Bluebird Cafe Meets the Nashville Ballet

I was 17, sitting at the kitchen table with my mom. I had tears streaming down my face. It was the first time in my life that I had to choose - consciously choose - to shut the door on something that I'd always dreamed of doing. I was juggling school, voice lessons, piano lessons, choir, learning guitar, playing in school bands, and ballet lessons. Something had to give. So I found myself saying goodbye to a childhood dream of someday spinning across a stage in pink pointe shoes.  I chose to make music instead.

This weekend, I found myself on a huge stage playing my guitar and singing songs I had written, surrounded by a sea of dancers spinning and sailing through the air. The Nashville Ballet had choreographed my music for a show called City of Dreams, named after a song I wrote about my adopted hometown after it was hit by a devastating flood in 2010. It was part of a collaboration with the Bluebird Cafe for their Attitude program: 4 shows to a packed house at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

I can't begin to explain how it felt, but crescendoing from the quiet whispery verse into the last big chorus of "City of Dreams" at the end of the show, I felt the rush of air as the ballerinas ran past me and leapt up into the outstretched arms of the men for a huge, soaring lift...and the audience exploded into applause...and my heart felt like it was going to explode into a million pieces.

Sometimes dreams come true in the most unexpected way.

"I am your City of Dreams My faith is just worn, it's just tattered and torn at the seams But don't you give up on me."

Click here to read Broadway World's review of City of Dreams.

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