Blair Academy student Josie Packard is quickly emerging as one of the region’s most promising young vocalists after earning third-place honors in the High School division of the prestigious Classical Singer National Vocal Competition in Boston. She also placed among the top 25 performers in the Musical Theatre category.
For Packard, a high school junior who only began formal voice study a little more than a year ago, the national recognition marks a period of remarkable growth in an intense field. The achievement is even more striking given her musical beginnings were not in voice, but cello. Packard has studied cello for eight years and continues to perform in the Curb Youth Symphony while taking lessons through Blair Academy.
“I started off playing cello and it was something that I really loved,” she said. “But then once I started doing vocal, I realized that that was what my passion was.”
Her current vocal instructor, Blair faculty member Hailey Clark, has played a major role in accelerating that growth.
“She’s very enthusiastic and encouraging, but she also pushes me really hard,” Packard said. “She tells me when I’m doing something wrong, which definitely helps a lot.”
Commenting on her rising student, Clark said “It’s such a pleasure to watch Josie thriving from all her hard work. She’s got a natural drive to honor her talent with her commitment to improve — I just try to keep up!”
The Boston event featured more than 800 singers from across the country and the competition was grueling as singers progressed through multiple elimination rounds. The selected finalists performed in a public concert, with Packard ultimately finishing among the top three singers nationally in her category.
“She may have been the only one in the juniors and seniors that made it into the semifinals in both of those divisions,” Josie’s mother Emily Packard, also a trained classical vocalist, said. “It’s pretty rare for them to make it into both.”
The Boston trip also opened doors for Packard’s collegiate future. Universities from across the country attended the convention, offering scholarships and recruiting talented young singers through master classes and performances. Packard received scholarship offers valued at more than $140,000 from a number of top universities and is beginning to prepare audition tapes as she prepares for the next stage in her career.
Beyond competitions, Packard’s summer schedule reflects the increasingly national scope of her musical journey. She will travel with the Blair Youth Choirs to California, attend the prestigious Schmidt Vocal Institute at Miami University in Ohio, and participate in a humanitarian mission to Guatemala to help build a school.
Emily Packard said Blair Academy’s environment has been instrumental in helping her daughter develop quickly as both a musician and performer.
“Speaking to so many parents and teens, I realize how rare and special what they have at Blair is,” she said. “The fact that she can have music theory, music history, choirs, ensembles, private lessons — all of that together is extraordinary.”
Packard now hopes to pursue a professional future in opera, inspired in part by the artistic community she has observed through her mother’s career.
“I would love to be an opera singer,” she said. “More than anything, I just love doing it. It brings me a lot of joy.”