grecchinois

Martin Isepp

2011-12-28T17:20:00.000-05:00

A friend was saying to me recently over the holidays that itseemed to her in our current fast-paced age, true mentors are hard to comeby. In some ways, I felt a bit of truth toher words, and if that is truly the case, I feel incredibly lucky to have had somany people who I would consider mentors throughout my years as a musician sofar. One of the greatest of these for mewould most definitely be the pianist, coach and conductor, Martin Isepp.

I’ve often said that my four summers at Marlboro saved my relationshipwith music. After a few years ofhustling to carve out a beginner’s foothold in the tough and competitiveoperatic world, I arrived for my first summer at Marlboro burnt out, somewhatjaded, and a tiny bit unsure why I was going there in the first place. Hindsight being 20/20, when I look back atthat version of myself standing perplexed and terrified at the threshold of myfirst, rustic dorm room on the Marlboro campus, I strongly believe that themain reason the fates had brought me to Marlboro that first summer was becauseI was starved for inspiration. Martinwas one of the main people in whom I found that inspiration which I sodesperately needed.

Over the course of my four summers at Marlboro, I exploredwith Martin the many complex layers of the songs of Britten, Schumann, VaughanWilliams, Brahms, Wolf and Mozart. AsMartin guided me through the twists and turns of all this music over the course ofour many sessions at Marlboro together, I came to understand that his approachto music came from a place of deepest respect and love for the art form. A tough and demanding coach, he never let onenote of music be poorly sung, nor one phrase pass by unexamined or unstylishlyturned. Yet, despite being so rigorous and exacting, his manner was, for the mostpart, very gentle. If he didn’t likesomething one did, he would sigh as if disappointed that you had broken hisfavorite piece of china and then begin to go about gently prodding the musicianhe was working with in a different direction, gradually cajoling them toapproach the phrase or note in a way that would suddenly unlock the mysteriesof the music at hand. At the end of these moments, the “eureka!” light bulb wouldshine brightly, and the cobwebs of confusion and musical befuddled-ness woulddisappear. The music would flow again, andthe composer’s intentions and the musical drama of the moment would suddenly be crystal clear. Always expecting thebest, and constantly pushing those that worked with him towards the highestlevels of excellence, I found myself in our sessions reaching again for greaterheights for the first time in years. Iexperienced some songs I had known for years in a completely different light afterbringing them to him – for instance, Schumann’s “Schöne Wiege” will never beenthe same for me after our sessions on Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 24. Martin revealed the profound depth of the song's protagonist’s pain at leaving the town where he met his beloved by simply adjusting the tempo of the songin one of our sessions, transforming what I once thought of a simple, pretty,melancholy song into a richly layered, complex, heart-wrenching piece of musicjust as dramatic as any operatic aria ever composed. After years of neglecting the world of Liederand Art Song while running the beginner’s operatic rat-race, through oursessions together I rediscovered my passion for the music that made me fall inlove with the art of singing. At a timein my life when I felt that I was starting to lose touch with my wonder,respect, and love for music, Martin rekindled the fire inside of me,reconnecting me with the calling that pushed me to pursue a life in music inthe first place.

The news of his passing on Christmas day is a true loss for our musical community, and he will be sorely missed. As the person who delivered the sad news tome on Monday said, “it is difficult to imagine a person with greater integrity, musicalinstincts and knowledge, and kindness. There is quite simply, no replacementfor him.” I could not agree more.

Martin, I cannot thank you enough for the inspiration,encouragement, and mentorship you have given me and the musical world aroundme. May you rest in peace, and may weremember you forever in our world of song.

Courtesy of YouTube, one of Martin's performances at Edinburgh - with Frederica von Stade:

Merry Ho Ho 2011

2011-12-25T14:18:00.000-05:00

To all those celebrating the holiday today (and taking an online break from the festivities), a very Merry Christmas to you!

As my final concert of 2011 included an ondes martenot last week at Carnegie Hall, it only seems fair and hilarious to celebrate with these youtube performances of some carols on its sister instrument, the theremin:

Silent Night:

O Come All Ye Faithful:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:

And on a more serious note, here's a beautiful performance of one of my favorite carols:

Happy Holidays to all!

The Rules

2011-12-04T13:54:00.001-05:00

A few years ago, I was rehearsing with a pianist for an upcomingconcert, and I couldn’t remember what the rule was regarding whether toapproach a trill from above or directly on the note when singing a certaincomposer’s music. I asked her if sheremembered the rule, and she said to me, “I don’t do rules.”

While her response seemed hilariously rebellious at first, I cameto see a lot of logic to her point. Muchlike Italian cuisine, which varies so much from region to region, so dopeople’s ideas of “rules” in music. Encounter an Italian from one region of Italy, they will tell you thatunequivocally you do not use garlic when preparing a certain sauce. Travel just an hour south, and ask an Italianfrom that region about said sauce, and they will tell you unequivocally thatyou MUST use garlic when preparing that sauce. Both are equally convinced that they are telling you the rules, despitethe fact that they are telling you the opposite.

Much the same thing happens in music, particularly when musiciansspeak of the music of the dead. After mypianist friend’s comment above, this strikes me as also hilarious, becauselet’s be reasonable – how can we really know? I always want to say, show me your time machine and let’s go talk tothose composers.

Now I understand that we do know some information about how thismusic was performed – most composers that are in the standard canon ofperformed classical music have left writing and documented evidence of theirtastes. Rossini wrote often of hisdistaste for his singers ornamenting his music, and he is documented as beinghighly critical of what has become the standard, modern-day technique of tenorsto carry our chest voices up to the very tops of our ranges. Nevertheless, when was the last time youheard Una voce poco fa without anyornamentation or a tenor singing Count Almaviva without heroic high notes? These things are generally accepted as“rules” today and are expected in performance.

Then again – these dead composers were once flawed, imperfect humanbeings, too, and often contradicted themselves. Handel was also a bit critical of singers overly ornamenting his arias,but then again, you look at some of the ornaments he himself wrote, and you geta mixed message in terms of “performance practice”. My colleague, Ann Hallenberg, showed me someof the ornaments he wrote for her arias in Ariodantewhile we were on a concert tour of the opera this summer, and I tell you, theyare crazy. Sure, they are beautiful andexciting to listen to, but they look slightly insane at first glance.

Handel’s Messiah is oneof these pieces that is often subject to “rules”, yet interpretations of itwidely differ. To say that the piece is performed in a wide variety of stylesis an understatement, and it is performed in many different versions withdifferent cuts and different singers singing different arias. Just to give you a taste of the wide range of possibilities, here are two examples of the many ways the first tenor aria can be performed:

The first time a younger version of myselfencountered a version of Messiah thatdidn’t conform to my expectations or the set of rules of the piece that I hadin my hot-headed, young noggin, I reacted initially with a very closedmind. But what I quickly noticed is thatwhether a particular style or version is to my taste or not, each one, whenperformed with conviction, brings out something new in the piece that I havenever heard before. I’ve sung the piecein so-called “authentic, period-style” performance with period instruments, and I’ve sung performancesof the piece with modern-instrument orchestras that approach the piece withmore of a romantic flair, and what I can say is that the piece is never thesame for me. This weekend with theBaltimore Symphony, I experienced yet another interpretation, and yet again,there were new aspects of the drama of the piece that the conductor brought outthat I had never heard in the piece before. The piece was yet again kept fresh for me – this is part of what I findso amazing about this music. There is somuch in it to be brought forth and emphasized, and there are so many ways tointerpret it. In the end, whichever "setof rules" the performers choose to subscribe to, the performer has to decidewhat is to their taste and commit to it. The point isn’t the rules, but what it is that you want to say.

