Student describes singing at Ferguson Center with Bocelli
News Release - October 28, 2005
contact:
Karen L. Gill
karen.gill@cnu.edu
(757) 594-8428
 CNU student Anthony Colosimo, left, sings as Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli listens, center, on Oct. 20 at the Ferguson Center for the Arts at Christopher Newport University. |
(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — It was like a traffic accident in which you’re not in control of the situation and you don’t have much reaction time. Things seem to be going in slow motion, yet you can’t think fast enough to change what’s happening around you. That’s how Christopher Newport University student Anthony Colosimo described the experience of singing on stage with world-famous Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. But, Colosimo is quick to point out, it was like a good traffic accident, if such things exist. “Like hydroplaning, but you don’t hit anything afterward,” he explained. And you’re left with a high. “It was a pinnacle for me,” said Colosimo, a barbershop singer. “I’ve never sung with a symphony and never performed in a hall that big before by myself, and certainly no one’s ever paid that much for a ticket to see me sing!” The CNU senior sang the popular Italian song, “La Serenata,” accompanied by the Virginia Symphony, for the sold-out audience of 1,700 on Oct. 20 at the Ferguson Center for the Arts’ new Concert Hall. |
Bocelli, a friend of the National Italian American Foundation, had presented Colosimo with the foundation’s 2005 scholarship on Oct. 19, and then invited the 22-year-old tenor to perform alongside him the following evening.
Bocelli tried to reassure Colosimo before he went on stage, advising him to not be nervous. Easy for him to say.
“It was surreal,” Colosimo said. “Before I walked onstage, it was like watching a movie. I looked on stage, and thought, ‘This is crazy!’
“I don’t remember actually singing on stage. I was so nervous, and once I got on stage, I kind of went on autopilot. I couldn’t think much.”
Being on autopilot this time, Colosimo said, was a nice relief from his usual practice of constantly analyzing his own singing. But it also was scary, he said. “If I would have faltered, I would have fallen off a cliff.”
Colosmio did not falter. Walking off stage, the easy-going Bocelli congratulated him.
“He was so nice, and about the most genuine person I’ve ever met,” Colosimo said of the singer who was blinded by congenital glaucoma and an accident in his youth. “He seemed so interested in what I had to say, which seemed so strange to me –– he’s so famous.”
The experience has left him with new respect for Bocelli and his music. And an impression of professional performers as nice, real people who don’t fit the arrogant stereotype.
“It just made me so much more passionate about performing,” said Colosimo, who began singing at age 8 in The Singing Capitol Chorus, the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society conducted by his father, Bill Colosimo. The CNU student also is a member of the Alexandria chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, and Iguanas in Flight, a former collegiate quartet that is now competing at an international level. The Iguanas represent three chapters of the Barbershop Harmony Society from Virginia and Florida.
Colosimo plans to return to CNU next year to pursue a master’s degree in music education and eventually plans to teach music in the public school system.
He said he plans to use some of the $2,500 scholarship money to pay help pay for a trip to Italy and Austria next spring with CNU’s chamber choir.
“He was excited that I was using the money to go to Italy,” Colosimo said of Bocelli, a former Italian piano bar performer who burst into international stardom in 1992 after recording a demo tape of a song specifically written for Luciano Pavarotti.
Christopher Newport University is a four-year public university in Newport News, Virginia. CNU enrolls 4,800 students in programs through its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Business and offers great teaching, small classes and an emphasis on leadership, civic engagement and honor. Visit us at www.cnu.edu.