FEATURE • MY STORY
My story
Sophia Grech Sophia Grech is an internationally acclaimed opera singer with Asperger syndrome who performs as a soloist all over the world. But it wasn’t an easy journey to get to where she is now. She told us her story.
I
think my childhood was probably very typical for someone with AS. I went to school in the 70s and 80s and hated it. I hardly spoke and never listened to anything in lessons. I couldn’t follow what was going on in the classroom – I could hardly read or write. I was constantly being smacked by teachers for drawing pictures in my exercise books instead of writing. School was one big confusing situation – I didn’t understand anything at all! I didn’t really have any friends, and experienced bullying from virtually Sophia has sung for royalty
my first day at school. The bullying was brutal both mentally and physically. Every day felt like a desperate hell and I just wanted to die. When I was 13, my family moved to Weymouth. I joined a new school and they said I was four years behind the rest of my class. I begged them to let me take O-Level scripture early like my classmates. They said I’d fail, but I thought that if I could learn the whole bible from memory, how could I fail? So that’s what I did – down to every full stop, and got an A grade in the exam. My time at that school was the only time in my childhood that I was happy, because the school only had about 25 girls in a year. The other girls were very kind to me but I didn’t really enjoy having friends and didn’t socialise outside of school. LEARNING TO SING In Weymouth, I started to sing. My parents were delighted that I wanted to sing, and paid for lessons. In my first lesson the teacher asked, “How long have you been able to sing like this?” He said I had a big talent, and contacted the Royal College of Music in London to ask if they would see me when I was about 14. They said I was too young, but after a bit of persuasion from him they agreed and gave me a consultation lesson from the head of singing. After 30 minutes she asked, “Would you like to be an opera
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singer?” I thought, “What the heck? Opera? What’s that?” but replied “Oh yes, I would love that.” She wanted to start teaching me, and gave me lessons every fortnight at the RCM. OVERCOMING ADVERSITY I wanted to go to the RCM full time, but you need to be really good at reading music to pass the entrance exam. My previous schools had said I was musically untalented so had denied me music theory lessons, so I had my work cut out. I became totally fixated and obsessed with learning to read music and classical musicianship. I told my parents I needed to make music second nature, like eating dinner. The work paid off – I took grade five theory and got 100% in the exam, and when I took a grade eight singing exam, I got a distinction. But at sixth form college, my life fell apart. College felt huge, I was back in the normal world with lots and lots of people. It was agonizing. I spoke to no one, and sometimes could barely face going. I just wanted to disappear, and began to starve myself. I spent all my time alone. I was known as the “weirdo” or “Pavarotti” after some kids worked out that I loved to sing. All I wanted to do was hide in my bedroom and study music. I couldn’t cope, and ended up leaving to join the Youth Training Scheme which was