Lehman Today Online Magazine Lehman Today Fall 2015 | Page 32

alumni spotlight Darian Anderson Worrell (B.S., ‘14) Lehman Grad Accepted to Prestigious Opera Program in Salzburg, Austria Lehman College’s music department has a longstanding tradition of honing and developing talent. Alongside its many noteworthy graduates, Darian Anderson Worrell still stands out with distinction. “Lehman College is my home. Given the opportunity, I dream of returning to my alma mater as a professor sharing the knowledge I have gained with my brothers and sisters in the Bronx.” A 2014 graduate with a B.S. in music, bass-baritone opera singer Worrell has been accepted into the master’s program of the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. While a day does not pass that the 28-year-old does not listen to an operatic work, his exposure to the genre was happenstance. Born in Barbados, he would hear and appreciate the classical music played on the radio. His family moved to Boston when he was 11 and there, in the Methodist church they regularly attended, Worrell saw choirs performing renditions of English cantatas and hymns accompanied by organ music. A year later, he heard a woman singing opera and was taken with the sound, so he asked if she had a voice teacher he could contact. “I called and said I wanted to be an opera singer and asked if she could help me,” he said. “She gave me an aria from Porgy and Bess. This was the first time I had heard the voice of Leontyne Price and I was enraptured by the sounds. I made it a point to D \