Life & Work with Rachel Fagerberg of USC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Fagerberg.

Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Being born and raised in Austin, Texas, music has always been a large part of my life. While my parents have jobs that sometimes seem worlds away from music, I grew up attending music festivals, symphony concerts, and various concerts scattered throughout Austin, sometimes just in someone’s backyard.

While I now consider myself primarily a singer, singing and even music in general weren’t always my main focus in school. When I was younger, I intended to get a sports scholarship to attend college. I had been in soccer my entire life, often playing on club teams with girls three years older than me. As I got older, I started to play other sports as well, joining my school’s basketball, volleyball, track, and tennis teams in addition to soccer. Every day of my life was either involved in some sort of practice or game. I was set up to hopefully one day play sports in college.

However, my mom emphasized the importance of being well-rounded and practically made me sign up to learn an instrument when I started middle school. Looking back now, I never could’ve imagined that this simple choice would lead to me pursuing music as a career.

My deep love for music truly began when I started to play the viola with my middle school orchestra. I had previously sung in youth choirs, which typically featured songs from Sesame Street or Schoolhouse Rock, but joining my middle school orchestra was the first time I began to develop my skill in playing and understanding music, particularly in the sense of working with other musicians to make something possible.

I remember as a kid always having to go between sports practice and rehearsals or private lessons. There were some days I had to leave practice a bit early so that I could get to my viola lessons. I’m always so grateful to my mom, who often felt like a chauffeur, taking me between sports practice and rehearsals or private lessons and then sometimes back to either practice or a game.

When I got into high school, I had quit club soccer due to unfortunate circumstances around my team, but I kept playing tennis and basketball, as well as my viola with my school. You’d think since I was doing less sports at that point that balancing music and athletics would get easier, but in reality, it showed me the difficulty of balancing two very different things in life. There were times when I couldn’t seem to make either my orchestra teacher or coach happy because I either had to miss a rehearsal for a game, or I would show up late to a game because of a concert. I started to lose passion for both areas of my life because I felt that both of them were suffering due to me trying to split my time too much.

Fortunately, despite all this, I continued to sing in my free time. I kept using the little time I had at home to practice my singing, overwhelmed by the various pressures of sports and orchestra in my life. While in high school, I had the opportunity to perform solo at various art galleries as well as the East Austin Studio Tour, and despite being so scared of singing in front of others initially, my Uncle was the one who encouraged me to share my talent and enjoy being on stage.

It was towards the end of my junior year of high school that I began to see singing as a real possibility for myself. I was introduced to the voice professor Nikita Storojev at the University of Texas Butler School of Music, and he quickly took me on as a student and helped me become the singer I am today.

Unfortunately, my senior year of high school was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All of a sudden, I was waiting for college admission results alone at home, with Zoom classes going on in the background. It had been my dream to study music and pre-med at Boston University, but plans quickly changed as the US hit a sudden recession, and it was unclear if I would even be able to live on campus. Because of multiple factors, I decided to continue studying with my voice professor at the University of Texas, a decision that I am now so grateful for. While the first year was hard, taking chemistry classes and music theory classes online, only meeting people through their small icons on my laptop, It was at UT where I absolutely fell in love with opera.

My first three years, I kept dividing myself between two things, this time instead of sports and music, it was pre-med and music. I would run between organic chemistry classes and choir rehearsals, or bio lab and opera, constantly thinking about the next mechanism I had to memorize and the Mozart aria I had to translate before the end of the day. The summer of my sophomore year I studied abroad in Nice, France for biology, which often felt more like a vacation with a little bit of bio during the day, but in the summer of my junior year I had the opportunity to attend an opera program in Salzburg, Austria. Everyday was filled with music, and I was so happy just enjoying being in rehearsal rather than thinking about the krebs cycle again. I finally understood what it was like to only focus on music, and while it certainly had its stressful moments, I was happy.

When I returned to Austin for my senior year at UT, I decided to drop my OCHEM lab and apply for a master’s programs in opera. I realized that if I kept trying to be great at both music and medicine, each would suffer. While I still graduated with my pre-med certificate, I realized I preferred being in rehearsal for three hours over cramming for my next stats exam. That year I felt more grounded in my voice, finally having the time to practice and work on the nuances that make a performance special.

After many applications and auditions, I committed to the University of Southern California in April of 2024. I was so excited to move to a new city and continue my pursuit in opera, and music in general.

I just finished my first year at USC, and I love it. This summer, I’ll be heading to England for the Dorset Summer Opera Festival to sing with their chorus. I can’t wait to meet so many more people and see so many new places.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I struggled a lot with balancing these various things in my life, but there were certainly other struggles along the way. I frequently struggled with my mental health, often experiencing extreme anxiety and feeling isolated due to how busy I was. I, unfortunately, often had debilitating health issues, typically issues with my gastrointestinal system that led to a lot of doctors’ visits, procedures, and various medications. When those issues finally seemed to be somewhat resolved, I developed TMJ disorder when I was in college. I remember just waking up one day unable to fully open my mouth. I thought initially my jaw was dislocated, but I later learned that it was inflamed. While this is an issue many singers unfortunately have to deal with, mine was often quite extreme, likely due to a combination of stress, anxiety, and then overuse as a singer. I still struggle with some of the symptoms today, but fortunately, I’ve found that acupuncture and fire cupping is quite helpful in relieving some of the symptoms so that I can continue to sing.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Beyond my singing, because of my background in the viola, I love learning other instruments. While I’m certainly no expert at piano or guitar, having these outlets in addition to opera keeps music from always feeling like work. This past year at USC I started working with the Thornton Community Engagement Program, which is an organization that sends USC music students to teach music at various K-12 schools around LA. I have always loved working with kids, whether I was babysitting my little cousins, tutoring elementary students, or volunteering in the nursery at my church, so I knew right away this was something I wanted to get involved in. I now teach a few fifth-grade classes guitar, as well as drum circles with the younger kids. I love getting to play games with them that revolve around music, as well as showing them how much fun the guitar can be, even just as a hobby. The kids are always so inspiring to me, seeing how excited they get when I show up to their class and all the various questions they have about music in general.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Other than people often being surprised when I tell them I did pre-med in undergrad, when I was in high school, I was really into graphic design and art for quite a while. I had the opportunity to publish a magazine with my classmates, and I frequently still turn towards drawing or learning about art history to draw inspiration for my music. My uncle is an artist, so I frequently went to gallery openings in Austin, and I’ve been fortunate in my life to travel around the world, so I’m constantly inspired by art. My favorite artist is definitely Van Gogh, not only because I think his paintings are so beautiful, but he had such an interesting personal life, and he deeply struggled with his mental health, which, I think, in a somewhat sad way, adds so much more depth and meaning to his paintings.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachel.fagerberg/