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By Karen Hart
 "I'm a singer," Paul Houghtaling '83, says when
asked what he does. Without clarification, it's often assumed the 36-year-old
Houghtaling fronts a rock'n roll band. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
"Popular music wasn't part of my realm growing up," Houghtaling said of his childhood
in Troy, N.Y.
For the most part, popular music still isn't part of his life. Houghtaling's
calling is opera and classical music, which he found his love for at Holy Cross.
"I never went to school to do this," Houghtaling said. "I was going to be an
economics major, then a history major. It never dawned on me until I met [Holy
Cross Choir and Chamber Singers Director] Bruce Miller and joined the choir."
Holy Cross' music program, in its infancy the year Houghtaling was a freshman,
graduated just three music majors four years later. Houghtaling was one of
them.
Today, Houghtaling performs the works of Bach, Handel,
Mozart and medieval and Renaissance roles, both nationally and internationally.
Houghtaling followed
his Holy Cross degree with graduate work at the New England Conservatory in
Boston, and now lives in New York City. He has performed at the Lincoln Center
and Carnegie Hall, and with the New York Chamber Symphony, the Boston Lyric,
and the Baltimore and Santa Fe operas among others.
"I owe Bruce so much just for opening the door," Houghtaling said of Miller and
the music program. "He gave me my earliest opera solo, in Scott Joplin's Treemonisha,
which is a ragtime opera similar to Porgy & Bess. . . . And we did My Fair
Lady as the class musical my senior year. That was tough and demanding and I
learned a lot.
"But I am proudest that I'm still in touch will all those people in the choir
who were my close, close friends. . . . That's the place where I became the person
and the musician and the artist that I am. . . . We learned personal values and
discipline and teamwork. Those are lessons that you can carry on even if you're
not in a musical career, even if you're a bank president."
Houghtaling also feels an advantage over peers who went straight into conservatory
studies right after high school. At Holy Cross, Houghtaling was able to find
the connection between the Shakespeare he studied in a literature class and
the stories and events of a history class and the music he performed in the
choir.
"Holy Cross prepared me to be open to diversity and a wide variety of experiences," he
said.
Houghtaling began his career as a tenor at Holy Cross, but now performs as
a baritone and does not limit his repertoire to serious roles. In fact, one
of his favorite roles is the Major General from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates
of Penzance, a show Houghtaling first performed at Holy Cross. Houghtaling
still uses the G&S score with Miller's directives written on it.
Of his days on the hill, Houghtaling said, "I smile when I
think back about them. I still keep a file for every program that I've ever
sung and there is a folder for those Holy Cross programs."
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