34-year-old Charlene Sawyer has a “rich and dark mezzo soprano voice,” today’s Charlotte Observer notes. Sawyer was not diagnosed with autism until she was 17 years old. She started piano lessons and performing with school choirs at the age of 12, and has been taking voice lessons since she was 14. And
Around this time, she says, her peers made fun of her because they knew she took special education classes. Instead of the socializing she might have enjoyed as a young teen-ager, she immersed herself in her budding gift, learning pieces in Italian, Latin, German and French.
Sawyer has written an …read more