Trading animals for arias
Amber R. Monroe takes unplanned path to stage
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Amber R. Monroe dreamed of being a veterinarian.
Instead of treating animals, she's singing arias on some of the country's most prestigious stages.
Monroe, a 2009 Ursuline High School graduate who grew up in Liberty, won $12,000 last month in the 51st George and Nora London Foundation Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers.
This spring, she'll sing the role of Mimi in the opera "La Boheme" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
It's a meteoric rise for someone who never really heard opera until she was in college at the University of Tuskegee in Alabama. Monroe grew up singing in the youth and adult choirs at Jerusalem Baptist Church in Campbell and decided to audition for the college choir.
"They were more classically based," Monroe said. "I was literally just mimicking a girl that was sitting behind me and trying to do this operatic sound. I guess I was doing something right.
"My choir director came up to me one day and said, 'You should really take this seriously' and gave me an art song to learn so that I could do this audition that invited Tuskegee students to spend a few weeks in Pisa, Italy."
She was accepted, and her time in Italy changed her career goals.
"Just being immersed in the culture of it and where it all started, it's hard not to fall in love with it," she said.
She didn't realize it at the time, but there was a hint for her future career path during her time at Ursuline.
"I had a few friends that were in theater and they heard me singing Disney songs all the time," Monroe said. "They were like, 'We're doing 'Beauty and the Beast,' why don't you audition for it?' I ended up being cast as the Wardrobe, which is technically the opera singer in 'Beauty and the Beast.' It's funny how things have come full circle."
During her junior year at Tuskegee, she decided to apply to three schools to study music. If she was rejected, she'd stick to her original plan and go to veterinary school.
Two of them accepted her, and she got a second undergraduate degree at Oberlin Conservatory of Music and her master's degree from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
"When I first went to Oberlin, I had a strong feeling of imposter syndrome," she said. "A lot of students there had been singing all their lives. I just had to find my own stride, educate myself in this new field that I decided to go in. There was a lot of uncertainty, but ultimately you find your village, the people who will ultimately support you and steer you in the right direction to get you on your way."
Monroe, 32, said her parents, Dr. Rickie and Mary "Kitty" Monroe of Howland, were 100 percent supportive of her career shift.
Monroe is part of Cafritz Young Artists, a two-year program affiliated with Washington National Opera. Her first performance on the Kennedy Center stage with the Cafritz program was in a choir that performed at the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors.
"I got to meet Smokey Robinson, I got to meet Billy Porter and Stevie Wonder," she said, but what was even better was being home with her parents when the ceremony was broadcast on CBS.
"Mom was hopping up and down, 'Look, my baby is on TV.' She was getting numerous phone calls from Youngstown, 'Is that Amber on TV?' It was more her moment than mine, and I lived for it."
It won't be broadcast on national television, but Monroe is looking forward to singing a leading role in "La Boheme" with her fellow Cafritz Young Artists in May, and the money from the George and Nora London Foundation Competition could help launch the next phase of her career.
"One thing that I mentioned in the application is I want to do a European audition tour," she said. "There are so many opportunities in Europe and German specifically, and I'd love to go back to Italy. Just branching out. I feel like we've done a lot of work in the U.S. It would be nice to see what is available overseas.
"I want to be able to perform on stage around the world, but I also want to cultivate some kind of program that introduces opera to young African Americans like myself. This is something that was not even on my radar growing up. People who look like myself don't sing opera. It's just not something we do. Little did I know Jessye Norman and Leontyne Price and Kathleen Battle were paving the way for artists like myself, so I want to give back to expose this wonderful art form to young African Americans especially."