Just for fun, here's a video of one of my favorite moments in the piece:

Happy Thanksgiving Randomness

2011-11-23T21:15:00.001-05:00

Confronted with the prospect of a lighter schedule for the first two weeks of this month, my body resolutely decided to go on strike. Its strike was perfectly-timed: an autumn cold started on the day of our recital in Philadelphia, allowing me to perform the program reasonably unscathed. The very next day, the cold settled comfortably into my upper respiratory system, setting up house, redecorating all the various respiratory passageways, painting them a lovely shade of infected pink.

Being incapacitated and forced to sit still at home for 10 days straight, restless and needing to direct my stir crazy energy somewhere useful, on top of sitting at my piano plinking out pitches in an effort to cram this music into my head (without actually singing it) for this upcoming concert, I ended up doing a bit of redecorating myself - all I can say is that my closets have never been cleaner or more organized.

My body, apparently satisfied with the vacation terms it had negotiated, slowly resumed cooperating with me just in time to go back to work to sing Bach with the Alabama Symphony last week. Last week was a particular luxury, as I had the opportunity to work with all familiar faces and great friends. Singing Bach with these friends was one of those special musical moments when there is nothing but music and play for me in both rehearsal and performance. My duet partner for the Domine Deus (Kiera Duffy) and I barely had to utter words to each other in rehearsal - we just picked up on each other's musical instincts and responded spontaneously and effortlessly in sync with each other. It was great fun to both sing with and listen to these good friends sing some of my favorite music ever composed.

While we were in Birmingham, the subject of nerves and stage fright came up, and we all commiserated about how we all have to grapple with it (you can read my colleague, Jenny Rivera's take on our conversations at her blog, here). It's so easy for us to beat ourselves about feeling it - it somehow feels as if we aren't courageous or brave, and because of that we are somehow inadequate to the task at hand. The thing is, I really don't believe that bravery is the absence of fear - I think it's the power to accept our fears and take a leap despite them.

On the flight back to New York, thanks to the wonders of WiFi in the sky, I stumbled upon the video below by the actor, Edward Norton, discussing his experience with the terror associated with creativity and performance.

In a way, I feel that fear, while it feels like craziness, is actually sanity. Without it, something doesn't feel right to me, and there is an essential energy that is missing. The challenge is to accept it and not let it hold you back.

Anyway, I digress...mostly, I just was writing to check in and wish everyone in the US (and any Americans reading this abroad) a very Happy Thanksgiving. Fortuitously, I am actually free for the holiday weekend this year (last year involved a flight to Kansas City and a surprisingly good room service burger that I ate while watching Monster-In-Law). So, it will be nice to spend the day stuffing my face with turkey with family members for a change. Just another moment that I can add to the long list of things I have to be grateful for this year.

I leave with you a gratitude-ful song that was attributed to Handel for a long time sung by one of my favorite singers:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Leadership and Community

2011-11-09T14:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a fantastic New York Times profile on the conductor, Michael Morgan, from the other day (picture above is from the NYTimes article).

My two favorite quotes from the article:

“The thing I find most interesting about orchestras is using them to bring the town together...We want the fans of this music and that music, who may never see each other in real life, to come and watch a concert together.”

and

“All of my ideas about bringing people together come from seeing myself as outsider...Being black in what’s considered a white music culture, being gay in a straight culture. Everything to me is about asking, ‘How do you use your outsider status to bring more people together?’ ”

Thinking back to last Friday's mostly-Britten recital in Philly, those comments coincidentally touch on what are central themes to much of Britten's work, and much of the music that Myra and I performed on Friday night. It's pretty clear that Britten, himself, felt like an outsider throughout much of his life. In the liner notes to our Winter Words album (which come with the album when you purchase it on iTunes, if you don't already have a copy), I wrote about how the first time I ever performed Winter Words, I felt very much an outsider in the community in which I was performing, and how singing Britten's music that night bound all of us in the hall together in a profound way. Ever since then, I've been amazed at Britten's ability to create music that so movingly touches on these common human experiences. When performing his music, I always feel that there is the potential to draw an audience's attention to the experiences that we share as humans, focusing on what binds us together rather than what it is that divides and differentiates us. Last Friday's recital in Philly was no exception.

In the end, perhaps I feel that way about most of the music I perform, but it was most certainly Britten's music that drew me to that realization about the connective possibilities of performance in the first place.

It's so great to see/read about a like-minded soul also making a mark out there in our present-day musical universe.

Britten Humour

2011-11-03T15:00:00.001-04:00

In honor of tomorrow's recital in Philly - a folksong setting that will not be on tomorrow's program...

I also came across this sweet picture of a young Benjamin Britten the other day - it looks like it could be his high school senior picture:

If I'm going to show Benjamin's Senior Picture (actually, I think he's 20 years old in that picture), I feel that I must be fair and show mine, too:

I must admit - I think Mr. Britten looks sharper and much more put together than I did...

Purple Day

2011-10-20T16:43:00.000-04:00

I'm wearing Purple today. I hope you are, too. If you're wondering why - read here.

If you're a young LGBT person being bullied or harassed - there's a wealth of resources for you to get help here and here. Get help, keep hope, and stay alive...life really does get better.

Here's one of my favorite "It Gets Better" videos:

Happy Coming Out Day

2011-10-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

A very happy National Coming Out Day to one and all! Here's something a little festive to celebrate to (complete with a over-the-top, fluffy gown):

I blogged about my own coming out story a few years back here. I've been out for 16 years now, and I couldn't be happier.

There is also an incredible site, I'm from Driftwood, that beautifully documents many people's coming out stories in both video and writing - check out a few of their favorite ones here.

To all those who are out and proud and our allies, I celebrate you, your bravery, and your inspiration. To all those who are still working through the process of coming out and struggling to find that courage to show the world who you are: you are loved, it most definitely gets better, and there is an incredible community of wonderful people out here waiting to welcome you with open arms and loving hearts.

Keeping Us On Our Toes

2011-10-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

Myra warming up for our recital last Friday

After an entire year of slogging through airports alone, I slogged through the airport security for the umpteenth time on Thursday, only this time to be met by a very welcome sight after having all of my body and luggage scanned by strangers – Myra was sitting very calmly, reading her phone at the gate where our flight was to take off. She saw me and smiled as I sat down next to her, and we marveled at the fact that an entire year had passed since our last recital tour. About a half and hour later, our gate agent shuffled us on the plane, and we were off to our first recital of the 2011 – 2012 season, this one in the small town of Tryon, North Carolina.

