Rachel Frazin
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Minnesota Opera Carmen
Rachel sans wig after the final bow in Minnesota Opera's 2005 production of Carmen. Carmen's "blood" is still smeared on the stage wall.
Rachel singing
Rachel performs her cabaret show, "Getting Better All the Time,"
at the Artist's Quarter to raise funds for clinic toys at United Family Medicine, 2004.

Singing Brings Joy to the World

I started singing and dancing to Broadway tunes in my living room during my childhood growing up in Morton Grove, Illinois. I began vocal lessons at Indiana University and performed with Indiana University's Singing Hoosiers traveling group. When I discovered that playing guitar was a whole lot harder than it looked, I abandoned my aspiration to become a singer songwriter. Once my career and family responsibilities overtook my life, I didn't sing much except for lullabies and kiddie tunes.

In my mid-forties, I began studying classical music with Oksana Bryn, a Ukrainian vocalist who made her debut at Carnegie Hall in 1972. Despite Oksana's warning that I wasn't ready, I auditioned for the Minnesota Opera Ensemble in 2002, and got lucky because they were looking for singers who could dance. I performed in three operas that season, character dancing in The Merry Widow. I performed a couple operas a year for the following several years. Meanwhile, I studied vocal jazz with Vicki Mountain, a gifted Twin Cities jazz interpreter and performer.  I came to know the inspiring Tony nominee singer-actor, Melissa Hart, who helped me grow my musical theater penchant.

I merged my musical theater and jazz chops to create two one-woman cabaret shows -- "Getting Better All the Time" in 2004, with songs about the cycle of life with a medical twist, and "Motherhood -- No One Said It Would Be Easy,"in honor of mothers, and performed on Mother's Day 2014.

I currently perform with members of the Twin Cities Cabaret Artist's Network, TCCAN, which holds monthly salons in the intimacy of several small Twin Cities' performance spaces, and will resume as soon as the exigencies of the pandemic permit. The organization is an excellent source of singers and instrumentalists for any event that requires live music. The link above will enable individuals interested in hiring live performers to contact the organization. Our mission includes educating singers interested in learning how to perform cabaret.  TCCAN has a Facebook site -- check us out!