Recent graduate finds the right note after late start to singing career

A year ago, when he sang a solo at New York City’s Carnegie Hall as part of a Purdue University Fort Wayne choir tour, Q Davis said it was magical because he was on the big stage—and he’d earned the moment. That may sound aggrandizing, but Davis could only achieve that performance with a little enchantment.

After graduating and remaining an extra year to earn a certificate of performance, Davis, B.M. ’23, B.M.Ed. ’23, knows he’s chipping away at his block of granite to see what’s underneath. Starting on his master’s degree in historical performance at Indiana University in Bloomington this fall, Davis thinks he knows his final form, but there have already been drastic changes along the way.

Davis took piano lessons when he was very young before giving it up; never took a music or singing class but joined show choir as a high school junior. Then he studied chemistry on a premed path for a year before transferring to PFW for music.

“We were learning these fun songs and putting them together in a show and dancing,” Davis said. “It wasn’t necessarily learning the fundamental skills of music. I had no experience and had failed the oncoming exam because I couldn’t tell what the key signature I was doing or any of that stuff.”

But Davis was also very good at singing, with fearlessness, showmanship, and a tenor voice that captured everyone’s attention.

“I probably pushed him a lot, but it’s hard not to when you see so much raw, natural talent in such an authentic and genuine human,” said former Dwenger choir director Christy Maloney, who now works at PFW as a business analyst in the Office of the Registrar. “I saw him get ready for a performance, step on stage, and leave it all behind, completely embracing whatever role or message he was to deliver in that moment with so much sincerity.”

Because of Davis’s empathy, Maloney said Davis would have been an excellent doctor. Instead, with direction from William Sauerland, assistant professor of music and director of choral studies, and Jonathan Busarow, limited term lecturer, Davis looked for a new goal.

There have been some crazy opportunities, such as performing the Carnegie Hall solo, and also some crazy challenges, such as losing his singing voice for six months in 2022. One doctor told Davis he’d likely never hit the high notes again.

“We all say singing isn’t a part of our identity, but our voices are, and that was the problem,” Davis said. “I just didn’t have my voice and I needed that.”

People sometimes hear Davis from a distance before seeing him because he’s singing and then ask the name of the song. This audible presence is part of his nature, and because of extraordinary swelling and inflammation of his vocal folds likely caused by acid reflux, his voice was silenced.

Busarow and Sauerland constantly assured Davis his voice would return, and during that time, Davis learned how his voice functioned. Why did it work? How could he hone his tool? Besides limiting soda and caffeine, what could he do to prepare better? What should he be eating and when?

“Now I think I just am grateful that I have the ability to do it again, and in a healthier way, a more efficient way,” Davis said. “I’m cognizant of how lucky I am to be able to do it.”

Every struggle, Davis learned, adds strength on the other side, and the experience adds wisdom.

“When you suffer a setback, you learn how to take care of yourself better, and you learn more about the functionality of your body,” Sauerland said. “I think when he went through the vocal injury, it actually gave him insight into the functionality of the voice that he never would have gotten otherwise.”

Time off focused him, Davis said, gave him perspective and a hunger to reach higher. During his first competition in November 2023, he won first place at an Indiana Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing competition that included third-, fourth-, and fifth-year tenors and basses.

Davis wants to perform and study historical performance and someday teach.

“There’s so much to do and so much around that’s available,” Davis said. “I imagine there are going to be some pretty awesome things.”

Among the words Davis sang during his Carnegie Hall solo were, “A sign that I was hurt, a sign that I was healed.”