Vocalist Clears A Medical Hurdle

To Reach Life’s High Notes

By Larissa Lytwyn

Despite confronting a condition that obstructed her love of Irish dance, soccer, and similarly active pursuits, 19-year-old Clare Archer believes that “everything happens for a reason.”

“It’s possible that if I didn’t have this condition, I wouldn’t have centered everything as much as I do now on music,” the Newtown resident mused.

“This condition” is juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), a disease Clare has struggled with since she was 14.

The first-year Manhattanville College student recalls first experiencing ongoing flulike symptoms and an almost constant fatigue.

“Then my knuckles started swelling,” she remembers. “I began having difficulty playing the piano and dancing.”

Soon she even fought to open the cap of a shampoo bottle.

JRA (also known as idiopathic arthritis) is an autoimmune disease that affects about one in every 750,000 children. JRA inhibits white blood cells from discerning between healthy tissues and harmful bacteria and viruses. Instead of protecting the body from these invaders, the immune system releases chemicals that can damage healthy tissues and cause painful inflammation of the joints.

While about half of all affected children eventually outgrow the ailment, it is difficult to predict which children will.

Clare is treated with a medication often used in chemotherapy that allows her to maintain a relatively normal, active lifestyle.

It remains unlikely, however, that she will be able to revive her old love of dance and athletics in the near future.

She also undergoes regular blood tests done to monitor her condition and uses exercises she has learned in physical therapy to stretch her often stiff limbs.

In the meantime, Clare turned to a love that has grown into her life’s pursuit: music.

The 2003 graduate of Holy Cross High School in Waterbury credits the Catholic school for financially supporting her involvement each summer in a Boston Conservatory (BOSCO) summer program as well as her participation in a one-week West Hartford-based music camp, the later through a scholarship provided by the General Federation of Woman’s Clubs of Connecticut.

Clare spent two weeks at the Boston Conservatory’s Summer Solo and Vocal Choral Institute immersed in music education, from performance rehearsals to intensive classes on music theory, ear training, vocal technique, musical theater, and opera.

“My experience at Holy Cross really was an amazing one,” Clare said, crediting music teacher Joseph Jacovino as a mentoring influence.

Mr Jacovino helped her become involved with the St Rose of Lima Church Choir and Connecticut Master Chorale.

He also was her inspiration for becoming a teacher.

“I’d like to work at the middle or high school level,” she said. “While younger students are just being introduced to music, older ones are already familiar with it.”

Teaching, she continued, would give her the opportunity to inspire a lifelong passion for music in her students.

She also plans to pursue a master’s degree in music therapy.

“I would like to help people with arthritis or Alzheimer’s,” she said, “through music, which can be a healing force.

“I want to catch their attention,” she said, “and really get them interested in the passion of music!”

Though she received a nearly full scholarship to attend Manhattanville College through Holy Cross programs and a $200 award from the National Association of Women Business Owners’ state chapter, she is in the process of transferring to Berklee College in Boston this fall.

“Considering the honors and AP courses I took in music and academics at Holy Cross, Manhattanville wanted me to skip a year and become third-year status this fall,” Clare explained. “But I didn’t want to miss out on the whole college experience.”

Clare was eager to transfer to the Boston school. “I know a lot of people that go there, who will be looking out for me,” she said. “Plus it is an exclusively music-centered school.”

She’s also familiar with the campus itself.

“During my summers at BOSCO we stayed at Berklee facilities,” she said.

Clare describes her mother, a former religious education director, and father, a General Electric employee, as deeply supportive.

“I’m the only musician in the family,” she laughed. “But my parents have been great.”

In addition to their moral support, she said, they also helped finance her many years of voice and piano lessons, auditions, and other industry-related costs.

After college, she said, she would like to stay in the New England area. “Connecticut feels like home to me,” Clare noted, having also lived, on account of her father’s career, in states including Ohio, Illinois, and Texas.

“Mr Jacovino tells me that he’s going to retire in five years,” Clare said, laughing, “and he says that I can take his job!”