Meet Dreya Starr

We were lucky to catch up with Dreya Starr recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dreya , thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

As a creative with an inquisitive mind, I like to learn new skills to keep my creativity alive. This helps me keep a fresh and innovative perspective on my craft of music.

I’ve always had a vivid imagination, picturing entire movie concepts while looking out the window on car rides, and hearing unwritten symphonies in my mind while trying to fall asleep. So my specialty of flowing from genre to genre as a singer isn’t much of a surprise. I’m very focused with my musical discipline, I sing every day and I research the qualities of music in media that fascinate me and drive my passion.

It’s easy to be overly saturated in music since it’s a tool used far and wide to set tones and associations. That’s why it’s important to shift some of my focus to other skills like cooking, reading and exercising. I learn about myself as a person while I learn and practice new skills and that helps me bring more authenticity to my music.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I’ve been deeply moved by music for as long as I can remember. The first instance I realized my musicianship was special was in a choir rehearsal in the 4th grade. I had just transferred to a new school and was ecstatic to find a wonderful music program. My mom enrolled me in a creative arts preschool when we lived in Colombia and I had less than 5 years of age. Once we moved to the US, the first elementary school I went to didn’t have a music program so I wholeheartedly missed it for those 3 year I didn’t practice music. But at this new school I was in the choir, I took music theory and I even played some piano, guitar, and recorder. My favorite part was choir of course, and at this one rehearsal I realized just how much it meant to me. We were singing a song called Evergreen Everblue and our director asked us to close our eyes and take a moment to think about the message that we’re singing about. I did just that and realized this song was spreading a message of restoring balance to the nature on Earth and I was moved to tears once we went though the melody with the lyrical undertone. I was extremely surprised to find that I was the only student in the room to be having this experience and I felt like the only one who could understand me was the director himself who had picked this song and dedicated his life to music education.

Ever since that day I felt like my purpose is to spread awareness through music and elevate my community’s musical culture.
Thankfully, I’ve had the opportunity to do that with a great team who believes in my passion and potential. Thanks to my manager Marlene Cassidy I’ve been able to create some great music with producer Julio Bague and his excellent team of engineers.

The project we are in the midst of releasing is an urban fusion a cappella version of Schubert’s Ave María. In collaboration with artivist Leonor Anthony, rapper Samy Hawk, and director Nima Soofi, we were able to bring this incredible song to a new level of impact and innovation. We are spreading the message of conservation consciousness through this song and music video available now on all platforms.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities that have been most important in my journey are adaptability, confidence, and resilience. These three qualities are key in any path no matter what your end goal is.
Adaptability is imperative to get through unforeseen circumstances, confidence is important like a jacket in the snow and resilience is essential to get you from finish line to finish line. These qualities are not only important to help you reach your goals but they they’re also ones that enrich your character as a person. They require constant honing and I’ve found the best way to sharpen these qualities is through a mixture of self-compassion and whimsical passion.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I wholeheartedly think it’s important to be well rounded. I also think it’s important to honor your strengths but from personal experience, I believe that learning new skills and techniques expands your expertise in said strengths.

I experienced this while recording my debut album last year. As a singer, my strength is classical and operatic technique but for this album, I had to do something entirely new to me. I had to find a perfect balance between opera and pop to find the desired tone. I was working with a team that my manager Marlene Cassidy and producer Julio Bagué put together. I was songwriting with Cynthia Bagué and Flavio Carrillo was our thematic composer. After writing our songs and perfecting the lyrics, it was time to record the final vocal lines. I prepared for this by tailoring my practice sessions. I would warm up with operatic techniques and then implement the core of that to a couple of pop songs. The pop songs I picked have exquisite nuances and tones so I tried to emulate those with my opera/pop blend.

On the days of recording, I ended up surprising myself with my sound and the innovation I brought into the studio.

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Image Credits

Carlos Rodríguez, Kendrick Leon

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