of sounds and I whatever falls out is what I do pretty much well I I a big uh appreciator of all all the variety that you can put together and still ma

ke it sound like Stephanie because your voice is so beautiful and constant like it's funny CU then they go Niche down Niche down you got to stick to but Niche down doesn't mean you have to stick to one because if your Niche is doing all the things then you're very very niched because some people won't like that and then you'll repel them and then people will be all about it and then and that's your Niche so you're good yeah once once you find kind of your tribe that's going to support you throug

hout um one interesting thing as we were getting ready you mentioned that you almost didn't try out for the competition have to mention classical crossover Stars shout out to Patrick Kimmel and ke CLE Productions who sponsored the competition yes um so tell us a little bit about your journey to the competition Stephanie okay so I saw the posting of it on the new forum for classical singers and I was like what because I I don't like I don't like to do competitions a lot cuz I guess as a lyric sop

rano I feel like we get the shaft sometimes I don't know I don't want to say that because there are lyrics who win and then that's great for you and I love you but um but a lot of times it goes to the counter tenor and the and the sparkly color atora and I just I don't like competing I also don't think I'm the best you know like I just don't I think there's people who do it better than me and it's a classical thing usually I don't compete in the classical realm in the arena I guess yeah um I jus

t don't think I'm the best so but in this one I was like oh like I could do the thing that I do and that could be competitive you know so I said I owe it to myself to try plus anytime that I have an excuse to write a song and a deadline that's what I need to do I need to like stretch the muscle you you need to keep working it so you have this the clear communication of ideas so I said I'm going to do this um I started writing and I got hung up so I brought in a friend from high school who's a gr

eat songwriter to help me um just move it along kind of had like back and forth about the direction we needed it to go and I was like I have to get this done right so we decided to do the audition cut of the song that we finished that morning and I recorded the piano and you know put a made a recording of it put it in the kitchen sang it live the whole thing happened in one day it was like morning until night um and I was like should I even submit this the song isn't done and he was like no no i

t's this is a good cut and and that's a cut is good people like they know what they like and then they don't have to listen to too much so um and so um I was like fine we'll finish it later and we did it and then the response was really wonderful and I was so glad to hear that and I said okay you know if I if I get to the next level I you know that was like our our people we had to have vote for us so I sent a mail I was like if you wouldn't mind you know check this out if you feel like commenti

ng please do and I uh luckily got enough comments so I got to the next round and I was like if I get past this round then I'm proud of myself that's all I really need and then um I got the email that I was like you're in the finals and I was like what and so I I texted Matt I'm like we're in the finals um and he's like oh good and so he's like we'll probably have to do the rest of the song now and then we didn't so I was like okay cool um and what's really funny is um I'm the only person who rea

d it like this but it said when you're in the finals we invite you to sing in our um crossover Christmas concert and so I was like oh good I have to write a new song for the finals and cuz that's the final I thought that that was the finals and so I said quick but then Honestly by then um you said why don't you you know sing a Christmas song but by then it was like October 9th and then the October 7th had just happened and I was really just so distraught from that yeah and I said I'm gonna dedic

ate this concert to a song about this like for for my holiday yeah um just processing everything that's happening from a perspective of now like like a a different kind of Hanukkah song so that was a great and so I'm glad I didn't know that it wasn't the finals cuz I I pushed myself hard to like make it as good as possible and like uh get it done on time get the whole thing done um so uh and you know and then it it went it went my way I think everybody was so amazingly talented I made some frien

ds I think I think the world of all the competitors so I'm very honored that it went my way but I know like in every room it's just a matter of opinions and it could have gone someone else's way so I'm very happy and I'm I'm very glad to be here well I think uh what really resonated one of I mean couple things that really resonated of course your beautiful voice um but I think also just the fact that you were doing original music Stephanie and in the crossover genre there's so many covers which

we love yeah but it's a big point for the future it has to have more more original material and I think that it was the two I don't even think the judges realized it was original I really okay I don't even think we we like put it out there enough but when we realized it was just like what a perfect representation for the genre not only vocally but also just where you're taking in terms of song right and I think I have a clear idea a of like what I want crossover music to be so I think I was like

this is and people are going to say well that's not what it's supposed to be and I'm like I don't care because this is what I want to do with it and so and I was like well then I'll lose you know then I'll lose and I will go on with my life but but people saw where I was going with it and liked it so um you just at a certain point it's like you have to do what you do you know you have to do your thing and that and people will like it or not like it and that doesn't really mean that you should c

hange what you're doing like if you have a strong sense of what you think someone thing should be like just do it and people will follow it or not you know kind of comes back to what you were saying with the classical auditions where maybe you were trying to fit into a where this time you were entirely yourself these last few years you've been developing that yeah cuz I'm I I've lost the patience to do anything else and I've like it's like life is too short I can't it takes it would take me so m

uch more time to like be someone else it takes me no time at all to be myself so um and then you just follow the passion right like like last night I was recording the um broken and bless the updates for the things and I stayed up late cuz I had to go to a family party first and I was I literally could not sleep because I was like I was so hyped on what I just did I was like that was so great that was so fun and it's like this is it this is what I need to do like if something doesn't bring you t

hat much joy like question if you should be doing it y you know so that's that's how you know like when people say follow your bliss that's what they mean they don't just be like do what's easier or do what's like available to you immediately it's like do what you feel that like inner pull to do like figure out a way to do it so yeah I'm I'm really happy I I was able to get everything together enough and I'm I'm happy to be able to sing the full one for you today thank you for being true to your

self Stephanie so excited to have you represent the magazine and um I guess the question is what is next for you Stephanie um well I feel like this brought me back to life in some ways so I really appreciate that from you especially too um so you know I'm doing like that first that first I had with myself and I was like why do you want me to step back out now I need new head shots I need a website I need a whole new wardrobe this is too much right and so one thing at a time so I'm rebuilding my

website I had a a consultation with um Jillian who was great um and she really uh encouraged me to just embrace all the sides and just really like cross over when I say cross like people what what does crossover mean and I say okay this is what people think it means and this is what I do like with it I cross all the way over and then back but and she's like put that all in the website and I was like really because that's really confusing for people and she's like but like that's what it is you k

now like you're one person so don't fragment yourself so that was great I'm working on that um I'm going to be writing more the next song that you are going to play we were very inspired by Bridgerton so we I would like to do more stuff like that I'm going to release it at some point so fun times maybe a concert uh definitely more writing and uh whatever else pops up that I will try into the universe whatever the next thing is uh thank you so much for being here in person I think it's just so lu

cky that it worked out that we're in the same country cuz a lot of the contestants were not so I wouldn't have coup states away uh she drove at least two to three hours to get here but we're so appreciative Stephanie thank you so much and everyone we're going to leave her with their beautiful beautiful cover of Billy eyelashes happier than ever we're calling it thank you everyone [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] for for for [Applause] fore [Applause] fore spee [Music] fore oh foreign

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