Tryon is a beautiful little town nestled in the North Carolina Appalacian mountains, with a quaint little downtown filled with small, independently owned businesses (not a chain in sight!), and beautiful views of the tree-covered mountainsides that were just starting to turn from summer green to autumn red, orange and gold. We were excited to bring our Carnegie Hall Purcell/Britten program from last fall filled with so much beautiful music to this little town also filled with so much beauty.

Between our confident feelings about the program and the isolated, quiet nature of this adorable little town, we found ourselves almost feeling like were on a mini-vacation to the country. I turned to Myra at one point as we were warming up for the evening’s recital and said, “I almost feel too relaxed…this is really strange…”

After our warm-up in the hall, I went out to the lobby to get a program, when suddenly that very relaxed feeling evaporated into thin-air. I picked one up, only to discover that the presenters had not been able to print out our texts and translations in the program. I panicked - How will the audience know what these songs are about? How will they understand this music now?!

The omission turned out to be a bit of blessing in disguise – having toured the program last year and recorded it now, we both felt incredibly comfortable going into Tryon. Perhaps a bit too comfortable…Knowing that there were no translations for the audience to follow provided a bit of an edge to our concentration throughout the recital Friday. We were reminded with extra urgency that no musical nuance, no consonant, no vowel was to be taken for granted, and we felt an urgency to communicate each and every moment with the utmost clarity. It forced us to sharpen our message, and it forced us to refine our music-making. It forced us to stay on our toes.

I'm always grateful for the little reminders not to take anything for granted - It’s always a good thing to be kept on one’s toes, after all...

Reprinted from the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago blog, Collaborative Musings.

Quote

2011-10-05T17:33:00.005-04:00

In honor of Helicon's concert last night at the Morgan Library (which was great fun), a quote from Proust, himself on the importance of the arts:

‎"Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe."

Many thanks to my Helicon colleagues last night for an incredible evening of music-making, and to my dear friend, Susie, for sending this little gem my way.

A Week of Songs

2011-10-04T14:58:00.003-04:00

After roasting swans last week in our nation's capital, I get to spend this week singing songs of a different nature.

Rehearsing Hahn at the Morgan (thanks to Helicon's Artistic Director, James Roe, for the pic)

Tonight, I perform with an incredible, slightly under-the-radar organization called Helicon in one of their few public performances in the group's history. Helicon is a private chamber music society that meets four times a year for four different themed musical symposiums. At these evenings, Helicon's subscribers get to experience programs and discussions of chamber music performed and discussed by phenomenal musicians who specialize in this repertoire. I've performed with the organization a few times now, and their evenings are truly an extraordinary experience. They are New York City's modern-day, musical salon.

This evening's program at the Morgan Library (a unique opportunity for the general public to get to experience a taste of of what Helicon has to offer) focuses on the musical life surrounding Marcel Proust. My contribution to tonight's concert will be an extended set of songs by Reynaldo Hahn, who was Proust's lover for an extended period.

Reynaldo Hahn (August 9, 1874 – January 28, 1947)

A friend described Hahn's music as "cabaret music, in the style of French Art Song" the other night at dinner. I must admit, considering Hahn wrote most of these songs for himself to sing while he accompanied himself at the piano with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, my friend's description is somewhat accurate. But they are also so much more than that - Hahn was an incredibly complex musical thinker (he wrote extensively on the subject and was a noted musical critic in his day) and the poetry he was drawn to was incredibly sophisticated. His songs are some of the most breathtakingly beautiful music I've ever performed. I've noticed over the years that the most difficult music to master is the music that sounds the most simple. Hahn was a master of simplicity, and each of these gems, while finely crafted and extremely detailed, come off as if they are effortless. Here's just one example of the beauty he was capable of creating:

On Friday, Myra and I revisit the two familiar friends pictured below in recital in North Carolina. You can read some of my ramblings about that program here and here...or (if you'll excuse the shameless plug) in the my liner notes for our latest album, which you can purchase here and here.

Commercial Carmina

2011-09-30T14:53:00.001-04:00

In honor of my post yesterday...

It's not necessarily a car commercial, but it's a commercial, and it has cars...

And one more Carmina commercial for your amusement:

Last night was great fun! We have two nights left at the Kennedy Center - if you're around DC and want to see it, tickets and concert info are here.

Carmina, Revisted

2011-09-29T15:37:00.002-04:00

A lot of classical musicians roll their eyes when you mention Carmina Burana. “Oh, it’s so silly!” they say. When you mention Carmina Burana to someonewho isn’t super familiar with classical music, they’ll say, “I’m not sureI know that piece?” To which musiciansalways reply, “Oh yes, you do – it’s in, like, every car commercial you’ve ever seen…”

Eight years ago, I was walking down the street in New York Citywhen my cell phone rang. It was Kim Witman from Wolf Trap Opera who wanted to know if I would be interested insinging Carmina Burana with theNational Symphony Orchestra in the Filene Center when I got to Wolf Trap in afew weeks. The funny thing is, when shecalled, my knowledge of the piece was limited to the following two facts: Theopening movement was in, like, everycar commercial; and I would have to sing three high D’s. Aside from that, Ireally didn’t know anything else about it.

At our first rehearsal here in DC at the Kennedy Center, I realized that Iactually knew more of the piece than I thought I did at the time – I’d heard bits andbobs of it here and there on various recordings and in, yes, car commercials. It occurred to me that the main reason that I wasn’t so familiar with the piece was a resultof the car commercial thing – I just assumed it wasn’t “serious” music. Butthese really beautiful and fascinating moments of music that were new to mekept occurring left and right in rehearsal, and I found myself completelycharmed and moved by the piece.

Eight years and many performances later, as I’ve been rehearsingthe piece with the NSO again, revisiting this place where I learned this piece this week, I’ve been marveling at how Orff's music hasn’t gotten old for me. I don’t havemuch to sing in this piece, so I end up spending most of the concerts listening. After all these timesdoing it, the In Trutina still makesmy eyes water up a little but, the Egosum abbas still makes me chuckle, and the Blanziflor et Helena still gives me gooseflesh. It’s just extraordinary music. I guess that accounts for its popularity. It’s obvious that the reason it has bled so pervasively throughout our cultureis not because it is cheesy, but because it is so extraordinarily exciting and beautiful.

If you are in the DC area, we perform tonight, as well as Fridayand Saturday at the Kennedy Center. More info is here.

Album One

2011-09-27T07:38:00.001-04:00

You’ve probably noticed the ad for my debut solo album on Avie at the topright corner of the blog for the last month or so…the album was releaseddigitally this week (the physical release was a little earlier this month), so I feel it behooves me to post about it for a moment. BothMyra and I are really excited about the album, as it represents not only whatwas an incredibly important step in our preparation for our Carnegie Hall debutrecital last fall, but also the beginning of a new exciting artistic chapterfor us.

Since the album’s release, the most commonly asked question hasbeen “Why Britten?” The main reason I was drawn to Britten was that over the past few years, between various recitalings and mysummers exploring vocal chamber music at Marlboro, I've become increasingly amazedby the power of Britten. I wrote a bitabout my first outing of Winter Words ina small, Midwestern town in the album’s liner notes, and how I was so surprisedby the positive impact it had on the audience there. I learned many valuable lessons from thatconcert about never underestimating an audience, and how emotionally movingBritten’s music is. Since that concert,I feel as if I have become a missionary for his music, proselytizing to anyonewho will listen.

