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Three musicians share secrets about balancing family and career

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Three musicians share secrets about balancing family and career

Marina Brown
| Tallahassee Democrat Correspondent

For anyone who has been captivated by an art form—whether it’s music, voice, dance, theater, or literature—knows that the muses that carry all that creativity are jealous masters. Yes, they bring priceless gifts, but they demand the artist’s heart and soul, and lots of time and money.

Countless writers, actors and singers who, while devoted to their art, have discovered they want more. A husband, perhaps. Or a wife. A family — and the special kind of joy that comes when what you do every day finds support at home every night.

The Tallahassee Democrat spoke with three talented (in this case) women who are “practitioners” of the arts. A soprano, a cellist, and a choir director. They’re all here because their husbands have found careers at Florida State University. Yet they’ve all gone on to build their own rewarding careers — and raise families, too.

Carla Connors, soprano: ‘Very careful with technique’

The woman standing on the altar steps of St. John’s Episcopal Church seems to radiate. Her eyes take in the Gothic setting and she smiles. Then, as if Bach himself has given the nod, she begins to sing. Accompanied by Tallahassee’s Bach Parley, Carla Connors’ voice is as if she’s listening to drops of water touching crystal: light, crisply warm.

She sings poetry and tells listeners a story with her body and voice. Later, Connors says that this is her mission: “to share the joy she feels in music with an audience and offer it to them with words.”

Carla Connors is one of the creative musicians whose husband, FSU Professor Emeritus Timothy Hoekman, is also a musician—a pianist and composer. They’ve continued to perform together over the years. “I think I fell in love with him when I heard him backing another singer,” she laughs. But while the love blossomed, there were some decisions to be made over the years.

Connors earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota, a master’s and doctorate from the University of Michigan, and made her living as a professional opera singer—a career that kept her on the road.

“An opera singer is not usually hired ‘as a member of an opera company,'” she said. “Instead, you audition for each role and sign on to sing a certain role for specific performances or for that season.” And she was busy. “After my husband came to FSU in 1984, I was constantly flying around the country for the first three years, auditioning or touring.”

Her itinerant lifestyle included singing with the Washington DC Opera Theatre, the Miami Opera, a summer at Chautauqua, the Orlando Opera, the Atlanta Opera, and nine months of touring with the New York City National Opera as Susanna in “Le Nozze di Figuero” (The Wedding of Figuero).

But when the couple’s first, and then second, son was born, decisions had to be made. And for Carla Connors, it seemed like she had no trouble making them.

“In addition to motherhood, I also discovered that I loved teaching singing.” Connors has had her own vocal studio for 37 years. “My job is to make people happy with my music, or with my students.” Fortunately, she hasn’t stopped performing. “I’ve always been very careful with technique,” ​​she said. “And I think that’s extended my own career. I want that for the people I teach, too.”

Today, Connors can be heard in recital, oratorio, or guest appearances with orchestras and ensembles. While she admits that married artists, both with demanding careers, can face a certain instability, she says that devoting herself to her family, vocal performance and education, and even her long-term work with the Artist Series, has given her the opportunity to have a “wonderful family life” and even collaborate with her husband in ways that many other artists may never have.

Kim Jones, cellist: ‘doing what we love together’

Cellist Kim Jones and cellist Evan Jones traveled from different corners of Canada to meet. Since then, they have been creating music together that not only brings joy to the ears of listeners, but also enriches the music world with the talent they have taught.

Kim Jones was born in Calgary, Canada, into a family of musicians: her father, a renowned choir director and teacher, one aunt a violinist, another a cellist, and a beloved grandmother who first taught young Kim to play the piano. Kim’s mother clearly loved listening to music.

“I started studying the cello when I was about 6,” Jones says. “My older sister had chosen the violin, as had one of my aunts, and I would have felt sorry for the other aunt who played the cello if I had chosen the violin.” So it was the cello. But it also turned into a love affair.

“I love the emotion that can come out of a cello,” Jones said. “It can be in the background sometimes, or it can step forward and play the melody with its lyrical range.” The entire musical family was proud when a nearly adult Jones attended McGill University in Montreal and later the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. And her future would soon follow.

