“I have been a singer and an actor for most of my life so I’ve worn many different hats as a creative. I have been focusing lately on my music. I love singing songs from the Great American Songbook but I’ve been expanding that recently and finding female writers who wrote during that time period but weren’t as publicized over the years. That’s been my latest passion. Great American Songbook, Broadway Style singing, and a deep love for American Jazz have been my focus.
When I first was cast City Lights Theater Company’s Into The Woods, it opened me up to different forms of music, because at the time I was doing classical, then I realized ‘Oh! Broadway can be like this.’ And I fell in love with Sondheim, obviously, and it really opened my mind as a person, not just a singer or an actor. So that was a pivotal moment. I was cast as the first Asian-American actor that played Little Red Riding Hood in that production and that was a pretty big deal too which I never thought anything about it at the time but now as a parent realizing how representation is important, it’s even more meaningful to me now. So that was a turning point as a young adult and as an artist, seeing how a show- its lyrics, its story, its purpose, telling these moral stories and opening ones eyes, it really changed me as an artist too and what I really believe in and what I want to perform.
Goshen has been a wonderful home as an artist. It’s not easy making a living as an artist and I’ve had to adapt a lot over the years. The success of my and Rafael Chávez Moreno’s last album is a testament to this community during the virtual world we’re living in. I’m so glad that we’re here, not just for myself but also because my husband I can afford to live here and give our daughter an arts education that is unparalleled. The arts education, performing arts education, and visual arts education available here are like what you can find in the best of the best communities and we get to do it right here because it’s affordable so that’s probably the most important thing right now in my mind and in my heart.”
