ABOUT 

In the north of England, Jenna Fan studied structural engineering at the University of Manchester. Her first profession was in the rail industry, but her first love was music. After marrying and settling in Ossett, West Yorkshire and starting a family, Fan taught piano and launched Fanfare Music, where students of all ages learn instruments—piano, guitar, violin, drums—and study voice and drama. She also launched Local Vocals, a pop chorus where participants sing their hearts out without having to audition. In addition, she leads other choirs and singing workshops.

In a parallel story, Cynthia Mahood Levin, in the San Francisco Bay Area, had put her musical aspirations on a back burner and began her career in the sciences. She earned a B.S. in biochemistry with a minor in music from Oakland’s Mills College and a master’s in health services administration from George Washington University. After 20 years as a health-care administrator, she quit an all-consuming job and reinvented herself as a singer. She became president of Palo Alto’s Aurora Singers, worked with voice coaches, and recorded albums of classical arias and love ballads. Eighteen of her cover songs are now on all major streaming services.

Then along came Covid, which relegated choral singers to Zoom, rehearsing in Brady Bunch boxes on their computers when they couldn’t meet in person. But ironically, it brought Jenna and Cynthia together when their choirs collaborated online. Now they’re a two-woman enterprise, writing and creating video recordings of songs they’ve written themselves. They call their band Our Parallel Lives, and the first of 10 songs in their debut album, “The Fifth Season,” will be released on May 19, along with a music video. 

“With the pandemic, suddenly the world became much smaller,” says Jenna, during Cynthia’s recent visit to Ossett, where the two were recording songs and creating music videos. Their songs look at life, love and careers from a woman’s point of view.

The name “Our Parallel Lives” echoes the personal and professional journeys that brought them together, despite geographical distances. Both are married with children—Jenna has three, Cynthia two—both held careers in the sciences, both grew up in small towns (Cynthia in South Dakota, Jenna in West Yorkshire), and both are passionate about music, once an avocation and now a vocation.

“It’s uncanny how similar our lives are,” says Cynthia. “We were in very formal careers, married with kids, and we went back to music.”

If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, they never would have met, but a serendipitous connection brought them together. Aurora Singers soprano Angela Cearns, related by marriage to Jenna, suggested inviting Local Vocals to join the Aurora Singers’ Zoom rehearsals. The Palo Alto group already had a longtime relationship with the Chorale Assou Lezert, their sister-city choir from Albi, France. When Local Vocals joined the three-way mix, Jenna and Cynthia coordinated rehearsals and virtual choral recordings together, soon became friends, and are now business partners.

Both were immersed in music from an early age, singing in church choirs and studying instruments. Jenna began playing piano at age four and guitar at nine. Cynthia began violin lessons at age eight and continued through college, playing in youth symphonies. She also played clarinet. But vocal music was her forte, and at age 18, she won a scholarship to sing with a Midwestern youth choir that was touring Europe. Later she began studying opera, working with a vocal coach.

When Jenna and Cynthia were just becoming acquainted, Cynthia asked Jenna about her dreams. Jenna said she wanted to be rock star and Cynthia said, “Who doesn’t?”

On that note, they agreed to write songs together with Cynthia writing the lyrics and Jenna jumping in to write the music. For Cynthia, recording pop was a move into a different musical genre. Jenna, an alto, has always been a pop singer at heart, but with roots in classical music—studying classical piano and guitar and singing in church choirs as a youth and in a traditional choral society for 10 years.

“It’s true, I always dreamed of being a rock star when I grew up,” says Jenna, who is 36. “Maybe we haven’t grown up yet.”

Cynthia, a youthful 50, has taken a more classical approach to music, although she has also performed musical theater and jazz. 

“It was a learning curve,” says Cynthia, a mezzo-soprano with a strong three-octave range. “I had to use Jenna’s pop coach. The rhythms were syncopated, which is tricky. There’s less articulation than in the classical genre,” with songs taking a more conversational tone.

That conversational tone permeates their musical messages. The song “I See You, I Hear You” was inspired by the stabbing of a woman in the streets of London, emphasizing that women need to band together, to make their streets and their lives safer.

Other songs grapple with relationships and trust. “Come Back to Me,” which releases as both a song and a video on May 19, shows a songwriter who begs her partner to return. In a parallel scenario, a second woman struggles to compose music. After the two characters meet and merge their talents, the songwriter’s former lover is left in the cold when he returns. 

“Just One Spark,” which will be released in June, captures the allure and risks of a love affair, including the unintended consequences. In the music video, an adulterous man finds himself out of luck when his wandering eyes get him into trouble more than once. “Oceans Wide,” inspired by the physical distance that separates Cynthia and Jenna, is about lovers who live on two different continents. 

Cynthia and Jenna both sing on each of the songs, providing their own back-up vocals. In addition, they worked with a musical arranger/director and with Production Haus, a professional media producer based in West Yorkshire. To stage one of the videos, four people moved a 600-pound upright piano into the Yorkshire countryside beside the ruins of a castle. Other scenes were filmed in a café, on village streets, the woods, by a lake, on a farm and in Jenna’s home and studio.

The cost of mounting these productions isn’t cheap, but in California, it would be prohibitive, says Cynthia, “so it made sense for me to travel.”

Coming together to forge a musical partnership involved a leap of faith, particularly during a pandemic.

“Switching careers into something risky is unusual,” says Cynthia. On the other hand, “With our life experience we’ve become strong women, with opinions, and we’re fearless.”

Adds Jenna, “ If we can inspire others to set aside the idea that it can’t be done, we’ll have succeeded.”

What’s next? Jenna and Cynthia will perform in the United Kingdom this summer, with hopes of a joint U.S. tour in the near future. They have already begun work on their second album. Stay tuned.