Back when Myra and I were given the opportunity to perform a debutrecital in Carnegie Hall, the big question was: what music do we sing? Almost immediately, my obsession with Brittenand his music took over, and the next thing we knew, we had an entire programthat was mostly comprised of his music. As we dug deeper into these pieces during ourrehearsals, we felt that we simply had to record it. In the process of learningabout Britten these past couple of years, we have inevitably become fascinated withother pieces of his music, and are excited to explore more of it in therecording studio as we put together the next album!

You can purchase the album on iTunes here, and (if you are anold-fashioned CD collector, like me) you can order physical copies of the albumat Amazon.com here.

We hope you enjoy!

A Decade

2011-09-11T00:15:00.001-04:00

Ten years ago I had just moved to New York City.

Ten years ago I was just beginning a Master’s degree atManhattan School of Music.

Ten years ago my roommate woke me up saying, “oh my god,you’ve got to see this…”

Ten years ago we sat in our living room together, watchingour tv in shock and horror.

We watched as one of the World Trade Center towers smokedand burned.

We watched a second plane fly into the second Twin Tower.

We watched as the towers crumbled before our eyes, crushing the people trapped within, clouds ofdust flooding the streets, people running for their lives.

Ten years ago we sat around all day wondering what to do,where to go.

Ten years ago we climbed to the roof of our building withsome friends who lived upstairs and looked toward downtown.

We watched the giant, thick tower of endless smoke that wasrising into the sky.

We watched fighter jets circle Manhattan in the afternoonsun.

We watched as our silent, empty streets filled with people,forced to walk home from work.

Ten years ago we speculated as to who would have done this.

Ten years ago we wondered why this was happening.

Ten years ago we felt under attack.

Ten years ago our world changed.

Ten years ago, I was stunned at the level of violence andhate humanity was capable of.

Ten years ago, I also marveled at the beauty and compassionhumanity was capable of.

I watched people holding, comforting each other at candlelitshrines all over New York.

I watched as subway stations became wall-papered withpictures of loved ones.

I watched strangers smile at each other as they walked by onthe street.

I watched as people committed random acts of kindness in oneof the toughest cities in the world.

I watched as one of the loneliest cities in the world tolive in became a community, united and strong.

Now, after a five-year hiatus in Houston, I am a resident ofNew York City again.

Now, I am working at the opposite end of the country in LosAngeles.

Now, after a decade of desensitizing myself to all that happened, I find myself on the edge of tears as the world reminisces.

Now, I am about to sing my first Mozart Requiem.

Now, I think of all the lives lost on that day and since asI study Mozart’s unfinished music.

Now, I am grateful that I am immersed in a profession thatis dedicated to realizing the beauty that humanity is capable of.

Now, as the world marks a decade since September 11, 2001, Ifind that all I really want to say is this:

I really believe that, all being human, we are all inessence one.

When we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves.

When we kill each other, we kill ourselves.

I leave you with this excerpt from Handel’s oratorio, Theodora:

Descend, kind Pity, heavenly guest,

Descend, and fill each human breast with sympathizing woe.

That liberty and peace of mind may sweetly harmonize mankind,

And bless the world below.

Checking The Sound

2011-09-08T05:39:00.000-04:00

One aspect of hopping from one concert hall to another is adjusting to each acoustic once we arrive. While the technique of sound production remains the same, the sensation of singing can differ vastly between venues. What I love about sound check rehearsals is that, in addition to being a chance to feel out the sonic space, it's also a chance for us to tweak things a bit in between performances. Performance always brings out new things that can't occur in the rehearsal room - sound checks allow us to revisit things and see which new things from each performance worked, and which new things didn't. It keeps things fresh and alive, and it's a chance for the team to reconnect, regroup, and refocus.

Sound checks are also an opportunity for me to play with my camera...here are some shots from both Bucharest and Torino...

Our noble Ariodante for this tour, Ann Hallenberg

Ginevra - Roberta Mameli

Dmitry Sinkovsky - Il Complesso Barocco's fearless leader

Dalinda (who is quite mean to me in the opera...) - Ana Quintans (who is incredibly sweet to me in real life!)

Wandering Through Bucharest

2011-09-07T04:55:00.000-04:00

A few photos I took as I was wandering around Bucharest trying to stay awake for our concert late Sunday night (the show started at 10:30pm...it's a very strange feeling to begin warming up for a performance at 10:00pm...)

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-03T18:13:00.001-04:00

Happy Labor Day weekend to all of you back in the US...

Again, I find myself abroad for an American holiday...this time I am in one of the more exotic places I've ever visited: Bucharest, Romania. We're about to revisit Ariodante in concert at the George Enescu Festival. Our concert is late tomorrow night here:

It looks really beautiful from the outside, I can't wait to see the inside tomorrow. I've been really amazed by this place since we landed here this afternoon. You can really feel that it's a place of transitions - from communist dictatorship to capitalist democracy and from the Middle East to Europe. As I explored a bit this evening, I walked by countless people smoking hookahs in the midst of European architecture that earned this city the nickname "Le Petit Paris", and by run-down, drab communist-era buildings that stood next-door to beautifully restored neo-classical buildings that housed banks and familiar fast-food chains. My initial impression is that it's a place that is trying to figure itself out at the same time as it has a very distinct and strong sense of identity. Culture is so vibrant here - on the way back to my hotel after dinner, I passed a Belgian band giving a concert for people at a street fair near our restaurant; outside the Athenaeum, people were gathering to hear a concert with the Venice Baroque Orchestra; and in the adjacent plaza a documentary about Beethoven's Eroica Symphony was being screened for the crowd gathered there. I'm starting to wish that we had an extra couple of hours to get to know this place a little better before we leave.

It's funny to think that the summer has already passed us by - it has really flown by for me this year. I barely feel like I had a chance to register that it was summertime, aside from a few really uncomfortably hot and sticky (and mosquito-ridden) days in Treviso a week and a half ago. But they say that time flies when you're having fun, and I must concede - it's completely true. I've had an incredible time this summer running from one fantastic musical experience to the next, exploring one new city after the other, and having great times with many friends, both old and new.

I leave you with a few pictures I took of a particularly beautiful Italian sunset in Mondovì the other day. Some of that fun I've been having is playing around with the various camera apps on my iPhone...

Running Around

2011-08-29T10:05:00.005-04:00

Earlier this month, on my way to sing a recital in Toronto, I walked by this sign:

I did a bit of a double-take, thinking to myself: but my life is all about running around! As I warmed-up for the concert that night, I found myself pondering what I saw on that church sign, wondering if I was losing touch with myself. The more I thought about it, the more I disagreed with the sign. On the contrary, I actually feel quite in touch with myself because I run around for a living.

