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High C's on the high seas
Fort Lewis graduate to sing on cruise ship after Carnegie Hall
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Photo by Courtesy of Tracy Bedard
Rachel Taulbee sings at the Jean-Pierre Wine Bar on April 18, with Ryan McCurry accompanying on piano. The pair will perform a final Durango date at Jean-Pierre on Friday night before Taulbee ships out for a three-month stint on the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam in July.
"He said 'Rachel, you belong on Broadway,'" Taulbee said last week, in between preparations for what may be the most hectic month in the Fort Lewis College graduate and now professional singer's career.
Everything in my mind told me to keep my job in Farmington, but everything in my heart said 'don't you dare.' ... I'm just throwing myself to the wind, and I'm going to see the world. I'm going for my dreams.
- Rachel Taulbee
In one sense, Walker wasn't too far off. Taulbee will join the Durango Choral Society later this month when the group performs at Carnegie Hall; the hallowed auditorium sits on Seventh Avenue just a block from Manhattan's main thoroughfare. But Taul-bee's first full-time gig will be just a bit farther off-Broadway - about 3,500 miles off.
On July 3, Taulbee will set sail aboard the M.S. Zaandam, a 1,400-plus-passenger cruise ship owned by the Holland America Line. For the next three months, she'll be the face and voice of Rachel and the Hal-Cats ("Hal" being an acronym for the cruise line), performing five nights a week in the Crow's Nest Lounge while the ship makes weekly voyages from Seattle to Ketchikan, Alaska, and back with several ports-of-call in between.
For a girl (Taulbee actually celebrated her 25th birthday Monday, but her energy can be described only as youthful) who hasn't traveled far from the Four Corners, her new job also is a ticket to see the world.
"I don't give a damn where they send me because I haven't been anywhere," she said, but she also hopes that her northwest passage is just the beginning.
Holland America has ships in almost every corner of the world, and if all goes well, Taulbee wants to entertain passengers from the South Seas to the Mediterranean.
It was Walker whom Taulbee credits for landing the job - in his down time, he works as a music director for Holland America - but it will be up to her and the Hal-Cats to make their own way in and around the world. That presents its own unique challenge.
Taulbee and her seven bandmates, who will all meet each other for the first time when they board the Zaandam next month, are expected to be good enough to pick up a book of 300 song charts and play like a group that's been together for years with nary a rehearsal. However, with some more help from her mentor, Taulbee has a head start.
"It's usually pretty traumatic for most singers, but Gary gave me the book in December, and I've been studying it. I'm a lucky girl," she said.
As excited as she is to get started, Taulbee almost decided against taking the Holland America gig. She first auditioned in April 2008 and was offered the job but turned it down. She was teaching music part-time in Farmington schools and believed she needed more experience singing with a band.
She scored another substitute music teaching job at Riverview Elementary School, but she also has reverted to house painting and other odd jobs to pay the rent.
There were other professional challenges, as well. Taulbee is a classically trained singer, and she has had to learn to sing an octave or two below her com-fort zone of soprano to belt out classic hits such as "Proud Mary", "Dancin' in the Streets" and, appropriately, "Beyond the Sea."
She's gotten her needed experience in the last year, performing with several local bands, including a combo with Aftergrass member Eric Kiefer, known in some circles as Bacon Pancakes.
Taulbee also landed the lead singing spot in the recent Bare Bones Burlesque and The Salt Fire Circus show, and she now has the confidence to sing anywhere, anytime, for anyone.
"Everything in my mind told me to keep my job in Farmington, but everything in my heart said 'don't you dare,'" she said.
"Now I plan on doing this until I get sick of it; there's nothing holding me here, and I'm just throwing myself to the wind, and I'm going to see the world. I'm going for my dreams."
The world may not know it yet, but it's lucky to have her.
ted@durangoherald.com
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