For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style.

I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.

No voice teacher can be all things to all people. You have to gain information from whatever sources you can. You have to listen.

I've lived in New York all my life, and we went to the Mormon Pageant each year in upstate New York. It still is a wonderful production. I remember going and seeing the performance and listening to the music. My father had Mormon Tabernacle Choir music, and we would listen to it and sing with it.

I learned so many roles so quickly as a young singer, I thought it was time to come back to them and make them better - deeper, more nuanced.

With classical singing you have to put out so much air - you project, you emit force.

I don't want to record anything unless it can be great and genuinely interesting.