Naperville childhood set Tamara Wilson on the path toward becoming an opera singer

“She was the main reason I became a singer,” Wilson said. When it came time to decide, “we paid for the flute so we were going to keep going with it. I told her ‘I’m going to stay in band’ and she was like ‘no, you’re staying in chorus.’” Wilson’s mother, a singer herself but not the stage mom type, said, “If she is adamant about it maybe you should stay.” Wilson added, “my dad worked for the railroad, and he was more stage mommy than my mom was. He would grill the admins at meetings. She wanted my teachers to teach me and she wanted to be my mom.”