One soprano, two masterworks

For someone who was initially turned down by every music school she applied to, Canadian soprano Erin Wall has done pretty spectacularly, thank you.

Wall, who was born in Calgary and grew up in Vancouver, spent 11 years studying piano but didn't take her first voice lessons until her final year of high school. When she was rejected after her first auditions and told by a few officials that she should consider a different career, Wall worked on her singing for a year and tried again. She made up for lost time, going on to study at Western Washington University, Rice University and the prestigious training program at Chicago's Lyric Opera.