Todd Payne turned a football injury into a music career
Special to The American
Todd Payne’s voice has cadence. He speaks at a rapid-fire pace, creating sentences that are fluid yet punctuated by words delivered with emphasis, like drum beats.
That should be no surprise – his voice is, after all, an instrument. Payne, an associate professor of music at Missouri State University who specializes in voice, is a baritone opera singer who has toured with many prominent groups.
Payne, 43, didn’t set out to be a singer. The high school offensive lineman was going to be a football player until an injury compelled him to pursue a different passion.
“Music changed my life,” he says. “I love being a college professor because I can do both things I love: teach and travel to perform opera.”
Payne grew up in Munford, Tenn., a small town north of Memphis. He was raised by a single mother and had a strong network of family nearby.
He said his mother is “the reason I am sitting behind this desk as Dr. Payne. I know what she sacrificed for me. Now I have a burning desire to do things for her.”
Music surrounded him while he was growing up; many of his family members sang in church. But that doesn’t account for his specialty. “I get asked a lot, ‘Todd, how in the world did you get interested in opera?’ ”
He was studying at the University of Memphis with the intent of emulating his favorite singer, Luther Vandross. But his voice teacher kept asking to put him in operas. Finally, he said, “I went to audition just to see what would happen.”
He got a small role in The Magic Flute, and from there was set on a new path. In his senior year he landed a contract with Opera Memphis, a professional company. Coincidentally, his professional debut was also in The Magic Flute (though his favorite role of all-time is the lead in Rigoletto.)
He had found his career but wanted more training. He started graduate work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also continued to sing with companies including the Chicago Opera Theater, Indianapolis Opera and the Houston Grand Opera.
In the mid-1990s he spent a few summers at the Tel Aviv Vocal Institute in Israel, where he met some prominent opera singers. The experience helped him reach the next level in his career. “Those two summers were some of the greatest experiences of my life.”
He received a doctorate in 2001 and continued to perform.
In 2003, Payne read about a job at Missouri State. He joined the faculty that fall and received tenure in spring 2009.
He works one-on-one with almost all of his students.
“This field is extremely competitive, so I’m going to push my students hard,” he said.
“Eventually, they will take responsibility for themselves and want to be their best. I need to know that when they leave this institution they are prepared – not just for their fields, but for life in general.”
Payne participates in campus activities beyond teaching. He is the faculty advisor for several student groups. He has performed the national anthem at sports events and has spoken to the football training camp.
“I love hanging out with students from different ethnic backgrounds,” he said.
“I also love meeting students from backgrounds similar to my own, because they haven’t seen too many African-American men who are both a college professor and a professional opera singer. I want them to blaze trails of their own. I like hanging out there with the students, speaking their language — sometimes I will even free-style rap with them.”
For more information on musical studies at Missouri State University, visit http://www.missouristate.edu/music/.
