Yearlong Audition: Kate discovers a second passion

Samantha Foster
Spectrum Editor

During the last few months, voice major Kate Rancka discovered a second passion outside of music: Politics.

Rancka has been singing for 15 years and is heavily involved with choirs in her church and at VCU, but since turning 18 and being able to vote this year, she took up an interest in the recent presidential election.

“I’ve never really had a passion for anything other than music, and this election made me realize that maybe I do (have other passions).  Maybe I do like politics as much as I like music,” Rancka said.

Despite Rancka’s interest in politics, she said that she still plans on completing her degree in voice and may take a few political science classes while at VCU, but does not plan to fully follow her new found passion until later in life.

“Depending on how I feel in a few years, I would definitely consider pursuing law school after getting my music degree, and then, who knows, maybe just being a lawyer or pursuing running for office,” Rancka said. “I think being a senator would be a very cool position to have.”

Rancka also joked that her parents had been referring to her as “the singing lawyer” and “the singing senator,” a title she accepts.  Rancka hopes that her background in music will be helpful, should she ever choose to run for any political office in the future.

“I think it’d be interesting because there aren’t a lot of political figures that are involved in the arts,” Rancka said. “I know Tim Kaine is because I’ve actually performed with his daughter, … but you can’t name off the top of your head political figures that are fighting for the arts because there aren’t that many.”

Rancka said she has very liberal and democratic views, which sometimes conflicted with her life at home.

“I used to do a lot of shows with CYT (Christian Youth Theater) … And a lot of those kids–and it’s not a negative thing–but they’re brought up Christian and conservative and they still have a lot of those views,” Rancka said. “We would debate a lot. Those were the people that I mainly debated with, the people that I knew through those connections.”

With Rancka’s major in voice, she had some recent hardships when she got sick for the second time this semester.

“We had a concert, of course, our very first concert, so I ended up lip-syncing a little bit. I couldn’t get some of the notes out because I was so sick,” Rancka said.

On Nov. 5, Rancka had her first concert, the Choral Classic.  The Choral Classic invites choirs from local high schools to visit VCU and sing individually, and then as a large group with VCU students.

“I think it was cool for them to hear a college-level choir in their area,” Rancka said.

Rancka also explained that as a voice major, any voice lessons for classes must be canceled and rescheduled in the event of illness.

“Your life kind of stops,” she said. Rancka is involved with the Commonwealth Chorus and Women’s Choir at VCU, which she had to sit out for while sick.

“It isn’t a bad thing (to sit out) because you get to take a step back and listen to the choir,” Rancka said. “You’re able to make comments to help them because you have a different perspective…  It’s a good perspective to have every now and then.”

Despite Rancka’s recent break from singing and newly discovered love for politics, she is still holding true to her first love of music.

Rancka said, “I’ve always kind of said that if I wasn’t a musician I would be a politician.”