She had met Evan Jones, a native of Nova Scotia, at McGill, and like her, he would be attending Eastman. Kim graduated with a BA in Cello Performance and her Artist’s Diploma and joined him at Eastman, where she completed her Masters in Music and landed a position with the Rochester Symphony, while Evan completed his Masters and PhD in Performance and Music Theory.

They married and had their first child. There was a lot on their individual plates, but with Evans’ appointment to the faculty of Florida State University, it seemed like they could “have it all.”

And just as she had auditioned (behind a screen for judges) in Rochester, Kim now plays for judges with the Tallahassee Symphony. That was almost 24 years ago. Today, she is an assistant principal cellist with the orchestra. And when Evan began his academic career at FSU, Kim began teaching privately, something “I really love.” She notes that more than 225 “amazingly talented people” have passed through her hands, and they plan to pursue professional musical careers.

Kim Jones hasn’t limited her musical life to the TSO season or just students. Jones says she’s coached the Tallahassee Youth Symphony and has enjoyed playing with the Bach Parley, a Baroque ensemble that continues to grow, over the years. “I bought a Baroque cello — no endpin — and although it took me a while, I’ve become comfortable with it.” Evan Jones also plays with the Bach Parley and the Tallahassee Symphony.

“That’s one particularly good thing about being married to another cellist,” she laughs. “Sometimes Evan will ask me to listen to something he’s playing… just for my commentary and to hear how it sounds to someone.” Sometimes she does the same.

Looking back, Kim Jones says she can’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be than here in Tallahassee doing what she does. “It’s just the right size. It has the university, the symphony orchestra, and other musical outlets, and we can all do what we love together.”

Leslie Heffner, choir director: ‘something I had to do’

If you’re looking for the opposite of a “diva,” consider mezzo-soprano Leslie Heffner, music program coordinator and director of the Tallahassee Civic Chorale and choir director at Grace Lutheran Church in Tallahassee.

Although Heffner has sung major operatic roles in “Cozzi Fan Tutte” and Benjamin Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia,” and her stage presence could be called “imposing,” her demeanor is that of a confident, successful, but above all happy woman. A wife, a mother, a musician with a Ph.D. to her name, she says that in her life “nothing is missing.”

Like the other women in this article, Heffner is married to an FSU music professor. David Okerlund, Professor of Voice, directs the university’s Graduate Pedagogy Program and is also an opera singer who has sung with major opera companies around the world. “For me,” Heffner says, “I definitely envisioned myself traveling the world’s stages and singing the big roles. But the vision changes and the aspirations change!”

Born in a small town in Ohio, Heffner was first introduced to music at age 5, playing the piano with her grandmother. By middle school and later high school, she had added bassoon and saxophone, and won a bassoon scholarship to Ohio State. But not every bassoonist becomes a professional bassoonist.

“I had never really sung before,” she says. “Everyone always said I was ‘loud’ when I tried.” But Heffner joined a choir group in college and says, “It felt… absolutely organic. Like it was something I was meant to do.”

And with that revelation, she switched schools, changed majors, and graduated from the University of Las Vegas with a degree in Vocal Education. She would go on to earn her Masters in Vocal Performance from Bowling Green State University, where, as fate would have it, one of her teachers was a handsome voice teacher with a Swedish-sounding name. As Heffner began her career as Executive Director of Bowling Green’s Community Music School, the two singers’ romance blossomed.

“A few years later, when my now-husband came to work at FSU, we tried to keep the relationship going remotely, but it was difficult.” The couple eventually resolved the issue when Heffner began the PhD program at Florida State and married her former voice teacher!

Now the mother of a nine-year-old daughter, artistically and personally fulfilled, she laughs and wonders what life would have been like “if I had married an architect or an accountant. For example, my husband and I often sing back and forth in normal conversations. We turned our daughter’s bedtime stories into little operas. And of course, we understand the funny ways of singers,” she says. “You might not eat the day before a performance to avoid acid reflux! And you definitely shouldn’t whisper!”

Leslie Heffner not only whispers, but also says that she, like the others, “has it all.” Each of the three, dedicated and talented musicians, devoted wives and mothers, women who chose not to compromise but to evolve and grow, are examples for others who choose to follow more than one ambitious star and let both artistic and family genius shine.

Marina Brown can be reached at [email protected]. Brown is the author of “When Women Danced With Trees.”

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