For an IT pro, life took an interesting turn

Asante’s Got Talent will feature a range of acts on Sept. 29 — from goofy and fun to poignant. But the employee talent show also will feature at least one professional act.

That would be the band Tension Deficit, led by vocalist Genevieve Predmore with her husband, Russ Carter, as lead guitarist.

By day, Predmore is supervisor of the ITS Service Desk. On the occasional evening and weekends, she is a “velvet-voiced” singer performing everything from Etta James to a cover of Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.” The band is described as eclectic, ranging from blues to classic country.

Tension Deficit is among 10 acts that will appear in Asante’s first-ever talent show, which will feature lip sync, dance, music and singing of all skill levels.

Although as a child in Long Beach, California, Predmore was surrounded by musicians (her mother and grandmother were pianists and her aunt a symphony pianist and violinist), she never envisioned performing professionally. Instead, her career took her into technology, where she worked for various companies, eventually landing at Oregon Institute of Technology.

For fun she’d sing karaoke or belt out the “National Anthem” as a vocal exercise while she puttered around the house.

It was when a panicked janitor approached her at the college that her musical ambitions took root. The men’s basketball team was playing that night, he told her, and the person who was supposed to sing the “National Anthem” had bailed. Would she do it?

Now it was her turn to panic. After “melting down in terror,” she agreed on one condition: That she wouldn’t have to sing in front of the crowd.

That night, she hunched beneath the bleachers and sang through a wireless microphone while a puzzled audience, hands over their hearts, looked around to see where the voice was coming from. In subsequent performances she eventually did sing out in the open, and her next chapter was born.

As with her singing debut, she has fallen into music more by default than design. She joined her first band when a musician friend called her at 11 p.m. to inform her that he was starting a band and she would be its singer.

“I wasn’t doing anything, so I said OK,” she recalls. When she insisted that the band needed a lead guitarist, a bandmate invited a friend to audition — a structural engineer who had recently lost this band.

His name is Russ Carter and he eventually became her husband.

The pair moved to the Rogue Valley for “a little more food and a little more music.” Predmore joined Asante in February 2020, one month before the pandemic office closures. In the years since she has been active in ABIDE, the Asante Belonging, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity initiative. On weekends and evenings, her duo or four-piece band, Tension Deficit, can be found performing at local wineries, and corporate and private events.

This growing side gig continues to surprise Predmore. “I’ve had no training, I don’t read music or play an instrument.” What she does have, however, is that voice.

To get a sneak listen, check out the band’s rehearsal tracks.

NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO 2024

7 to 9 p.m.
Friday, Sept. 29
Smullin Education Center on the ARRMC campus

Admission is free.

Bring your smartphone to vote for the People’s Choice winner and make sure to stop by the gallery exhibition in the lobby. Families and friends are invited!

If you can’t come in person, click on the button below to watch via Teams.