Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

Radio 4. My My castaway this week is the singer Noah Stewart. These days he's a hit in

opera houses around the world and his solo CD has topped the classical charts yet for a long time

in spite of his top flight musical training the closest he managed to get to the stage was as a receptionist at Carnegie Hall. He also earned a buck waiting tables

and doing voiceovers for Sesame Street. His rich, clear tenor tones are matched by the

sort of good looks that would make a Hollywood movie star jealous.

So what is it that keeps him grounded?

Most likely the single mother who brought him up in Harlem.

He says, for me, it was hard to be there because I just didn't see many successful black men around

They were just not many of us who made it out so you did very much make it out

No, a steward, but but do go back. Harlem is still home. Oh yeah mom is still there. Yeah, it's my home. Most of my stuff is still there. So you don't have your own apartment? No, no. I'm on the road the last, I will say three years or so I've just been non-stop from living

out a suitcase really.

Right, so when you go home, you sleep in the same room you did when you were doing...

I do, and in fact couple of years ago I was laying in bed and my sister

and I we had bunk beds and it dawned on me that I was still sleeping in the bottom bunk

it's kind of embarrassing. that I was still sleeping in the bottom bunk.

It's kind of embarrassing.

But it's kind of sweet at the same time.

I'm still sleeping in the same bed that I grew up in.

And you've said, I don't mind being called an opera singer, but I'd rather be called a singer.

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