(Vocal Jazz) Dawn Harkins - This Is Romance - 2011, MP3, 320 kbps

Dawn Harkins of St. Charles says she enjoys the whole process of creating a piece of music. She's working on her third CD, which will feature a combination of Broadway, cabaret, jazz and classical music.
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Music has been a part of Dawn Harkins’ life since she was a child.
“I always sang,” says Harkins, 42, of St. Charles. “My grandparents would laugh when I would go out onto the driveway and serenade the neighbors, using the hose as my microphone.”
Harkins graduated from Judson University in Elgin with a major in music performance. Now she’s a private voice and piano teacher in St. Charles, where she has lived for 21 years. She lives with her husband and four boys. Harkins has continued to pursue her passions of acting and singing and has recorded two CDs.
She works for Rising Star Theatreworks in Geneva as a vocal director for a couple of performances a year. She also has acted for the American Girl Theater in Chicago for two years.
Having four children and a singing career can be hard to balance, but Harkins makes it work.
“Being a private teacher allows flexibility between all of my boys’ activities and my music,” she says.
She is able to make her own schedule and make sure she has time to accomplish everything she wants to do. Harkins also has the support of her husband, and they work together to help each other.
Harkins’ dream was to be a Broadway performer, but after a battle with cancer at a young age (she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 24 years old), she had to change her goals. Being a cancer survivor, Harkins wanted to focus on her family.
“I always wanted a big family, and after all of the chemo, I wanted to make sure I could still have kids,” Harkins says.
Her career had to be put on the backburner for awhile. After her fourth son was born, Harkins started singing cabaret at Davenport’s in Chicago, which influenced her first CD, “Dawn of a New Day” (released July 2009).
“My first CD actually tells the story of my life since I was 18 (years old),” Harkins says.
“Dawn of a New Day” is available to buy at Kiss the Sky in Geneva. It’s available to download at www.CDbaby.com, www.amazon.com or www.iTunes.com.
From her first CD, Harkins picked one song to build off of for her second CD.
“I looked at other music from the same composer and then other music from the same era, so it has a 1930s theme,” she says.
Her second album, “This is Romance,” was released in September.
“This is Romance” is different from Harkins’ first cabaret-inspired CD.
“It’s very much easy listening,” Harkins says. “I started working with a new jazz pianist. This CD has a full rhythm section and various woodwind instruments, where the first was just me and a piano.”
There also are three pieces Harkins’ pianist, Bobby Schiff, arranged for her with string instruments. Some of Harkins’ favorite songs on the new CD are “Everything I Have is Yours” and “Lover,” which she says was fun to do because of the scat section.
After producing two albums, Harkins has found her favorite and most challenging aspects of creating a piece of work.
“I enjoy the whole process of creating a piece of music,” she says. “I love to research the music. I look at the lyrics first, and if they move me, I continue on from there.”
One of the difficult aspects of making music is wanting everything to sound right. Harkins is very picky about her work and how it sounds.
And Harkins has big plans for her future.
“I recently signed with a record label, Tate Music Group, and have plans to create a third album,” she says.
Harkins’ first two CDs have been covers of previously recorded music, where she puts her spin on each song. But her third CD will be a collection of original works.
“It should be a fusion of different styles — a combination of Broadway, cabaret, jazz and classical music,” Harkins says.

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