Former opera student finds her voice

Lisa DeAngelis

“The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg…”, says James Allen. So when my eldest child made a hole-in-one on a mini golf course at the age of 6, I signed her up for golf lessons. It turned out that she had no talent for it, not even the slightest interest in it.

Still, I kept looking for signs of a talent that might point to a future career, however small, so that I could encourage and support it as much as I could, like any decent helicopter parent of the 1990s. By the third child, I was a little more relaxed, but I still believed that the adult’s livelihood could always be traced back to the child’s early interest.

I know that while this may be true, the path will never be strictly straight.

Cecily Laidman started taking voice lessons in high school. She was studying to be an opera singer. But, she says, “I realized I couldn’t stay serious for that long!” I know what she means. I love musicals, if not operas, but the absurdity of someone bursting into song at every crucial moment in life makes me giggle uncomfortably along with my amusement.

Now, long after her high school singing lessons, Cecily has come full circle and started a new career as a voice actress. “For the past few years, I’ve been taking evening classes and starting to learn the industry.” The first audiobook she’s lent her voice to, “Squint: Re-visioning the 2nd Half of Your Life” by Margit Novack, was released in May.

Cecily met Margit while working in the senior living industry. She began a career after realizing opera wasn’t for her. Still wanting to use her voice, she joined a folk singing group, singing in jazz clubs, private parties and “even at Odette in front of Bob Egan!”

After graduating from college, Cecily took on a variety of jobs. She was a special education teacher. She applied for grants to various arts programs at the (then) Clinton Correctional Facility in New Jersey. She taught workshops in dance, art, creative writing, and music, which she describes as “fascinating and rewarding.”

She served as arts and crafts coordinator for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, communications director for the Hillier Group, an architectural firm, and then did some freelance marketing work.

Twenty-five years ago, Cecily accidentally joined a “boot camp” training group in New Hope. She describes it as “a crazy group of people who met behind New Hope Solebury High School at 6 a.m. rain, snow or shine and trained five days a week.”

Attending this group was the beginning of Cecily’s career for the past 22 years. “I met a woman in senior care who asked me if I would be interested in helping out at a new senior living facility in the Princeton area. I knew nothing about senior living facilities, but I learned quickly and have enjoyed this work ever since.”

“I have been the marketing director for several residential communities in New Jersey and have now been the executive director of Springpoint Choice, part of Springpoint Senior Living, for 12 years,” a program for individuals who do not want to move to a senior living community but would rather age at home, hopefully forever.

I asked her what she liked most about working with older people. “Absorbing from these people their vast knowledge, experiences and lives well lived.”

And what has she learned from the years she spent working with them? “Seniors who continued working long after retirement age were the smartest, the healthiest physically and had the most positive outlook on life. That inspired me and is the reason why I continue to work well beyond normal retirement age.”

“When I decide to step down as Executive Director at Springpoint Choice,” Cecily says of her voice-over work, “I hope to do more books, character work, industrial films – wherever my voice takes me! My mantra will always be: Have a purpose, a reason, and an interest every day you wake up!”

It’s a Living is a weekly column that profiles residents who are making an interesting living or people who have reinvented their careers because they could no longer ignore the voice in the back of their head telling them to start over, take a risk, pursue a dream or forge their own path.

These are stories of courage, perseverance, resilience and vision.

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