When Dr. Marilyn Kellam started practicing internal medicine in 1985, she quickly realized that she could easily become a “serious workaholic” if she did not find an outlet for creativity.
“I could see it coming that I could spend all of my time in the hospital taking care of patients,” said Dr. Kellam, who practices at Shore Memorial Hospital in Nassawadox, Va. “This drove me to make sure that I had a healthy mix of work and avocation and to make sure that I was more well rounded.”
That outlet became singing, an avocation she pursued after attending a production of “The Fantasticks” at the local Trawler Dinner Theater. The cast members “looked like they were having so much fun,” recalled Dr. Kellam, who took piano lessons as a youngster but no formal voice lessons. After the show, attendees were told that the theatre's next production would be “Camelot.” Dr. Kellam decided that she “would like to get involved with that show in some way,” so she auditioned and earned a role as a tree.
“It also turned out to be a part as one of the ladies of the roundtable,” she said. “I also got a part as a singer and dancer as part of the chorus. At the first rehearsal, I was totally hooked. I was sucked in.”
Mindful that she would benefit from professional voice training, she enrolled at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne and took personal lessons from voice teacher Dr. Gerald W. Johnson for several years, developing a proficiency in classical music style. She performed in about 35 productions at the Trawler Dinner Theater under the direction of Judi Beck before it closed in 2000.
Determined to pursue singing as a creative outlet, she auditioned for a role in a production of “Turandot” staged by the Norfolk-based Virginia Opera (www.vaopera.org
“When I'm involved with an opera it only involves 2 months of my time,” she said. “But it's an intense amount of time. It involves rehearsals Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday, and commuting 60 miles each way.”
Dr. Kellam, who considers current voice teacher, Sondra Gelb, a key influence, described her involvement in the opera production as “pure joy, no strings attached. It's something I do for me, and there's camaraderie, a team spirit. There's a creative spirit and, of course, the magic of music, and I don't have to worry about hurting anybody.”
Her roles have varied over the years and have included Carrie Pipperidge in “Carousel,” Snoopy in “You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” and the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz.”
Some patients who are aware of her avocation worry about losing their physician to a career in music, but Dr. Kellam assures them she's not about to leave her career in medicine. “If I had to make my living as a musician, it would lose the joy, because now it's just that: sheer joy,” she said. “I don't have to worry about the business of music. This got me involved with people who are completely uninvolved in medicine, a completely different bunch of people. I get tired of talking about medicine. Not that I don't love it and don't love my patients, but I like the nonmedical world, too.”
Finding Inspiration in Music
According to Dr. Joel Ang, his vocation as a full-time family physician and his avocation as a violinist are irrevocably intertwined.
In family medicine, he explained, “you have to think of a patient as someone who is multidimensional. In music, you do the same thing. You're trying to put things together, trying to work on very specific details of that piece. I learn a lot of medicine through the music and playing the violin because you have to think that way. The thought process is the same.”
Born in the Philippines, Dr. Ang was raised in Raleigh, N.C., where he started playing violin at the age of 12 years in an orchestra at the public school he attended and went on to excel with the instrument. He enrolled in music camps each summer, played in state orchestras in high school, and earned a spot in the Duke University Symphony in Durham, N.C., as a college undergraduate.
He kept playing during medical school—though not as much as he would have liked—and viewed his avocation as “a way to keep stress from building up.”
As he improved, he became intrigued by the technical demands of the violin, noting that “a lot of brain power and technical work is required before you achieve proficiency with the instrument,” said Dr. Ang, who practices in Washington. “You're using a lot more of your right brain in actually producing that, letting that happen. Allowing emotion to come out of the instrument is an incredible experience.”