Press Features
Press Features
Meet Alexandra Gilliam
CanvasRebel – May 8th, 2023
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
“In every aspect of my life, I look for real, authentic human connections, and these connections in turn inform the way I interact with the world. Particularly in a genre wherein the emotions that the characters experience are so heightened that they’re unable to talk about them and are driven to sing, you’re not always going to get to perform the part of the ‘good guy’ – the characters in opera are all flawed in some way and have their own internal motivations, as reflects our own nature. Additionall, the music adds yet another layer of nuance to their personalities, for while the character may be saying one thing, the musical composition implies a deeper, perhaps slightly hidden agenda that the audience alone is able to perceive, even if it’s not readily apparent to the other characters in the scene.
To that end, I strive to look at every single person I work with as a multifaceted prism, complete with their own strengths and weaknesses; we all try our best to show up positively in our own realms, to varying degrees of success. With that in mind, when I’m developing a website or helping someone to build out their brand identity, I always try to ‘read between the lines’ of the information that they share with me in an effort to highlight traits about themselves that, while they might not personally view them as strengths or even really see them at all, make them stand out among their pears and state their value proposition in whatever field they’re working. I love being able to make people feel good about themselves.”
Meet Alexandra Gilliam
CanvasRebel – May 8th, 2023
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
“In every aspect of my life, I look for real, authentic human connections, and these connections in turn inform the way I interact with the world. Particularly in a genre wherein the emotions that the characters experience are so heightened that they’re unable to talk about them and are driven to sing, you’re not always going to get to perform the part of the ‘good guy’ – the characters in opera are all flawed in some way and have their own internal motivations, as reflects our own nature. Additionall, the music adds yet another layer of nuance to their personalities, for while the character may be saying one thing, the musical composition implies a deeper, perhaps slightly hidden agenda that the audience alone is able to perceive, even if it’s not readily apparent to the other characters in the scene.
To that end, I strive to look at every single person I work with as a multifaceted prism, complete with their own strengths and weaknesses; we all try our best to show up positively in our own realms, to varying degrees of success. With that in mind, when I’m developing a website or helping someone to build out their brand identity, I always try to ‘read between the lines’ of the information that they share with me in an effort to highlight traits about themselves that, while they might not personally view them as strengths or even really see them at all, make them stand out among their pears and state their value proposition in whatever field they’re working. I love being able to make people feel good about themselves.”
Opera Singer at Hill church became an ‘operapreneur’
By Len Lear
Chestnut Hill Local – August 19th, 2021
“In this day and age,” Alex said last week, “unless you get to a certain level, you have to contact the press yourself, have a press kit, manage audio and a website and promote yourself. For example, people will not take you seriously if you do not have good publicity photos. You have to work on the business side of your career, so I learned web design, coding, InDesign, photoshop, video editing and so on. Everything I do stems from the way I manage the business aspect of the music such as the video product and the concert product. I have become a web developer and have built websites for many others. As artists, we are always striving to communicate, and putting together a website is part of that. I even thought about a career helping people with technology.”
Opera Singer at Hill church became an ‘operapreneur’
By Len Lear
Chestnut Hill Local – August 19th, 2021
“In this day and age,” Alex said last week, “unless you get to a certain level, you have to contact the press yourself, have a press kit, manage audio and a website and promote yourself. For example, people will not take you seriously if you do not have good publicity photos. You have to work on the business side of your career, so I learned web design, coding, InDesign, photoshop, video editing and so on. Everything I do stems from the way I manage the business aspect of the music such as the video product and the concert product. I have become a web developer and have built websites for many others. As artists, we are always striving to communicate, and putting together a website is part of that. I even thought about a career helping people with technology.”
Alex Gilliam ’15 Vocal Performance: “NEC gave me a lifelong process and a lifelong curiosity.”
Now a self-described “operapreneur,” Alex has combined the musician and the entrepreneur within her to establish a correlating career in web development and virtual concert production. “A piece can be sung by any number of singers, but every one of them has their own voice and interpretation,” she said. “When I’m designing a website, I ask myself how to immediately communicate in a tangible way what a person is all about. Personality is found in color and tone, both in music and in design.”
Alex Gilliam ’15 Vocal Performance: “NEC gave me a lifelong process and a lifelong curiosity.”
Now a self-described “operapreneur,” Alex has combined the musician and the entrepreneur within her to establish a correlating career in web development and virtual concert production. “A piece can be sung by any number of singers, but every one of them has their own voice and interpretation,” she said. “When I’m designing a website, I ask myself how to immediately communicate in a tangible way what a person is all about. Personality is found in color and tone, both in music and in design.”