“I’m still, kind of like, pinching myself.”
Taylor Burgess, a 2014 Riverhead High School graduate, can’t quite believe she’s actually performing at the Met.
Burgess, 27, is singing with the Metropolitan Opera House Chorus in the revival of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.
The talented soprano has spent the last few years in the Netherlands, first studying at the Dutch National Opera Academy, where she earned her master’s degree last year, and then performing with the Dutch National Opera and Ballet.
“Around Christmastime, I was feeling quite homesick because I was unable to fly home for the holidays,” Burgess said in a phone interview yesterday.
Her mother Patricia Burgess of Wading River suggested she apply to the Met. Burgess scoffed at the idea. “ I said no. I’m too young for the Met,” she recalled telling her mother. But her mom kept after her. “She kept reminding me, saying, ‘Hey, you might as well check it out. And you never know.’ So finally, I sent in an application.”
Burgess said she was surprised when a couple of weeks later, she was invited for an audition. She flew home to New York to audition.
“At the audition, they told us that we may not hear from them until June because of planning for the upcoming season,” she said.
Burgess felt deflated. “That’s a really long time to wait. And so I joked with my parents, I said, ‘If they call me before June, then they hate me.’ That’s a long time to have to wait — six months,” she said. “So I just kind of put it into the air and continued on my way. And in early February, I received an email about Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”
The opera company needed someone to fill in at the last minute for the revival of the show, which had its first run at the Met in 2021.
“It’s truly been a whirlwind,” Burgess said. She flew back to New York and started rehearsals March 5.
The show opened for a limited engagement on April 8 and runs through May 2.
“It’s been a fast track to the main stage,” she said.
Burgess’ voice is full of excitement as she talks about the show. Fire Shut Up in My Bones, by seven-time Grammy Award–winning trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, was the first opera by an African American composer to be performed at the Met. It opened the Met’s first season post-pandemic, Burgess said.
After Fire Shut Up in My Bones closes, Burgess will be going back to Amsterdam to perform in a show with the Dutch National Opera and Ballet.
While she’s still in New York, Burgess will perform a concert to benefit the Riverhead High School music department on April 30 at Jamesport Meeting House.
“I’ll be performing art songs, not arias,” Burgess said. “I love singing recital work. I love art songs, because I feel like with opera, you’re always presenting someone else’s interpretation of the production.” She will be accompanied by pianist Stephen Tian-You Ai, a friend and colleague who is currenting working towards his PhD in music theory at Harvard University.
The show at the meeting house was the idea of Sal Diliberto, whose daughter Dena Tishim was Burgess’ music teacher and the director of Blue Masques when Burgess attended Riverhead High School.
“Taylor was a pleasure to have as a student,” Tishim said. “I had the pleasure of directing her as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof and Dorothy in The Wiz,” Tishim said. “She has grown as a singer and performer since she left and I am so proud of her.”
While a student at Riverhead, Burgess was accepted to the New York State Summer School of the Arts, a prestigious, competitive program for extraordinary high school musicians, where she participated in the School of Choral Studies Program. She was also selected to represent Riverhead High School in the All State Mixed Choir and the All County Music Festival. Burgess also won the 2013 Riverhead Idol competition.
Burgess said she’s always wanted to be a singer, since she was a young child. “Anything that had anything to do with music, I was in it to win it. I was just super-excited.”
She wasn’t exposed to opera until she began studying voice at age 14 with Shoshana Hershkowitz, who was classically trained.
“And I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, she has the most beautiful voice. That is so cool.’ And she taught me different art songs. And I just fell in love with the style of singing,” Burgess said.
Then during one lesson, while they were preparing for the NYSSMA competition, something clicked. “My voice just kind of fell into the technique.” Hershkowitz was “kind of in shock,” Burgess recalled with a laugh. “Like, did she just turn into an opera singer?”
“And ever since, I just fell in love with the art and I went to summer camps where we learned etiquette for the theater and the different styles and eras of the classical realm. And I just was hooked.”
Hershkowitz said she’s not surprised by Burgess’ success, including the opportunity to perform at the Met.
“She’s phenomenal,” Hershkowitz said in an interview. “She has been building this for a long time and worked incredibly hard. We’re just watching her come into her own,” she said. “She sang with me in the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra and in the Suffolk Choir. It was just amazing to watch her competence grow over the years since she walked into my house for her first lesson as a 14-year-old ninth-grader, then to go to Purchase, and just take off,” she said.
“She’s amazing. It could not happen to a more fantastic human.”
Burgess was always so self-directed and determined, Hershowitz recalled, even as a young teen. “She was always seeking opportunities, always thinking outside the box in a way I think most kids her age didn’t do,” she said.
What comes next for Burgess? After the season closes in Amsterdam, she plans to get some rest during the summer before getting ready for the next season.
“Right now, things are still being settled,” Burgess said, “so I really can’t disclose at this moment. But there are some different things in the works.”
Taylor Burgess’ performance at the Jamesport Meeting House will take place on Tuesday, April 30 at 7 p.m. (Suggested donation is $20.) The Jamesport Meeting House is located at 1590 Main Road in Jamesport.
Correction: This article was amended after initial publication to correct the spelling of the last name of Dena Tishim.
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