Featured Soloist: In Conversation with Travis Guillory, Tenor

We caught up with Travis Guillory, tenor soloist of our October orchestra series, Celebrating Black Excellence, a few days before his first performances with CityMusic

Here’s what he had to say about his debut with CityMusic, his experience with operatic singing, and how an arm to the face inspired his favorite performance

Hi Travis! It’s wonderful to meet you. How are you feeling about your solo debut with CityMusic?

I’m super excited! Super excited. However, as the performances get closer I get a little more nervous every day. I’m like “Oh, well here we go!” I’m super excited though.

You’re currently studying African-American Music and French at Oberlin Conservatory. Why did you choose those subjects to major in?

That’s a great question. With regards to the minor in French, I’ve been studying the language since kindergarten, so it wouldn’t serve me to give up the language now (laughs). With the African American music minor, which is the newest minor at Oberlin, I wanted to make sure— well, I’m very dedicated to music by black musicians. I came into Oberlin, I told my teachers, like, “Hey, I want my senior recital to be a love letter to black music so I’m going to do only works by black composers.” Hopefully, I can have some songs with languages from the African diaspora.

Do you have any future projects or concerts that you’re looking forward to?

As of now, I have my junior recital coming up and I’m auditioning for Oberlin’s production of Orfeo, so we’ll see how that goes!

What made you get into classical vocal performance and singing in general?

I went to school with a junior high and high school connected and the music teacher at the high school heard me sing in the eighth-grade choir. She was like “I think I see something,” so she talked to my parents about things and they told her “You know, he likes to sing but it’s nothing serious.” So, then I auditioned for the select choir and I got in. We started doing lessons and she wanted me to learn classical music and I was just like “Oh, God, I don’t know,” but it was fun for me. I liked learning the music, but it definitely wasn’t my strong suit.

I started doing competitions in my junior year of high school and I found the classical voice mainly in part to my high school choir teacher, Candy Coonfield. With singing in general, I just love to say I’ve always had a voice. I’ve always been singing around the house.

Which piece from Celebrating Black Excellence are you most excited to perform?

Probably There’s a Boat Leaving Soon (from Porgy and Bess). I love the other two pieces— Onaway! Awake, Beloved because it’s really long and high, and It Ain’t Necessarily So is fun to perform but it’s not my favorite one. There’s a Boat Leaving Soon is short, nice, and distinct, and it’s got a cool high note at the end if I choose to do it.

What's the best piece of advice another musician ever gave you?

Curtis Rayam is a black tenor— he once told me that we sing to express, not sing to impress and that’s always stuck with me. You know, sing the minister. Music is ministry. You can touch the hearts of people in a different way than you can with words. The music helps further develop the message of the piece and I have always taken that oath. That’s what I like to do, I like to be expressive. I like to minister the people and hopefully they get something out of the performance.

Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of music?

Yes! I love volleyball. I’m on the Oberlin College Men’s Club volleyball team. We were undefeated last year. I like bowling, too. I used to play with my family a lot and I’m pretty good at it.

Tell me about the best performance of your career.

Such a hard question. I don’t know, I don’t ever look back at a performance and think that was a good one (laughs). I’ll say last year during Candide, I was the Governor and that role was really hard to tackle, but I was singing it every night. One of the nights I was freaking out— I was like “This is not gonna happen, there’s a high note at the end of the song, I’m just gonna crack, I’m never gonna be able to perform and they’re all gonna laugh at me.”

So I’m sitting in my dressing room and I don’t come on until act two, so the entire first act I’m sitting and worrying, breathing, trying to calm myself down— intermission happens; people are coming back into the dressing rooms which is stressing me out even more and I’m like “No! Leave! Let me live!”

Act two starts and the curtain opens, and something clicks. I blackout because I don’t like to be present when I’m performing, I just let my body take over. It was crazy. The audience was really receptive, I think everything landed well and the high note came out crystal clear. And during the reprieve, someone actually hit me in the face and it still came out crystal clear, and I was like “Haha, I did it!” If I could do that while getting hit in the face, I can do it anytime. I think that’s the best performance because I made it through getting hit in the face with an arm.

That sounds like quite a night! Thank you for taking the time to talk with us Travis and we promise we’ll keep our arms to ourselves at the performances.

Thanks so much!