Meet Kyaunnee Richardson

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kyaunnee Richardson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kyaunnee, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I received my work ethics from my parents. They showed me the importance of being a hard worker and how procrastinating and laziness was not becoming of a person of excellence. I would not be the person I am today if it was not for the teaching and training of my parents.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am an opera singer.

Music was always in my home but it was not until I discovered the popular musical “The Phantom of the Opera” that I decided I wanted to be an opera singer and it would be the career path I would choose for the rest of my life. I attended the New World School of the Arts College in Miami where I earned my bachelors degree. Afterwards I was accepted into Florida State University where I earned my masters degree in Voice and Opera.

After graduating, I joined a local opera company called Opera Fusion where I found my current voice teacher, Birgit Fioravante. This company gave me the platform I needed to help me grow into the artist I am today. In addition to Opera Fusion, I’ve worked with other companies from New York City to Portland to Orlando to Savannah and so forth.

Even though I have been singing opera for a while, I’m not afraid of stepping back into the genres I still love today. Growing up I love listening to Whitney Houston. other popular songs and the old classic Disney. I am not afraid of jumping at a chance to perform in these genres. I performed the roles of Glinda and Aunt Em in “The Wiz” in 2018. Recently, I dove into jazz and found that singing these different genres, though challenging as it may seem, helps the others. It keeps the experience fresh, well-rounded and exciting while, at the same time, it peaks my curiosity about the unknown. It causes me to stretch to see what else I am capable of doing. I love taking on those challenges.

I had been given many opportunities throughout my career. During the 2020 Pandemic — or the Great Pause — I decided to create videos on my social media pages. I experimented with different repertoire in different mediums. One of my favorite projects had to have been the #MusicInIsolation project where Andrew Lloyd Webber challenged his followers to create scenes from his hit musicals. I created a couple of videos from “Phantom” and entered in his online Cadenza Competition where I was finalist and was dubbed by Sir Webber himself for having the “World’s Longest Cadenza”. Another moment I am humbled by would be creating and debuting a new opera with Opera Orlando called “The Secret River” which is based on a children’s book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I played Calpurnia… that moment for me was very special because I was able to create a role that has become a part of history.

Singing is my passion and I absolutely love the process of becoming a character on stage. Storytelling is a beautiful form of communication. It connects us all on a deeper level and I love that in opera. I simply cannot see myself doing anything else but this.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say the first skill that has helped me was being versatile. My mom taught and showed me at a young age the importance of being versatile in the work place because one might never know who would need to call upon you.

The second has a bit of a two part answer and goes hand-in-hand with the first one: create your own opportunities and when opportunity knocks, be ready to accept. After graduate school, I mentioned how I was welcomed into Opera Fusion and was given a platform to try things out. It was all well but I was not on the “same track” as most of my other singer colleagues were. When those doors were closed to me, I began to search within my community to create my own opportunities to keep performing. That meant diving into other genres which ended up strengthen my performance skills. When the “Great Pause” happened in 2020, I found another way to stay relevant and that’s when opportunities began to knock on my door. By then, I was ready.

The last thing is hard work. I have come to the understanding that things happen for a reason and there is a season for everything. A farmer does not have a harvest right away after he has planted all the seeds. Overtime, he has to be consistent with watering, keeping animals at bay from plucking up the seeds and making sure no weeds grow to choke the plants. It’s a constant watch until it is time for the harvest where he can sit back and enjoy the benefits of his labor. It’s many blood, sweat and tears that is poured into this labor — career/dream — that one must be consistent and fulled by passion to keep going because it can get tough. Yet I can say with confidence that hard work will always beat out talent. And the results will be lasting.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I love reading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Renee Fleming’s book “The Inner Voice”. And I have read many other books and articles on Joan Sutherland, Grace Bumbry and Marian Anderson chronologically their life and career. Currently on my reading list are the Obamas latest books.

Yet I have to give some credit to watching a lot of documentaries on great singers such as Renee Fleming, Leontyne Price, Luciano Pavarotti, Maria Callas and the list goes on. I have even watched other important figures such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, the Backstreet Boys, the Obamas and many more. The farthest documentary that I have watched and articles I have read, relate to Michael Jordan — “The Last Dance”. I know what you all are thinking but hang in with me. I enjoyed watching and learning about the

What I had gathered from this were that when you have dream and a passion, you will do whatever it takes — within honesty and hard work — to reach that goal. There will be rejections and disappointments. But you can’t quit. You must be true to yourself, surround yourself with people who believe in you and support you and focus on your craft. You have to be the best that you can be. Hard work will always — and I mean always — beat out talent. The legacy these important figures left are incredible. It’s an inspiration for many of us, including myself, to strive for in this life.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Dario Acosta Photography, Bearded Lens Photography, Kristin Pulido Photography, Ivan Seligeman, John Carrington, Glo MacDonald, Hank Henley and Gregory Reed.

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