Women in Music: Carrie Hennessey

Carrie Hennessey grew up in the Midwest, where choral singing was a cultural staple. The youngest of eight children with a mother who taught piano, Hennessey was just out of her teenage years when she burst onto the scene, having competed in prestigious auditions for the Metropolitan Opera.

Tragic events early in his career would prompt Hennessey to quit singing before moving to Sacramento in 2008.

The California capital would prove to be a supportive community for Hennessey, and a new beginning for his singing career. He adopted a new approach to his singing and somatics, a process with physical skills that connects sound, breath and emotion to the feeling of the body.

Since then, Hennessey, a soprano, has performed around the world and built a diverse career spanning opera, theater and education. She recently completed a one-woman show called “How Did I Even Get Here?” and is the co-founder of a company that offers experiential therapy based on somatics.

CapRadio regular host Jennifer Reason sat down with Hennessey to discuss the journey of rediscovering her voice and the new opportunities it has presented.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

On breaking his hiatus

Finding my voice again was another journey in itself. At the age of 30, I started taking care of myself in a way that had no name. No one was talking about trauma therapy in 2008 and no one was talking about physical experiences. We were still in a lot of talk therapy and really what I was working on was using my device. How does it feel from the inside out to breathe? How does it feel to vibrate through my whole body?

On her one-woman show

A few years ago I started a creative internship with a group called The Spark File. It is these two women who have created this space where other creative human beings share ideas and create a network of support. I went into teaching thinking I wasn’t creative. I thought, “I’m always interpreting other people’s work so that means I’m not creative, I don’t have a vision”. Through that process, I began to reveal that I had many stories that I needed to tell. So, I decided to just write my story. It has a format that feels like a cabaret, but it’s a classic kind of cabaret. What’s great is that I can customize it based on who I’m doing it for. I was able to do this workshop in Sacramento and really focus on the influence and the stories that Sacramento has to tell.

On his new business

The company is called SmashUp Somatics. I am one of the co-facilitators and the other is Ellen Garavatti, a licensed psychotherapist whose interests lie in group work and experiential therapy. It’s based on the idea that healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum and if we don’t have someone to witness it, it doesn’t happen. Having those mirrors and reflections of others doing the work is where really powerful things happen. We draw on the experience of my almost twenty years of general voice teaching to help people experience voice with movement and breath, to find their true voice.

For his advice to other singers

Get out of the gym. We have to keep the technique up and we have to learn the repertoire but not only about that. Go outside, put your feet on the grass and read the lyrics to the lyrics you sing. Understand the background and connect with other designers. Be inspired by what they do. Fail badly. It’s actually just a failure, not a real failure. We have to give ourselves grace and compassion and a catapult to fail. Give yourself time and space to have that silence, to let the next thing come, because it will. We are so busy “doing” that we forget that we are human “creatures”, and that is where the love of creativity comes from.