Noah Stewart becomes first black musician to top British classical music charts Raised, along with his sister, by his mother, Patricia, in Harlem, New York, Stewart always knew he could sing. As his mother worked tirelessly to put food on the table and support him, he won his first competition aged 12, and enrolled in LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York. His love of opera began when he began watching a recording every day before classes of Verdi's Requiem. Inspired by the black soprano Leontyne Price, he recognised how far he might go. Nicknamed "opera boy" by his friends, he won a scholarship for the prestigious Juilliard School of Music. Yet here, just where his career should really have taken off, it hit the buffers. He had learned and been exposed to so many musical inspirations and expressions, he described life at the New York establishment as "like putting on a straightjacket." As straight as his career path had risen, he started going backwards fast. "When I got there I was ahead of the curve," he said. I already knew Italian, I knew how to sight read. I had all these musical experiences and these guys were much more reined in. It was a real shock. Feeling alienated, his singing suffered and by his own admission he failed to live up to the expected standards. He got through, but at a price. Bruised and overly self-critical, he felt he just couldn't continue. He took a year off, but soon realised that without the anchor that had been with him since he was little, he was lost. "I just sank," he said. Mom was really disappointed. It kind of broke her heart. In a weird way I felt like I wouldn't sing again. Seeking a way back, he took odd jobs, including as a receptionist at Carnegie Hall. "There was a bit of me that thought just by answering the phone someone would hear that Juilliard-trained voice and I'd get a break," he said. It didn't come, so he signed up with the smaller opera companies in New York, the "odd balls" as he called them, and "found my voice again." From there he won a place on the prestigious Adler Program at San Francisco Opera, and in his last year got the break he'd been waiting for. With 15 minutes" notice he went on to sing Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth. It was a major success and Stewart's star has been in the ascendancy ever since. The three years he spent in the wilderness, he said, "taught me to find out what I really want and taught me to trust myself. I have that now. The three years of everyone saying no to me forced me to figure it out.