The Many Voices And Vocations Of Fiona

For the past four years, the voice has been heard all over Cambridge.

In the funk band, the Upside; in the rock band Robespierre; in the a capella group, the Opportunes. It has been featured in solo performances as well: at Jazz for Life, at the 350th Celebration two years ago, at the the Regattabar.

But the voice does more than sing.

It greeted dancers at the Senior Soiree. It helps arrange senior activities at Wadsworth House. And it has also been heard in psychology and organic chemistry classes.

All these situations.

One voice--that of Fiona V. Anderson '88.

Anderson is no ordinary student entertainer. Her performance skills span the musical spectrum, but her singing success is only half of the story. As a psychology major, she has managed to fulfill all her requirements for medical school in case her musical career does not meet her expectations. And those dreams may well be high--for after graduation Anderson plans to return to her home in Georgia and start working on a record under the auspices of an Atlanta-based studio.

Four years ago, Anderson would never have dreamed all this was possible. In fact, four years ago, Anderson thought she had given up a musical career forever when she turned down a recording offer from Savoy Records in order to come to Harvard. "When I came here, I had no idea that I'd be pursuing singing," Anderson says. "I thought that that would be the end of it all. But Harvard's given me such confidence in myself. And my friends said, `If you don't, Fiona, you're a fool.' So I just decided to try it."

"That's one thing I have to thank Harvard for doing," Anderson says. "I never did, and to this day I really don't, consider myself as any great singer. I just do what I like to do. It makes other people happy, and that makes me happy. But up until the time I came up here, I was still very insecure about the way I sang. I was in a group--we cut a record--and I hated singing lead."

But things have changed now, Anderson says. "By doing little things here and there, I've really become confident in what I do."

For all her purported lack of confidence, Anderson has had plenty of experience. "Singing has been my love forever," Anderson says. And how long is forever? "From the moment I could say `Ma-ma,'" she says.

The oldest daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Anderson was born in London and moved to the United States when she was three years old. Her father is a Pentecostal minister, and when she was little Anderson would sing during Sunday services, alone or in the choir.

Even then, the Kirkland House senior remembers, she had bouts of stage fright. "I remember it was such a struggle for me to sing," she says. "I remember when I was 10 years old, my daddy always asked me to sing a solo and I'd cry."

Although Anderson spent her early years in Massachusetts, her family moved to Georgia when she was 13. "I thought I wasn't going to like it, but I loved it," Anderson says. "I was kind of apprehensive about the whole thing. But I ended up really liking it. I liked the Southern mentality."

When it came time to choose colleges, Anderson knew exactly where she wanted to go--Harvard. "It's the best and I wanted to be here," Anderson says. "I knew that from the time I was in 10th grade. One day I decided I wanted to go to Harvard and that was it."

So great was her desire to go to Harvard that she almost didn't apply anywhere else, much to the dismay of her high-school guidance counselor.

"I only applied to three schools--Stanford, Harvard, and Northwestern," Anderson says. "I did those [Stanford and Northwestern] applications very half-heartedly just so that I could tell my guidance counselor that I did apply to some other schools. But he kept telling me, `You have to apply to a safety school.'"

Obviously, he was wrong. Anderson was accepted and, of course, came. The one culture shock the Georgia resident recalls experiencing during Freshman Week was parties. "I'd never seen so many people drink so much beer in my life," says Anderson, who lived in Grays freshman year. "I've never seen that much consumption."

Ironically enough, in March of her freshman year she received a slip of paper which read "Kirkland House." Guess what happened when she went to her first Kirkland party: "That was the second shock," Anderson says.

Although Anderson had decided to lay aside singing when she arrived at Harvard, she soon changed her mind Anderson tried out for the Opportunes freshman year and went on from there to join Robespierre, a pop/funk band which had become one of the more prominent bands by the time she joined. By the start of her junior year, Anderson's skills were so widely renowned that she was the sole undergraduate chosen to sing with the Boston Pops at Harvard's 350th stadium celebration.

"I think everybody just had fun, basically," Anderson says of that night when she performed before an audience of more than 27,000. "I was impressed with them [the Pops]. They were great."

But her favorite performing experience has come before a much smaller group. "Jazz For Life has been my favorite thing," Anderson says. "It's such a good cause, and you know that whatever you do, people are going to clap anyway. It's such a good feeling attached with that event. It's wonderful."

Anderson's Harvard experience, however, has extended far beyond the stage, and Anderson contends that most of her learning at college has been done away from the microphone.

"Harvard has done a couple of good things for me," Anderson says. "I came here very naive, thinking, `The world is wonderful. The world is good.' Certain experiences have made me aware that the world has its problems."

For instance, Harvard has given Anderson new perspectives on scholarship and elitism. "I don't like Cambridge too much," says the Georgia resident. "I don't like the pretentious atmosphere that I feel a lot of times. It seems here people judge you by your title, because of the intellegentsia that's here."

Anderson has first-hand experience of this kind of attitude through her job at the front desk of the Le Pli Spa at Charles Square. "It's so funny how these people with all kinds of titles behind their name automatically think that I should give them extra-special treatment," Anderson says. "It's funny how they treat me until they find out I go to Harvard. To me, that's kind of bogus because I was the same person I was before they knew where I went. I'll be glad when I'm at a place where people meet you first and then judge whether they like you and respect you."

But the First Class Marshal stresses that she has had no trouble fitting in at Harvard and at Radcliffe. "Being a Black female, I have another connection, the sisterhood of Radcliffe," she says. "The fact that this is our common denominator, I feel a sense of camaraderie."

That camaraderie in the Black community can at times be at problem, especially when it comes to dating, Anderson says. "A lot of the Black people who come in the freshman class bond very quickly, and everyone becomes like a sister or a brother to you," she says. "So that means that dating is out the window. The Black community is so small that anybody who dated anybody was probably your friend, and you would probably feel very awkward, going behind the person that they dated."

But aside from these minor social problems, Anderson says that the Harvard experience, for her, has been excellent. "I think it's a great opportunity for a Black person here. Myself especially, being the child of immigrants, working our way up to where we are now, being able to have the opportunity to go to such an illustrious institution."

"I consider myself blessed," she says. "There are a lot of people in my circle of friends for whom Harvard has been the best thing to happen for them. It's such a launching pad."

If Harvard has been a launching pad for Anderson, it's almost succeeded too well. Faced with a musical/medical dichotomy, Anderson says that she must now decide whether or not to go to med school. "I've been so lackadaisical about it the whole thing, trying to put it off for as long as I can," Anderson says. "I'm going to take the MCAT's in the fall, and I'll be applying this summer."

If she does pursue a medical career, Anderson hopes to work with adolescents. "It's in my future, anyway," she says. "I think I could have a rapport with them. It's something they need at that very impressionable age."

But first, she must face the music. "I have a tentative recording contract right now in Atlanta," Anderson says. "But I'm looking into Los Angeles now to see if I can maybe get some connections there. I might take two months and go to Atlanta and maybe see if I can get that together and then go to Los Angeles. I'm going to spread myself very thin."

While she has considered a solo album, Anderson says that for the time beginning she will concentrate on working with a group, perhaps one comprised of some friends and cousins. "In the gospel arena, there is a niche that needs to be filled by a female ensemble," she explains.

But no matter which road she takes, Anderson says, she will carry the legacy that Harvard gave her--self-assuredness.

"I've become confident in myself in voicing my opinion," Anderson says. "I used be afraid that people wouldn't like me or think that I was crazy because I said certain things. And now, I really don't care, because a lot can be done if you just simply stand up and say something."