Just a few days before I saw that sign, I was in Chicago having a conversation with some friends over dinner about nationalism and xenophobia, in which we were discussing, among other things, the recent shootings in Norway. At one point in the conversation, I said to my friends, “I can't make sense of that kind of action. Perhaps it's because I run around the world so much for work that my opinion has been shaped this way, but I have come to the fairly radical view that humanity is one and that, as a result, national borders almost seem a bit silly to me. Every week I am somewhere different, and I see how, despite differences of language and culture, we are all the same. We are all citizens of the world, and in this sense family. Why be so afraid of each other?” My Chicago friends pointed out to me that my point of view was somewhat unique, partly because most people don't travel as much as I do. I had to agree with them - my life is not what most people would consider "normal".

The dinner-conversation in Chicago and the seeing that sign a few days later in Toronto gave me a bit of a new perspective into how I am lucky to be running around all the time. Does the travel get to me? Yes, it totally does. Do I get homesick? All the time. Do I miss my loved ones and hate not being able to be there for important moments? Totally. But I am really privileged to have this much time alone on planes, trains, automobiles and in hotels and sublet corporate apartments in strange, new cities in foreign lands. I am lucky to be able to spend this much time meditating on life, music, and seeing the world. Faced with the perpetual challenges of new places, new situations, new people, new languages, and new cultures, I am forced to stay open and to see how I fit into the constantly changing world around me. Forever moving forward, I am never stagnant, never inert, and am always growing, always learning. I am made constantly aware of who I am, where I have come from, as well as who I want to be.

Here's a little video I came across last month while pondering all of this...it seemed apt to post it here:

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Weekend Inspiration

2011-08-26T17:09:00.005-04:00

I'm about to step into the recording studio this weekend (in an incredibly charming town in Italy, I might add), for a project that I'll be able to tell you more about soon. In the meantime, I leave you with my inspiration for the next couple days:

"Brava! Brava! Sono tanto brava! Brava!
Sono tanto brava, sono brava
sono tanto brava
faccio quasi tutto con la voce, sembro un usignolo sì
forse...forse qualche nota non è proprio giusta...giusta
però io sono certa che così nessuno sa cantar
sono come un uccellin
senti il trillo...senti il trillo.
State un pò a sentir queste note così basse che so fare
poi vado su, vado su, vado su.
Brava! Brava! Come sono brava! Brava!
Certo se qualcuno vuole proprio...proprio pignolare
forse qualcosa non so fare ma sicuramente sì
non può essere che una cosa
che non ha nessun valore se vogliamo ricordare
che come me nessuno sa cantare
sono come un uccellin
senti il trillo...senti il trillo
e vi ricordate quelle note così basse che so fare.
Poi vado su...vado su...vado su
su...su...come due note
che volano nel cielo
E tutti sanno
che ho tanto di quel fiato
che neppure una balena può resistere sott'acqua
stando senza respirare tutto il tempo che io tengo questo "mi".
Brava! Brava! Come sono brava! Brava!
Sono tanto brava, sono brava
sono tanto brava
faccio quasi tutto con la voce, sembro un usignolo sì
però mi sentirei un poco...poco più tranquilla
se potessi questa sera farmi dire che son brava sì
ma che a dirlo siate voi
voi voi voi voi voi voi voi voi
voi che lo sentite questo povero mio cuore che fa bum
bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum!
Brava! Brava!
Brava! Brava!
Brava!"

Happy Friday!

Masters and Students

2011-08-07T22:49:00.005-04:00

“You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.”

- Conrad Hall

This quote came to my mind frequently as I was doing some guest coaching in Chicago at Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago last week. It’s not often that I am in the position of coach or teacher. Most of the time I am out on the road, performing and rehearsing, and when I am home I try to catch as many lessons with my voice teacher as possible, and in these ways I am mostly focused on forging my own path of musical growth – I am the perpetual student. The closest I ever feel I come to that position of “master” is the rare occasion that I am asked to give a Master Class or (like last week) work privately as a guest coach/teacher.

Earlier in the week before flying out to Chicago, I had a two-hour lesson of my own with my teacher in New York. After having spent most of the summer away from her in Europe, hopping from one performance to another, I found it a bit jarring to put my student hat back on. I was impatient with myself, and easily frustrated – it felt like banging my head against a brick wall. I left the lesson feeling fussy that I hadn’t made as much progress through all the upcoming repertoire that I wanted to touch on with my teacher. Having not seen each other in so long, we decided to go for a drink to catch up, and I forgot my frustrations as we chatted over a glass of wine on 7^th Avenue.

A couple of days later in Chicago, the thing that struck me so much about my guest coaching sessions was how working with the singers who came in last week was actually a lesson for me in being a student. I was struck by how open they were to try my suggestions and how inquisitive they were in trying to understand the numerous concepts that I was throwing them. Listening to them grapple with and digest these new ideas as they took giant strides forward was fascinating. It made me realize how much I can get in my own way in my own moments of study – jumping straight from the stage to the studio can be a very tricky transition. Being on stage requires an ownership of knowledge and experience in order to find the confidence and trust in oneself to stand up and perform for an audience. Being in the studio, donning the disciple’s robes requires a different kind of mindset – that open and inquisitive one that the singers who were working with me in the CAIC studios had.

When I returned to New York over the weekend, I met up with my teacher for one more two hour extravaganza. This time, though, I came with that open mindset and did my best to set all the knowledge and experience I already had aside, quieting the impatient voices in my head, and only calling on all that experience when it related to something she was saying. The lesson was incredible, and perhaps one of the most productive I’ve had all year. We made tremendous progress, and I left feeling a sense of accomplishment and focus.

I guess we just have to constantly keep adding to the pot of knowledge and experience – it’s bottomless, really, and never full.

(reposted from the CAIC blog - Collaborative Musings - where I am a guest blogger once a month)

August's Musical Bounty

2011-07-26T11:50:00.007-04:00

I always seem to have this silly expectation that the summer time is a time of relaxation and a slower pace to things...I think it is the residual feeling from childhood that once June hits, school's out for summer and I can just play. The reality is always that summertime is also music festival time, and my work plate suddenly becomes full of the widest variety of composers I ever perform in one condensed period of time. What I love about summers is that festival time is a time for musicians to explore, and I always inevitably end up falling in love with some newly discovered gem by a composer that I've never even heard of or finding a neglected treasure by a composer I am already very familiar with that's been overshadowed by much of their other more popular fare.

Here's a list of most of the composers (along with their dates, Wikipedia mugshots) who I'll be spending next month with:

Jake Heggie (1961 - )

Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)

Alma Mahler (1879 - 1964)

Hans Pfitzner (1869 - 1959)

Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957)

Frederick Delius (1862 - 1934)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 - 1908)

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)

Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868)

Domenico Cimarosa (1749 - 1801)

Josef Mysliveček (1737 - 1781)

Niccolò Jommelli (1714 - 1774)

George Friedrich Handel (1685 - 1759)

Should be an interesting month. I can't wait to see what new musical obsessions await.

More Road Trip Pics

2011-07-22T11:54:00.004-04:00

In honor of the weekend, I thought I would encourage everyone to have a some "Forced Fun" time and post a couple more pictures from my mini-break out West...

Happy Friday!

Forced Fun

2011-07-20T12:23:00.006-04:00

I took a little road trip down the coast of California last week - it's something I have always wanted to do, but I've never seemed to be able to find the time to do it.

