"...i'm gonna watch you shine, gonna watch you grow..."

the most beautiful thing i've ever seen is my daughter.  the first time i saw her my heart just melted.  she was just minutes old and my eyes beheld a site more profoundly beautiful than anything i'd ever imagined.  granted, my perspective is somewhat biased, but the wave of emotion that flooded my entire being was so overwhelming that i stood there shaking uncontrollably...

 

even before she was born i would sing to her, or more accurately, i would sing to her mother's swollen belly.  there was always music in our house.  i was a half-assed musician and her mother a successful dancer/choreographer.  and alessandra absorbed it all.  as she grew i watched in amazement as her vivid imagination soared.  she loved to read, and she loved to sing and perform.  her first stage performance was when she was still an infant.  her mother was working with an avant garde musician doing an abstract music and dance piece.  there were sheets draped all over the stage with dancers moving through them.  alessandra was silhouetted inside one of these sheets, really more as a prop than anything, but at one point the musicians started doing a call and response jam and she piped in!  it was just baby sounds, but they were in key!  and they were in time with the music!  after the show they told me how they couldn't believe what they heard.  there was another time when she was around two and we were in the supermarket strolling the aisles.  here is this little tyke in the shopping cart seat singing her heart out.  oh yes, even then, she could sing, really sing.  as we strolled the aisles she is singing "you gotta have heart, all you need is heart"...  an older gentleman shopper remarked in utter disbelief that he couldn't believe his ears.  at two years old she could sing in key.  and these were not your typical kiddie songs either.  she loved to perform.  any time there was an audience she would treat us to "the alessandra show".  we would spend many an hour sitting around with me playing guitar and her singing.  one of her favorite songs was "oh bla di oh bla da".  another favorite was jewel's "you were meant for me".  those were good times...and she kept at it.  at nine she landed a role in a local community theater show.  she had lead roles in her high school shows.  now she is in college pursuing a bachelor of fine arts degree studying musical theater at the boston conservatory where in her first tryout she landed a supporting role.  

this is just the beginning of her story...