For singers like Auburn native Jason Abrams, there are few grander stages than Carnegie Hall.

Abrams was set to make his debut at the distinguished New York City venue in mid-December, in a production of Georg Friedrich Handel's “Messiah.” But he got sick.

“The singer who took my place got sick too, so I think it's just a cursed role,” Abrams joked in a phone interview.

The canceled performance would probably bother Abrams more if his singing career wasn't so successful otherwise. He moved to Manhattan in 2004 and spent two years adjusting to its furtive pace and finding musical opportunities. In the past year, however, he has packed his calendar with performances in church choirs - like those of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church near Lincoln Center - and opera roles - such as Arsamene in the Pittsburgh Opera's Feb. 2006 production of Handel's “Xerxes.”

With his full-time workload, Abrams feels he has finally reached the point where he could comfortably call himself a real singer.

“It wasn't overnight, like an ‘American Idol' situation,” Abrams said. “I had to establish contacts, build a network, audition for the right people and be strategic about building a career.”

Abrams sang some of his first notes in the Casey Park Elementary School choir, where he was frequently spotlighted as a soloist. For a fifth-grade performance that took the form of a tribute to armed forces veterans, Abrams remembers dressing in his grandfather's Army uniform, which drooped off his shoulders during the show. In attendance was Abrams' mother, Marleen Bremermann (maiden name Franczek).

“Of course I cry at all his shows,” she said.

Both of Abrams' parents were music enthusiasts who opened the doors to performance opportunities but didn't push him through them. As he sang, Abrams practiced violin and piano in his early childhood. He abandoned the former instrument after a few years and ceased piano studies when his family moved to Virginia Beach following elementary school. Lacking the encouragement from his Auburn teacher, Abrams feels he lost his love of the instrument.

“When I started, she told me I had potential because I used my whole hand and not my finger,” Abrams said.

Though he pulled away from piano and violin, Abrams' passion for vocal performance thrived throughout his late childhood. For Christmas, he often requested recordings of classic operas, such as Puccini's “Madame Butterfly” and Verdi's “La Traviata.”

“I was starstruck by opera singers and the way they perform for an audience, making a living doing what they loved,” Abrams said. “I knew it wasn't right for me to be sitting behind a desk.”

But it wasn't until Abrams applied to colleges that he seriously pondered vocal performance as a livelihood.

“I knew he was serious, so I told him to reach for the stars,” Bremermann said. “That was his dream, he had to go after it.”

As a music major at James Madison University, Abrams learned to overcome stage fright and assert his identity in front of an audience.

At graduate school at the University of Arizona, he found his comfort zone as a countertenor when an instructor heard that higher quality in Abrams' voice .

“A countertenor is rare, a lot of teachers have never had one,” Abrams said. “So it was important to find a teacher who knew what to do with me.”

Abrams continued to refine his technique during two years at the New England Conservatory of Music and a summer fellowship at Tanglewood Music Center in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts.

“Being exposed to that international melting pot of world class musicians gave me the urge to get somewhere bigger,” he said.

A desire to sustain his momentum motivated Abrams to move to New York City after finishing his fellowship. Like many aspiring artists, he worked a day job waiting tables when he wasn't auditioning for roles. He soon learned to avoid the company of fellow singers who stoked his competitive fires in negative fashion.

The first two years Abrams spent in the city taught him several other lessons that he feels have served him well in pursuing his singing career.

“It toughened me up, it taught me how to negotiate and stick up for myself,” he said. “And it's such a creative environment, it charged me up a lot.”

In 2007, Abrams' schedule swelled with roles in the Greenwich Music Festival's production of Handel's “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” and as Nireno in “Guilio Cesare” by both the Florida Grand Opera and the Connecticut Opera Theater. He recently landed the understudy slot for the lead countertenor role in the New York City Opera's production of Purcell's “King Arthur.”

Abrams' manager, Guy Barzilay, attributes his client's success to his “very distinctly beautiful color of voice,” handsome look and versatility across comedies, tragedies and serious theater.

Barzilay also believes Abrams benefits from the elevation of the countertenor role in recent years. In the past, such roles were commonly given to women.

“Now it's more common to insist on believable stage presence,” Barzilay said. “Which means countertenors get to perform on stage more.”

But Abrams does not owe his roles to luck. Bremermann feels her son's success results from the passion and persistence that brought him to New York City and kept him there despite the difficulties he faced.

It seems the only fortune to shape Abrams' career lately was that which made him sick before what should have been his Carnegie Hall debut.

“There's not a lot you can do,” he said. “Carnegie Hall will happen sometime later.”

On the Net

To hear Jason Abrams sing, visit www.jasonabrams-music.com