how it started:
J: First of all, how did you get into singing?

C: You know, it wasn’t my first choice.

J: Yeah?

C: It’s strange because I always liked to sing and stuff like that. I got the nickname Mavis from a barber in our town in Ohio because I was always singing in his chair. And everyone in the family would say that I sang along with the radio. But I studied theatre in school and I got a degree a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from my college and I auditioned for the vocal department because they told us the more skills we had the better off we would be, and I auditioned for three years in a row when I was at college and I never got accepted into the program.

J: Right

C: And it wasn’t til I moved to new York that I ended up singing because I was in a flat with several other out of work actors and we started a band. And our band was like out creative outlet and I was the singer of the band and then I became identified as a singer. I know it’s not necessarily like the best for encouraging someone for training, but that’s my story!

J: No, that’s all right! Because I think the interesting thing is people come to singing and performing in different ways. And I’m good with that!

C: I really did want to start studying music and vocals and singing but I never studied for the first time until I got with the Cirque du Soleil. That’s the first time I started taking voice lessons. Actually I take that back. When I auditioned for Cirque du Soleil and I got a callback, they recommended a vocal coach to me in New York. They had a singer they were very keen on and they asked her who her vocal coach was, and they got the number for me of this woman Caroline Keller and when I was trying to get into Cirque I started studying with her every week. And she helped me to get my first job with Cirque which was with Quidam.
 

click here for The Audition, part 2 of Singing with Cirque du Soleil