When I got back from Europe a few weeks ago, I came home to the inevitable list of housekeeping chores one has waiting for them after a 9 week sojourn abroad as well as a giant stack of music to learn for next month, and I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed. Regardless, I knew a needed a break after the business and intensity of the past few months, and after a day or two of stressing about the idea of vacation, I took a few days off anyway and flew out west to do the drive I've always been wanting to do.

After having had a few days to hike around in the woods and on the rocky beaches along the Pacific, I feel completely refreshed and ready to dive right back into life's usual grind. My days on the road reminded me of my days as a camper at Interlochen, in which we had something we called "Forced Fun" two days a week. Twice a week we were required to put our instruments back in their cases, put all of our music or scripts away, and go outside and play for the afternoon. I absolutely despised the idea of it back then - always the workaholic, I remember a few instances in which my camp-counselor had to pry my violin out of my hands and put it back in the case for me. Yet, in the end, I always felt the better for the imposed break afterwards - just like I do now.

Moonrise over Los Angeles

In Case You Missed It

2011-07-13T21:00:00.004-04:00

The side entrance to Saint-Denis

In case you weren't able to catch our performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Saint-Denis Festival last week, it will be streaming online here at medici.tv (a very cool place to watch many a live, classical music performance) for the next 55 days or so.

I was quite proud of our performance that night - it was pretty incredible to get sing the piece with such wonderful colleagues in such a beautiful space, for such an attentive and enthusiastic audience. The atmosphere in the cathedral was perfect for the masterpiece, which is so meditative and dramatic all at the same time.

"Backstage" at the concert

I'm on a bit of a mini, West-Coast road trip for the next couple of days as a treat to celebrate the end of my amazing 9 week European sojourn. And I must say - the sunsets are pretty stunning here, too:

Sex and the Roman City

2011-07-07T08:57:00.011-04:00

Lucano and Nerone in Florence - photo by Ruth Miriam Carmeli

After spending much of the Spring singing liturgical mass settings and bible stories, my trip to Florence in June was a sudden flip to the dark side. Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea is filled with attempted murder, twisted political intrigue, infidelity, complicated love triangles (or perhaps parallelograms?) and people cross-dressing left and right. The best part is, while the events of the story are adapted fairly liberally, they’re based on true stories and human history. Much like watching the HBO series Rome, you get a glimpse of just how much and just how little humanity has changed over time – then we had Arnalta dressing up as Poppea in his/her final scena, and soldiers gossiping and complaining about Nero and Poppea’s love affair and it’s effect on the state at the beginning of the opera. Now we have RuPaul’s Drag Race and Bill Maher and Jane Lynch reading Anthony Weiner’s sex-tweets on HBO (link probably NSFW...).

One of the characters that I portrayed in Florence was Lucan, the famous poet and close friend of Nero at the time that the opera takes place. While many different stagings of this famous scene between Lucan and Nero exist, many directors seize upon the fact that Nero was famously bisexual as well as the passionate, sensual nature of the music, and commonly stage it as a big, gay love scene between the two characters. It is a bit of a controversial decision to decide to stage the scene explicitly as a homosexual love scene, and I found myself wondering as we rehearsed how the scene might have been staged in Monteverdi’s time. In the end, I also found myself realizing that unless someone invents a time-travel device in my lifetime, we’ll never really know. If you’re interested in the academic debate about the scena, you can read some more scholarly thoughts on it in this little article I stumbled across on a late night wander through the ether here.

Regardless of other people’s opinions, I feel that a very strong argument for a highly sexualized staging can be found in the music. Whatever Monteverdi intended, his intention was sexual and there is an intense climax involved – once Lucano starts singing “Bocca, bocca…”, a ground-bass ostinato begins in a meter that is a slowly rocking three. The note values that Lucan sings gradually get faster and faster while Nero sings “ahi” repeatedly, each iteration of “ahi!” getting higher and higher until they finally climax together, with Nero singing his final “ahi!” on a high G. It’s pretty sexy music – some of the sexiest music in the entire opera, as a matter of fact. There’s even a little bit of afterglow after, as Lucano sings languidly of Nero drifting off into “the ecstasy of delightful love” after the big climax. We should all be so lucky to have sex as good as this music.

You can hear one interpretation of the scene here (although in this production, Nerone is played by a mezzo whereas in ours it was played by a tenor)

The sexy "bocca, bocca" business starts around 3:06. This version truncates the afterglow moment - you can watch the complete scene here (which was not embeddable...).

While I have done the role before, this was definitely the most sexualized staging I have ever performed – in fact, it was the raciest staging I’ve ever performed in any opera, anywhere, ever. It found Nero and I fondling and passionately caressing each other throughout the entire duet. During the “bocca, bocca..” section I referred to above, I dry humped Nero as I sang, my hands exploring his body as he grabbed my hips, pulling me in closer and harder with each thrust. As we approached the musical climax, my hand made its way to his groin, and it was explicitly clear to all that I had finished him off with my hand as he came, wailing away on his high G.

(Do I need to label this post NSFW? Did Danielle Steele just invade my body?)

Anyway, as we rehearsed the scene last month, I found myself gaining a newfound respect for actors who do love scenes frequently both on screen and on stage. While I have had to kiss many a woman (and a man or two as well along the way) in various productions, I’ve never actually had to simulate quite this level of sexual activity on stage, under a spotlight, before. It really requires a lot of selflessness and letting go of inhibitions to do an act that feels so private in public. In front of an entire production team, stage crew, and cast of colleagues, that can be quite intimidating. In rehearsals of the scene, I would find myself thinking, “Is this right? Should my hand really be going here now? Am I making him feel uncomfortable? Is it ok that I am humping him like this right now – or is it too much? I’m closing my eyes as I hump – does that look ridiculous? Am I allowed to sing with my eyes closed?” And yes, my parents were at the opening night performance.

Thankfully, I was singing as I did all of this, and the concentration that all this multi-tasking required left no choice but to push past the boundaries of my inhibitions and keep plowing forward, so to speak. I was incredibly lucky to have the most wonderful colleague as Nero, who (despite being a happily married father of two adorable-looking young children, judging from the pictures he showed me) was entirely comfortable jumping right in and seemingly had fewer inhibitions than I did. His ease made finding my own pseudo-comfort with it all easier and made it all that much simpler to just get right down to business.

In the past, I actually haven’t have quite so many inhibitions about kissing someone or doing a love scene with someone on stage, but (despite the fact that this pushed boundaries further than I’ve gone in the past) that is mainly because my scene partner is normally a woman. Normally, in those situations, it’s very clear that I am working – it’s very easy to maintain that separation between what’s real and what’s pretend. Since it’s very clearly “acting”, the awkwardness of doing these things with a colleague melts away easily. Add to that, I know it’s socially acceptable to be sexual and loving with a woman, making me feel even more comfortable doing such things in public. Inhibitions aren’t so much of an issue, and therefore it’s easier to commit to my choices and follow through with conviction. This time, it felt different. Because it was a man that I was grinding against and kissing, I was in a situation that touched something much more real in me – something much more private, much more vulnerable.

On the one hand, that vulnerability felt terrifying. On the other, it felt amazing to stretch to a new level of honesty in performance. The combinations of fear and the newfound senses of freedom, daring, and accomplishment were exhilarating.

