After hearing about Steinmetz Hall and how it was acoustically designed we asked a trained opera singer to break out in performance during the closing hours of MetaCenter Global Week. The moment was completely unexpected by vendors who were wrapping up after the 3 day conference that brought together two conferences, Synapse Orlando and Immerse Global Summit.

This was the inaugural MetaCenter Global Week that brought global brands like Meta, Google, Sony and Acer to Orlando while also featuring local brands like 302 Interactive, Mass Virtual, Red 6 and more.

Cassie Muffley, who was there representing the Orlando Innovation League is a Program Director at the National Security Innovation Network. We met Cassie a couple years ago at Indienomicon’s Armed Forces Jam and she’s easily become one of our favorite people to run into at local conferences and events.

After running into Cassie Wednesday afternoon we discovered that she was trained in Opera. We immediately pitched her on the idea of spontaneously singing in Steinmetz Hall on the last day. To our surprise, she obliged.

Cassie started singing in High School and entertained the idea of pursuing a career in music. She earned scholarships and sang in college, but changed her mind after seeking advice from her mom on whether music or engineering was the right choice.

Her mom said, “You can always sing on the side, but you can’t engineer on the side.”

Cassie continues to sing on the side and does so as a volunteer singing the National Anthem for charity events, military events and at I/ITSEC.

She can now claim that she has sung opera at Steinmetz Hall!