You can’t hear it, but Vanessa Grant is holding a loud, beautiful, operatic note in this picture. She stepped away from her work as a corporate finance and M&A lawyer to let Precedent capture her other life as an opera singer.
“Most people push for casual Friday at work, but I wish there was formal Friday,” says Grant, who owns about a dozen gowns and would love to have a reason to wear them offstage. A graduate of The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, Grant has been singing all her life. She took a short break from performing during law school, but then worked it back into her schedule after her call to the bar. Even now, as a partner at McCarthys, she manages to sing in three or four shows every year, typically for fundraisers. Fitting opera into her life isn’t really a choice: “For me it’s like breathing,” says Grant. “I can’t not sing.”
Photography by Liam Sharp