Oddly enough, at the end of the day, I find it harder to play gay than to play straight.

Take that Ramin Sethoodeh.

Bach, Saint Matthew, and Saint-Denis

2011-07-05T05:53:00.003-04:00

In case you are free at 20:30 Paris time tonight and would like to watch some stunning Bach singing - our performance of the Bach's St. Matthew Passion with John Nelson and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris will be streamed live tonight from the Saint-Denis Festival at medici.tv. More information about the performance and the broadcast can be found here and here.

There has been some of the most incredibly beautiful singing of Bach I've ever heard going on at these rehearsals this week, and I am really excited about tonight's performance. Hope you can check us out.

Happy 4th

2011-07-04T04:42:00.002-04:00

Considering that I have stayed in hotels down the street from massive protests twice in the last five days (quite violent ones in Athens, actually...I'm not sure why they were demonstrating the other day here in Paris, to be honest), this e-card seemed the most appropriate way for me to wish everyone back at home a Happy Independence Day.

When discussing how much I travel the other day, someone asked me if I preferred being in Europe or in the States, to which I replied that while I love being on both sides of the Atlantic pretty equally, I really do love living in America. I've considered moving to Europe numerous times over the years for various job opportunities, and while I would have happily moved over here if the opportunities had been the right ones, I have always known that I would miss the sense of home and comfort that I feel so strongly about the States.

As much as I will be sad to leave Paris and this fantastically perfect weather we've been experiencing here this week on Wednesday, I am very excited to be heading back to the US after two months abroad. I can't wait to be back in that magical land where there is water in the toilets, Walgreens is open 24/7, there are hundreds of channels on my TV, and people get up-in-arms about Congressmen who tweet pictures of their genitalia.

As Dorothy chants at the end of The Wizard of Oz: There's no place like home.

Land of One of My Peoples

2011-07-01T19:44:00.009-04:00

My trip to Greece last week was my first trip back to the country in almost 15 years. When I was growing up, my mother would make a point of taking us there every summer, and I hadn't quite realized just how many childhood memories of summer I had of the place. From the minute I stepped off the plane in Athens, memories came flooding back, and I felt transported back 20 years. It was bit like stumbling upon a journal from my childhood, and suddenly remembering parts of myself that I had forgotten.

The most striking thing I had forgotten was just how much of a dreamer I was back then. My favorite thing to do during those summers was to lie down on the beach after a brisk swim in the cold waters of the Gulf of Corinth and lose myself in the pages of some epic science fiction or fantasy novel. While I dried under the sun, I would escape to imagined worlds filled with colorful heroes and villains with superhuman powers. My life dream back then was that I would become a writer when I grew up and write some epic fantasy novel, along the lines of Lord of the Rings. After those mornings of reading on the beach, we would go home for a big lunch with my great aunt and uncle, and then, while everyone else would siesta, my creativity would flow, and I would attempt to sketch out fantastical stories of my own.

This time, I found that while my dreams have changed somewhat over the years, the place still has that same effect of unblocking my creative flow, and I felt a storm of ideas flood my brain and imagination that hopefully will turn into realities sometime down the line. Regardless, it felt good to have my creative juices flowing again and reacquaint myself with that little dreamer that was/still is me...it's left me feeling re-energized enough for this final stretch of this amazing European tour.

The Tricks of the Trade

2011-06-27T11:27:00.002-04:00

I tweeted this a few weeks ago, but it still has me chuckling (it was one of the many things that had my Poppea colleagues and I in stitches while I was in Florence), so I figured it was worth it to share again here.

We could all use a few laughs to start off the week, right?

"Oops I Crapped My Pants" meets the Opera World - too bad this ad was actually a legitimate one and not a Saturday Night Live sketch...

Happy Monday, everyone!

Greek Sunset 1

2011-06-26T07:13:00.004-04:00

In between the Maggio Musicale and the Saint-Denis Festival, I've escaped to Greece for a few days. After spending almost every summer here as a child and a teenager, this is my first trip back since 1997. It feels really good to be here. I just wish I hadn't forgotten most of my Greek. Languages are like muscles they say...they need to be exercised.

Sunsets are pretty here, too...

Poppea in Florence

2011-06-24T14:21:00.006-04:00

The rehearsal process for getting our production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea up on its feet was luxurious in that we were able to do all of our staging rehearsals onstage in the theater instead of being trapped in a rehearsal room trying to imagine what the set was going to look like and be like to navigate.

Since we were in theater, I had a chance to play around at taking rehearsal shots with my camera, a few of which are below. Some are in costume and some are not...

Poppea (Susan Graham) and Nero (Jeremy Ovenden)

Poppea and Nero kissing each other goodbye

Drusilla (Ana Quintans) looking a bit sad that Ottone isn't paying attention to her

Poppea thinking about Nero as Ottone (Anders Dahlin) sneaks up from behind

Ottavia (José Maria Lo Monaco) sings of her frustrations as Nutrice (Nicola Marchesini) looks on

Poppea in the shadows

Ottone upset that Poppea has dumped him for Nero

Poppea and Nero

Poppea and Nero - they are pretty passionate about each other, as you can see...

Seneca (Matthew Brook) looking angrily at Ottavia

I must say, this production of Poppea was one of the most fun operatic experiences I have had in a long time. On top of being incredible musicians and actors with stunningly beautiful voices, my colleagues were some of the funniest people I have worked with in years. We shared countless laughs over some incredible meals and phenomenal bottles of wine, and I will treasure the memories from these past few weeks for a long time to come. My stomach and throat are still a bit sore from laughing so hard...

Florentine Sunsets

2011-06-21T16:41:00.007-04:00

In addition to some phenomenally sexy and sublime Monteverdi singing from my colleagues, Florence has also offered countless stunning sunsets. Crossing the Arno every night, walking to or from work, I have been greeted by some of the most beautiful sunset views I've ever seen. I tried to capture as many of them as I could with my iphone or camera. Here are some from these last few weeks here.

The Cognitive Power of Breath

2011-06-10T14:10:00.014-04:00

During my first semester of Opera Workshop at the University of Michigan, our director and teacher’s mantra was “remember your breathing”. At the time, I remember thinking that such advice was so obvious that it bordered on the obtuse. “Of course I’m breathing! How could I sing otherwise?!” I thought. It didn’t take long to dawn on me that he wasn’t asking me to remember what my voice teacher was trying to teach me – he was trying to get me to slow down my perception of time and root myself in the present moment.

As my yoga practice has intensified over the past few years, I’ve been thinking a lot of that seemingly simple advice from my Opera Workshop class at University. Just about every yoga teacher tells their students to focus on their breathing – it’s integral to the whole moving-meditation aspect of yoga. As I flow through my practice, I do my best to make sure that my feet are grounded, my knees in line with my middle toes, and my sacrum properly aligned all while I try to twist my body and my arms in all sorts of directions – it's a lot that one has to be mindful of as one flows from one pose to the next. I’ve found that in the midst of trying to achieve these crazy contortions, it’s been that focus on the breath that allows my panic and frustration fade way to clear-headed mindfulness, allowing me to ease my way into deeper realizations of the poses.

