From Opera Singer to Business Owner, Diana Pray '97 Follows Her Muse

March 31, 2004

March 31, 2004, Greencastle, Ind. - 1997 DePauw University graduate Diana Pray "had a couple days between rehearsals at San Francisco Opera late last summer, so she and a friend hopped in her convertible and headed down to Santa Cruz," begins an article in the Tribune of Pacifica, California. "Little did she know that hours later on the Boardwalk beach, she'd be dreaming of Seaside Gems in Pacifica. The little Rockaway Beach jewelry boutique and its partner shop of art glass and finely crafted furnishings was a place Pray's friend had been longing to take her, and time was running out, because the current owners were selling the business. That day, she walked out with a stunning new piece of jewelry. Three months later, she walked in with the keys to the store. With two weeks and eight performances remaining on her contract singing with SF Opera, Pray found herself as a small business owner, the new proprietress of Seaside Gems Fine Jewelry and Arts."

Pray, the story points out, "hails from Cincinnati, but she spent all her childhood summers with relatives in Santa Cruz and East Bay, getting to San Francisco whenever she could. She earned a bachelor's degree in vocal performance from DePauw University in Indiana before gathering the resources to make San Francisco her home."

"I've been successfully marketing myself as a singer for 10 years," Pray tells the newspaper. "I wanted more art. With Seaside Gems, I saw the opportunity to surround not only myself with art, but to offer it to others in new, fresh, and entirely accessible ways."

The article continues, "A lustrous grand piano is the centerpiece of Seaside Gems. Pray plans to hold a regular schedule of performances there in the near future. She'll be singing. Her colleagues from the opera will perform, too. She has a long list of Bay Area performers -- classical, jazz, and world -- who have enthusiastically agreed to come play." She says, "My overall goal is to make fine music and art a normal thing in our society. I'm certainly not the first or the only one with that goal, but with this store, this venue, I'm doing my part in a unique way. Yesterday's Schubert, Debussy, and Beethoven are today's Coltrane, Bowie, and Glass. It's time we fully embrace real art and encourage new masters, and have their tunes in our heads as we go through our day ... This is a way to make my life, and everyone else's, a life of art."