Alissa is a wise and passionate singer, who wants to use her talent not only through performing on stage, but also helping premature babies. Here, she talks about her evolution as a musician and her deep devotion to music.
I want be a neonatal nurse practitioner. I've always liked children, and babies love music. I could use my two gifts. While helping the babies, I could sing to them, because it’s kind of like how dogs come into the hospital and they make the people feel better. So I can take care of babies, which I love, and I can sing, which I also love.
My grandmother came down with leukemia when I was about two. My mom and I moved down to South Carolina and I would go to her chemotherapy appointments. When she would come out, she would be drained from all of the chemotherapy, and I sang to her and it made her feel better. And that made me feel better. That’s how I found my passion. I’ve been singing in a church since I was three. It’s not only that singing is a stress reliever for me, but singing helps with other people. Sometimes the words that you’re saying — or how much emphasis you put into feeling that emotion in a song — it’ll help to connect with somebody else. Or maybe somebody is going through a bad day, you sing a song, and they feel better.
Music can be life changing. Music is the voice of the heart.
[At Explo] I took Acting and Directing and Public Speaking. I am a singer, and sometimes I get stage fright. So I figured the public speaking will help with the crowds and acting and directing will help impersonating the type of scene I want to come off with my music. And it did help a lot. If you’re afraid, then the crowd’s afraid. But if you feel comfortable, then the crowd’s going to feel comfortable. So you have the fake it until you make it on stage. There was this quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt that said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And I take from that a lot, because it’s not just the anxiety that you get before you get on the stage, it’s also when you get up there. But that person who you’re singing to, they might need that song. They could have deep problems and they hear you sing something, they hear your beautiful voice, and then they completely turn their life around.
Mari Armei