Helping Others Find Their Voice

Creative Connections intern Bahar Alimohammadi and her commitment to arts education

By Gamy Cortes

At UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts (UCI Arts), the office of Access & Engagement connects students and local artists in ways that open doors into the professional world, promoting the creative sector of Orange County.

Two programs are at the core of this endeavor. Arts Launch pairs UCI Arts students with Orange County arts organizations, offering paid, year-long internships that build hands-on management skills and career pathways. Creative Connections sends teaching artist interns into K-12 classrooms, where they collaborate with educators to bring art, dance, drama and music to students who may not have had those resources otherwise.

Together, these programs are cultivating the next generation of creative leaders while making the arts more accessible, inclusive and alive.

Sound in the Body

It is inspiring, and even hard to imagine: a singer who was born three months premature and, as a result, grew up hard of hearing. Yet Bahar Alimohammadi '26, a Music major in UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts, found her way into the world of sound during infancy and toddlerhood by associating what she heard with what she could see or touch. The first of these associations came through Disney princesses like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

Awakened by their singing, Alimohammadi sang more than she spoke. She understood, as she does now, the power of singing over conventional speech.

“I’m drawn to moments where a person is feeling too much to speak normally, so they have to sing instead,” said Alimohammadi. “Opera is the moment where the emotion has reached a point of demanding more, whether that’s grief, love, longing, or defiance.”

The challenges of Alimohammadi’s early life have taught her how to approach the layers of opera. Singing over an orchestra without the backing of a microphone for hours requires endurance and power, yet a maintenance of beauty, characterization and the emotion of a given scene.

“I understand sound with a multi-sensory experience which informs my understanding of the text,” said Alimohammadi. “These stories feel alive in my body, and I want to make them feel immediate for the people listening, making me part of something much larger than myself.”

That sense of responsibility to something larger than oneself carries into Alimohammadi’s Creative Connections work as a voice and choir assistant teacher at Ethel Dwyer Middle School.

“As musicians, we often place great emphasis on perfecting our craft in performance,” said Alimohammadi. “But I believe there is something wonderful about taking that art and giving it right back to the next generation by teaching them how to harness it themselves.”

Beyond rehearsing scales, she often found herself building the confidence of her elementary and middle school students. She understands how in opera the singing should be large and powerful, and that a lack of confidence constrains and makes small the beauty of one’s singing.

One memory Alimohammadi recalls that exemplifies the process of building a student’s confidence is from her time conducting as part of her internship. Working on the Malaysian song “Ikan Lekek,” her students found the foreign language intimidating. So they spent the trimester relating the text to an experience in their own lives — in their specific case, seeing their favorite food.

“Watching them grow from being uncertain or self-conscious with singing in a new language to genuinely having a blast on that stage was very rewarding,” said Alimohammadi. “My class was discovering the joy in music and finding fulfillment for themselves in the process, which is what music is about at its core.”

Voices of Encouragement

Like the Seven Dwarfs and the Three Good Fairies helping Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Alimohammadi would not be where she is without the help of her teachers and mentors.

Those who gave her artistic knowledge were her voice teacher, Darryl Taylor, a UC Irvine trailblazing countertenor and champion of underrepresented voices, and her collaborative pianist and coach, Junko Nojima, whose decades of experience across international stages have earned her a cornerstone of UC Irvine’s vocal arts community.

Those who established the networks to give that said artistic knowledge back to the community were Megan Belmonte, Director of Access & Engagement, and Simon Harrison, a Creative Connections alumnus who found his own full-circle path back to the program as a specialist.

“They taught me that no matter who you are, there is a place for you as a musician or an artist in this world,” said Alimohammadi. “I know one day we can make this an accessible reality for everyone.”

What's Next?

Alimohammadi not only looks excitedly to her future as she begins her master’s program at the University of Southern California in Vocal Arts and Opera, but also humbly at her past.

“Being able to reach this milestone is a privilege that I have my voice teacher, coach, mentors, family and friends to thank for their support over the years,” said Alimohammadi.

To learn more about Creative Connections, visit here. To learn more about the Department of Music, visit arts.uci.edu/music.