The accidental tenor
Andy Lunsford is the rising opera star whose name and story you'll remember.
Thirty-year-old freshman Andy Lunsford lost a $6 million business, his house, and his cars. He kept his family and found a voice.
The basement was where he found his voice. Three years ago, in Colorado, Andy Lunsford walked down the stairs. He put on a CD he’d bought on a whim years ago from Target, “Lifescapes: Opera.”
It was the only opera music he owned, and he thought it would be a soothing break from what was happening in his life.
He was declaring personal bankruptcy, and he had a long way to fall. The granite business he’d started was on track to sell $6 million in countertops that year. In slacks and a tie at 26, the young entrepreneur employed 40 people. Now, with the economy crashing, Andy watched his world collapse. He would lose his home, his cars, and his credit. The only things left were his wife and two young sons.
So he listened to opera in the basement he no longer owned.
He enjoyed musicals growing up, but the only opera he’d heard was on spaghetti commercials. When he put on the CD, it was a blur of Italian noise. He closed his eyes, then started humming. Then he sang. Sounds, not words.
He tried to sing a phrase, but he couldn’t make sense of the language.
“So I just tried to sing along,” he says. “I was just trying to imitate how an opera voice was high and loud.” He could do it. Later he would find out he’s a tenor who can sing in three octaves without falsetto. It’s impressive for most singers to sing in two.
He liked singing high. It felt good when everything else in his life didn’t make sense. It was simple. He wanted more.
The next day, he and his dad drove to a music store.
“Have you got any opera songs?” He asked the clerk.
“Do you mean arias?” The clerk corrected him. “Which do you want?”
He hummed the first song that came to his mind.
“I think that’s Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma,’” the clerk said, walking over to the sheet music. It’s a familiar opera song made popular by Luciano Pavarotti. Andy had no money, so his dad spotted him $7 for the music.
At home, Andy propped the sheet in front of his computer, looked up Pavarotti singing it on YouTube, and followed along. Finger tracing the lines, he started to read the notes. He hit all of them.
What happened next can only be described as remarkable. Andy started singing in a local tavern, where his bankruptcy lawyer heard him and encouraged him to sing more. He auditioned for a local performance of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” where he met Amy Stuemky, a fellow singer who just happened to run a boutique opera talent agency.
