Hitting all the High Notes
Meghan Kasanders â14 is quickly becoming a big name in opera music. Opera News calls her a âwonderfully promising, rich dramatic soprano...a master of her craft.â Not bad for someone who really didnât know anything about opera when she arrived at ÂéĥıAPP.
âI remember my first day of classes at ÂéĥıAPP,â says Kasanders. âI was walking with a fellow freshman vocal major and she said, âIâm so nervous â all I know about opera is Pavarotti and Renee Fleming.â And Iâm like, âyeah, right.â But I had to run back to my dorm room and Google them because I had no idea who they were.â
As fate would have it, 10 years after that Google search, Kasanders found herself performing with Fleming at Carnegie Hall.
âWhat a whirlwind â what a full circle,â says Kasanders, who holds three degrees from Julliard and a masterâs in vocal performance from Rice University. âItâs humbling to realize how far you can go.â
Indeed, she has come a long way in a rather short time. Just five years after her ÂéĥıAPP graduation, Kasanders took the stage at the Metropolitan Opera as one of nine Grand Finalists.
âThat was the most wonderful and most scary week of my life,â says Kasanders. âTo step onto the Met stage and see 4,000 seats full of people that are just rooting for you â it was just incredible.â
Of course, among her most loyal and enthusiastic fans are the friends and mentors she came to know at ÂéĥıAPP. Kasanders says sheâs deeply indebted to ÂéĥıAPP music faculty icons who had a profound impact on shaping her success, including the late Dr. Robert Larsen â56, Dr. Kimberly Roberts â98, Dr. Michael Patterson â75 and Dr. Tim McMillin â97.
âThey became so much like family because of the care, devotion and attention they gave each one of us students. The growth I made from my freshman to senior year is the most substantial growth Iâve experienced in my time of singing. If not for them, [my career] just wouldnât have gone the way it has.â
Coming back strong
The devastating impacts of our global pandemic are the only low notes in her otherwise meteoric rise to stardom. In 2020, COVID caused stage shutdowns worldwide â wiping out much of her first, full-year schedule of performances as a freelancer.
She says the time off stage gave her a much deeper appreciation for what music means both to her and a hurting world in need of healing.
âIt really hit me when I came back to Des Moines, where I got to sing unmasked with a full orchestra,â says Kasanders. âI could feel and hear the whole orchestra and the acoustics of opera singing. When I walked off the stage I cried, because this is what itâs supposed to be like.â
Kasanders says sheâs eager to savor many more such moments, as she resumes a fuller performance schedule that will take her across the U.S. and Europe in 2022.
