“When I was younger I wanted to be teacher, then I wanted to be a pediatrician because I love kids, and then I wanted to be an architect,” Catherine Yoon, senior, says, describing her once future goals. But life took her in a completely different direction. She never would have guessed she would end up wanting to sing more than anything.

Just ask her anything about singing and Yoon’s expression lights up, a smile dances across her lips and she exclaims, “I absolutely love opera!”

To Yoon, opera is “so passionate and beautiful and I’ve just always felt more comfortable in this genre than any other.” She has been working with music since a very young age. When she was five, she started playing piano until she moved to Washington state where there were no piano teachers available, so she quit at the age of 11.

Yoon began to sing when she joined choir in second grade and became more interested after she did “Solo & Ensemble” in Washington state, entering as a duet with her friend, Mary. During her freshman year, she begin to have serious training as she joined choir when she lived in Tucson, Ariz. “A new choir teacher came to my school in Tucson,” she said. “He was an operatic baritone and it was his first year teaching a choir.”

Her new choir teacher wanted to incorporate opera into the school’s choir programs so he would have the students sing the humming chorus to “Madame Butterfly” for the Christmas program. Not only did he work with Yoon during school time, but he also gave her free private vocal lessons. She has come to realize that this was one of the many things that got her interested in opera as a career. This was also the year when she took a big step forward to do her first solo performance singing “The Sweetest Sounds” at the of the year choir concert.

Besides operas such as “Baisten und Bastienna,” “Amahi and the Night Visitors,” “Cenorentola”, “The Tenderland” and “Faust,” Yoon has also done musical theatre and plays. She has performed in musicals such as “West Side Story,” “Oklahoma,” “Cinderella,” “Pijama Game,” “Anything Goes” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Yoon has also acted in plays such as “Dragon Tales” when she used to work at a dinner theater in Longmont doing their children’s program. Yoon has also performed in LHS plays like “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” “I love doing musical theatre,” Yoon said. “It’s more something I just do for fun. I don’t do too many plays though.”

Out of all performances she’s ever done, Yoon feels “Bastien und Bastienna,” is her favorite. “It was my first lead role and I got to work with a guy named Logan who was hilarious and was a great stage partner,” she said. “We worked really well off of each other. I made a lot of really good friends as well in the orchestra and the conductor was amazing to work with. The whole thing was just an amazing learning

experience.”

Yoon, like many involved in theater, has idols that inspire her to do what she does. Yoon cites her voice teachers as her inspirations. “If you can just hear Linda’s voice!” Yoon said. “Her stage presence forces you to look at her. She commands the stage when she’s on it.”

Yoon is also attending the Colorado Springs Conservatory for two years, where she is majoring in opera and voice. For now she’s working on the upcoming LHS play, “The Music Man,” where she plays the role of Zaneeta, the mayor’s daughter. She is also working on a selection from GiGi with one of her classmates at the Conservatory.

But not all Yoon’s singing experience has been a fun ride. She’s had some tough experiences while working her way to the top. She’s had a few singing professors who made her feel at her lowest point. They have told her such things as, “You shouldn’t even be thinking of a singing career, your voice is horrible,” to “I met this girl the other day who just had a horrible, horrible voice! No offense, Yoon,” she said.

These comments made her feel so upset that she even thought of quitting opera. But one day, one of her voice teachers called her and told her that their opinion was not worth quitting over. She said Yoon shouldn’t take them so seriously. “They said, ‘If this was what I liked the most, then no matter what she should keep on going,” Yoon said. “I realized that my teacher was right, if this is what I wanted then my duty was to keep on working hard to get where I wanted.”

Yoon’s well on her way to become an opera singer — not a teacher, or a pediatrician, or an architect like she planned when she was younger. “I can’t imagine doing anything else but this,” she said. “Right now I am applying to music conservatories and I plan to major in musical performance and music education or business, for security.”