NATCHEZ &045;&045; Four years of grueling study and practice in New York City have put Heather Christian where she wants to be, starting a career as a musician, song writer and singer.

With a glittering diploma from the Tisch School of Theater Arts of New York University hanging fresh on the walls of her parents’ Main Street home, she, too, has come home &045;&045; for rest and relaxation, but also to perform.

&uot;I’ve been looking forward to getting back home,&uot; she said. &uot;It will be the first time in four years I’ll get to go to the balloon races.&uot;

Today, at 8 p.m. and again at 10 p.m., she will perform at Center City Grill, giving her hometown friends and others a sample of her style of jazz and blues.

&uot;I went to New York and found I was much more a Southern girl than I thought,&uot; Christian said. &uot;It’s the way I sing and how I say it. I realize how much Mississippi is inherently a part of my behavior.&uot;

A 2000 graduate of Cathedral High School, she recalled the early musical influences in her life &045;&045; a home where music always was playing and teachers who encouraged her.

&uot;When I was 6 or 7, I was in the children’s choir. They told me I was loud and obnoxious,&uot; Christian said. &uot;Then I met Alvin Shelby, who taught music at Cathedral School. He turned the obnoxious into rocking and rolling.&uot;

As a sixth-grader, she became a cantor at her church, St. Mary Basilica. By then, she was studying piano with Natchez teacher Doris Burt, &uot;who made me work very, very hard. I loved it, I hated it and then I really loved it,&uot; she said, recalling her struggle to remain dedicated to the lessons.

Christian left for New York thinking of a career on Broadway. That idea no longer appeals to her.

&uot;I learned that Broadway is do-able. I have friends performing on Broadway,&uot; she said.

&uot;It’s not a high-paying job and it’s not on your terms. You have to be in a chorus for years and years, usually two shows a day. It’s not the lifestyle for me.&uot;

Instead, she is taking her intensely personal songs and music to live audiences in clubs, and she has recorded albums.

She has a following at Bitter End and Apocalypse Lounge, the two clubs where she has regular jobs with her ensemble.

Developing her own style has not come easily, she said.

The classical training required by NYU during her first year &uot;blew my mind. I became terrified and didn’t want to sing any more.&uot;

She sought relief with a New York City blues band and began studying on the side with a teacher whose specialty was post-modern free jazz, an experimental jazz, she said. And she took lessons at Julliard School of Music. &uot;I realized I’d never sing classical. And then I got my heart broken and started writing music,&uot; she said.

Her self-confidence is high, even though the New York competition can be brutal. Christian recalled the influence of theater arts teacher Cheryl Morace at Cathedral School.

&uot;She taught drama. I was sort of her sidekick. She single-handedly took on the job of being the creative force at Cathedral to make the theater arts program work,&uot; Christian said. &uot;It was her attitude that I remember. She was such a soldier.&uot;

Her parents, Dennis and Darlene Christian have given her just what she needed, she said &045;&045; complete freedom to do what she wanted to do.

&uot;I’d never been to New York before, but I painted it on my walls when I was young,&uot; she said. &uot;It’s so important to know I have support here at home. My parents have been blindingly accepting of me.&uot;