If you attended our March concert, Soul Migrations, you had the pleasure of hearing our choir member, Fulgencio Schonborn, as the soloist for Kirchner's Bright Morning Stars. Ful also serves as a section leader for our Bass section and we are pleased to be able to feature him in this Singer Spotlight!
Ful was born to a Guatemalan mother and Californian father in Guatemala City, moving to the United States with his parents when he was four years old. In Guatemala, his father was a Peace Corps volunteer and his mother was a school teacher. Ful has two younger, soccer-playing brothers who also love theater and music. The family traveled quite a bit before, drawn to the beauty of the Northwest and the access to nature, settling in Ferndale, WA. Ful credits his parents for supporting his goals as a musician, they never miss an opportunity to see him perform.
Ful's interest in music started at a very young age, singing along to the Backstreet Boys at age two (even though he was a native Spanish speaker at the time). As he grew, he continued to imitate what he heard on the radio and really started to dig in to the academic side of music in fifth grade. He began playing the cello in fifth grade through middle school when he was swayed over to join the choir by the promise of proximity to a girl he had a crush on. "I fell in love almost instantly... with choir that is!" And that love of vocal music continues to this day.
After high school, Ful attended BYU's Idaho campus for a year and a half where he studied Vocal Performance and Conducting. He was a teacher's assistant and conductor for the Women's Glee Choir, founded a Singer's Diction Lab, and was a member of the Collegiate Singers. He is currently working toward being a university professor, focusing primarily on choral and vocal music.
Ful has been drawn to being a musician because of "the concept of being able to create something that nobody could judge you for. There were no rules that couldn't be broken and nothing was off limits. It's such a creative medium that many people enjoy and I wanted to be a part of the process."
Besides choral music, Ful enjoys hip-hop, rap and many varieties, excluding country music. Outside of music, Ful has recently become interested in body building. "I find that it gives me a sense of accomplishment knowing that I am putting hard work into my body, which in turn promotes good health and strong lungs. Luckily, strong lungs help with singing so it does relate at least a little bit," he says. Ful also appreciates the art of cinema, attending 53 movies last year, and enjoys cooking and playing video games. He would also like to visit Europe, have a group perform one of my compositions, try rocky mountain oysters and get married. He will wed his opera-singing fiance this summer!
About his involvement with the Bellingham Chamber Chorale this year, Ful shares: "Honestly, being in BCC just makes me so happy; primarily because of the ability to make music with people who really love and are passionate about it. It's very freeing being surrounded by professionals and people of all difference experiences and education. It has really helped me see a bigger picture and allowed me to focus more on the musicality and the flow rather than just notes and words. VERY excited for the Coronation Mass."
To hear Ful and the rest of the Bellingham Chamber Chorale, mark your calendar for our next concert, Euphoria, May 18th and 19th!