Award-winning Marble Falls graduate on path to music career

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

OKLAHOMA CITY — It would seem easy for Mary Beth Nelson to dispense the typical advice to others about “follow your dreams.” After all, she’s living pretty close to hers as she gets ready to graduate from Oklahoma City University with a music degree and a chance to study this summer at the prestigious Seagle Music Colony in New York.

But Nelson, a 2010 Marble Falls High School graduate, didn’t just wake up one morning with a incredible voice, the talent and the work ethic to pursue a vocal career. She worked at it while adding a healthy dose of Christian faith.

It’s that mix she hopes young people, and even adults, understand can open roads for them as well.

“I had a mentor who told me, ‘You control the effort, but God controls the outcome,'” she recently said. “If I control the effort and God controls the outcome, then it’s out of my hands. So no matter what I chose, I know God has a plan and path for me. That’s what I’d tell other students if they want to be the president, an accountant, a teacher or a cashier, to go work hard at it and just do your best. Because no matter where we are in life, we have the abilities to make a difference.”

Nelson recently enjoyed the benefits of her hard work and God’s grace when she won the International Crescendo Music Awards for vocal performance March 22. The event, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Tulsa (Okla.), draws top high school and collegiate talent for vocal and piano competitions.

“It was truly amazing because you’re competing against some top-level performers,” Nelson said. “These are some of the same people I’ll see as I continue in music because we’ll be growing our careers together.”

On March 21, Nelson found herself in the preliminary round of the competition, which lasted from morning until afternoon. But she landed a spot in the semifinal round the next day. The judges included Joseph A. Bias, Lois Alba and Sherrill Milnes. Nelson said each had incredible careers and performing before them was an amazing experience.

After the semifinal round, the judges called together all of the contestants.

“They encouraged us all and told us that competitions don’t make a career,” Nelson added. “Then, they called the three names of those going on to the final round.”

After more rehearsal of the three pieces she would perform, Nelson was so caught up and excited that she forgot to eat going into the finals. At one point, the only thing she kept thinking was that she was very hungry.

Nelson’s hunger didn’t seem to impact her performance because the university senior won the collegiate vocal division.

Getting to the point in life of winning an international competition didn’t start when she enrolled at the university. Nelson could easily trace the time, work and faith that went into her vocal and musical abilities — from her years in junior high (when her knees knocked when she would perform) through her time at a California high school before moving to Marble Falls the middle of her junior year. At each phase, Nelson found people who supported her no matter her dreams or aspirations.

Those people, of course, started with her parents, Chris and Suzanne Nelson.

“I love my mom and dad to pieces,” Nelson said. “They have helped and supported me all the time.”

A new student at Marble Falls High School her junior year, Nelson feared she might struggle with becoming an accepted member of the school and the choir program. But from the start, high school choir directors Bryce Gage and Jennie Lynn Hodges put those worries aside, especially when it came to the choir.

“They understood the ‘new girl’ syndrome I was dealing with and immediately got me involved in choir,” Nelson said. And it wasn’t just about getting involved in choir. Hodges and Gage had created a strong program at the high school that challenged students, often pushing them a little beyond what they were used to and providing them a place to grow as singers, students and people.

“It’s one thing to have a great experience performing in high school, but it’s another thing to have nurturing leaders, and that’s what we had at (Marble Falls High School) with them,” Nelson said. “They even took time to sit down with me in high school and ask where I wanted to go after high school. And they always supported me and never said, ‘Be realistic’ or something like that. I wouldn’t be at the school I’m at right now, the singer I am or the person I am right now without Marble Falls High School and that experience.”

And she’s not done — not by a long shot.

After a senior recital and graduation, Nelson is off to the Seagle Music Colony, a young artist residency program. She and 30 other invited vocalists will take part in an intensive vocal training program at what is considered one of the premier opera and musical theater-producing organizations in the country.

“This will be my bridge into other, bigger programs,” Nelson said.

Those bigger programs, she noted, all started with simply finding the thing she loved and pursuing it. Advice Nelson believes would benefit everyone.

“If somebody asked me for advice on what they should do, I would ask them what they loved and then ask them if they loved it enough to put all their heart into making it work,” she said. “I would encourage them to go for it because, you know, you only live once. And, in the end, you put the effort in and let God control the outcome.”

Go to www.marybethnelsonmezzo.com to learn more about Nelson and her burgeoning career.

daniel@thepicayune.com