ENDERA

Steve Burton- Vocally I have studied privately and at the University level for about eight years combined and continue to be a student of voice with my own personal study. I would like to think that I learn more every time I sing.

My initial interest in singing is a product of having fallen in love with opera as a teenager. I was smitten with the soaring melodies of Puccini and Verdi. This lead to my extreme interest in how opera singers could have such broad vocal ranges with such incredibly full tone. I had to figure out how they did it! So I started to study.

For the first two years of my vocal studies I was classified as a baritone with a full brassy tone. However, as time went by, my upper range blossomed, revealing that I was actually a tenor. A dramatic tenor like Placido Domingo, not a lyric tenor like Pavorotti. Domingo’s voice is much fuller and darker in color than Pavorotti’s. Dramatic tenors usually sign off vocally somewhere between B flat and high C. I can squeeze out a high C if I must, but that ‘s better left to the lyric tenors that can sing as high as high E and F.

So having this fat tenor voice led me to do work with the Cleveland Opera and the Canton Symphony. Minor roles only. There’s so much to learn that opera companies just can’t risk giving lead and or principle roles to young voices. Opera singers must be able to sing over 80 piece orchestras for three to four hours at a time without a microphone. It is truly grueling. You must sing with proper technique or you won’t make the end. So that being the case, I don’t blame opera companies for choosing only seasoned veterans to fill their lead roles- opera productions cost millions of dollars. As a result, a younger voice, like mine at the time, were given minor or choral roles, which are still very demanding and very educational as a singer and musician.

Then something happened. I don’t know if I fell out of love with opera or if I was just frustrated with the fact that young voices just didn’t get lead roles, but I stopped performing and did not do much for four or five years. A couple of church solos and that was it.

The one solo I did was actually a song that I wrote. To my surprise the congregation went “nuts”. I hadn’t told them that I wrote it, but they really liked it. Actually I was a little embarrassed because in song writing you often reveal your personal feelings, hopes, desires and I just wasn’t comfortable at that point in doing that, so I stopped.

Two years later I sang a song that I had written for a musician friend of mine and much to my surprise he absolutely loved it. It really blew him away. I just don’t think he really though that I wrote it. I could tell by the look in his eyes.

So I stopped and thought, “man I could be a songwriter.” If so what the heck do I do with this voice? After all opera style singing sounds goofy with the modern style of music that I was writing. If I do write I want it to be both dramatic at times and serene at other times, while maintaining a moral integrity and a regard for faith, just like the opera.

For the next three years I retrained my voice so that I could produce a more modern sound. I also started writing- a lot.

I chose to write a majority of the music with a Rock/ Hard Rock sound. I’ve always liked Rock music. It’s very dramatic and similar to music from the opera, it leaves plenty of room for emotional outpouring. In addition, I wanted to offset this dramatic thundering with pieces that are sweet, gentle and endearing, without being corny.

It is my hope that with this first Endera release, “Burn”, that I have created the full emotional deal. With the intensity of “Burn”, the passion of “SOS”, the sincerity of “Amy’s Song” and the gentleness of “Lullaby”.