The ceiling of the Théatre des Champs-Élysées

While I was touring Handel’s Ariodante with Il Complesso Barocco last month, I found myself in a rather extraordinary situation in which I was making three major debuts in three very famous venues in three different countries within the space of a week. People often ask me if I ever get nervous – I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t that week. While I was excited about all of those concerts, I think that the one I was most excited about was our performance at the Théatre des Champs-Élysées, which marked my Paris debut. After dreaming for so many years of getting the chance to sing in Paris, I found myself making my debut there with some of the most fantastic colleagues I have ever had the pleasure of working with on the very stage where Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring premiered 98 years earlier. Getting ready for the concert, I kept marveling at how incredible it was that I was getting to make a debut in Paris in such style.

Sitting on stage as patiently as I could until the end of Act I, waiting to sing my first aria, I felt my excitement turn slowly into nerves, the voices in my head starting to shout out thoughts of unworthiness and painting out scenarios in vivid detail in which everything went awry. As my mind would start to wander off into some alternate universe of doubt, I found myself constantly coming back to my breathing, letting the sensation of the inhalations and exhalations carry me back to the present moment, which was in reality, one to savor and enjoy. When I finally got up to sing my first notes of the night, it was that focus on the breath that allowed me to completely clear my mind of its crazy inner dialogue and open myself up to letting Lurcanio’s story flow through me. My breathing didn’t just help me sing well, leading my expressions and emotions, but it also helped channel my thoughts to the present moment and focus on the task at hand. Funnily enough, the advice that I initially thought was so silly in college proved to be the one thing that enabled me to enjoy our performance that night.

I’ve been watching a lot of the archived TED talks lately in my free time here in Florence, and I stumbled across this one given by the soprano, Claron McFadden, last year, in which she sings a cool piece by John Cage – Aria. Her story about her experience at a meditation retreat in Thailand is what really struck me about her talk – I loved how her host compared singing to a meditation. My experiences over the past few weeks have made me think of singing the same way lately.

Thoughts on Practicing

2011-06-03T18:09:00.002-04:00

We could all stand to channel this little guy in our own lives, I think...

Happy weekend everyone!

Catching Up

2011-06-01T10:53:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the light number of postings so far this year...I've been a bit overwhelmed with all of the singing that's been going on lately. I'll try to pick up the pace in the coming weeks...

In the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture of one of the many sunsets I've been enjoying here the past few days in Florence, Italy.

It's a rough life, I tell you... :-)

And for your reading pleasure, here is a repost of my most recent entry at the Collaborative Institute of Chicago's blog, Collaborative Musings:

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

Let’s start this entry off with a few statistics. In these first 5 months of the year, I have given 28 performances of repertoire ranging from Bach to Britten. In those 28 performances, I performed 2 operas (Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Handel’s Ariodante), 6 oratorios (Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions, Bach’s B minor Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah), a ballet (Stravinsky’s Pulcinella), an orchestral song cycle (Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings), and a song cycle for harp and tenor (Britten’s Birthday Hansel). It’s been a very exciting first half of the year so far, filled with incredible music and music-making colleagues.

The main reason I list all of these statistics is simply to give you a snapshot of how intense my musical life has been like since New Year’s. With so much wide-ranging, diverse repertoire to keep abreast of, it’s been quite challenging to keep abreast of it all without tying my throat in knots. The most intense period was when I found myself singing 8 concerts in 3 different cities in the first 9 days of April. At the beginning of week, I found myself wailing at the extreme heights of my range for Carmina Buranas in Denver, only then to fly back East to jump back and forth between Stravinsky’s arrangements of Pergolesi’s delicate vocal music for concerts in Philadelphia and the intricate twists and turns of Britten’s last song cycle for recitals in New York. In those 8 days alone, my vocal cords musically spanned 250 years.

In my efforts to stay on top of all of this diverse music and the packed schedule of the past few months, I’ve spent as much time as possible checking in with my voice teacher in New York during my days off between concerts. In our lessons over the past five months, I’ve noticed her asking me a musical question with increased frequency that has rarely been posed to me: “What do you want to do?”

Every time she has asked me that question in a lesson lately, it has inevitably been because I had no idea what I wanted to do in that particular place. It was a spot that I had glossed over or taken for granted. It was a phrase for with I had no specific plan. The best part is that each time she has asked that question, it has forced me to find an answer. It’s forced me to make choices. Both the grueling schedule and my teacher’s insistence on decision-making have forced me to take even more ownership of my musicianship.

In so much of our training as singers, we are taught how to sing by our teachers, taught musical styles and phrasings by our coaches, taught how to enunciate text by our diction coaches. Then after all of that preparation, we begin to rehearse with conductors who show us with their batons how they want the music to be sung and directors who shape our performances through their stage direction. But in the midst of all of that, it’s important not to become too passive. It’s important to keep thinking about how all of this information allows us to enhance what we are already trying to do. Both the grueling schedule and my teacher’s insistence on decision-making have forced me to take even more ownership of my musicianship.

Going back to my blog post a few weeks ago about – I have been finding that so many young singers are incredibly focused on trying to plan out their careers. Lately, I’ve found myself musing again on what I wrote back then – career plans are important, but it is our musical plans that are of the highest priority. When it comes to the music – do you know what you want to do?

Northern Serenades

2011-05-15T06:57:00.005-04:00

Rehearsing in the Johannes Church, Helsinki, Finland

This past weekend, I took a trip to the most northern place I've ever visited so far - Helsinki, Finland. I had the most fantastic time exploring the city and spending time the English Chamber Orchestra, who were my phenomenal musical partners-in-crime for our performances of Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. The most stunning thing about being so far North was how long the daylight would last - I've never experienced so many hours of light in one day before. Our second concert was also the final concert of the Helsinki Spring Light Chamber Music Festival, which is aptly named. Even though our concerts didn't end until just after 9pm each night, the sun was still quite high in the sky, not setting until well after 10pm. It was nice to leave concerts during the daylight for a change.

Our final concert was broadcast live online - in case you'd like to see it, you can still watch it online here until May 24. The Britten Serenade starts roughly around minute 57:00.

I hope you enjoy!

Questions on the Train

2011-05-07T17:09:00.002-04:00

Hi there...

Sorry for my absence this past month. I got a bit overwhelmed with all the music and travel and good times. It was fun, but I fell of the blogging wagon, so to speak...

I'll have more soon, but in the meantime, here's a video I stumbled across last month. Interesting questions, interesting responses - stick with it until the end, if you have the 12 minutes or so...it's worth it.

How My Past Almost Caught Up With Me

2011-04-01T02:43:00.010-04:00

About nine years ago, I was driving up to Glimmerglass for my second summer as part of the Young American Artist Program when I got a strange call on my relatively new cell phone. It was my voice teacher from the University of Michigan calling to ask if it was ok to give my number to a music producer in LA who was looking for an operatic tenor to record a track for a project he was working on. She said that the man was also a graduate of UM and had asked the Dean to recommend someone for this project. The Dean had kindly suggested me, and my voice teacher wondered if it would be ok for them to pass my contact information on to him so that he could contact me about the project. I was young, constantly strapped for cash, and open to any way I could make a paycheck singing, so I said, “Sure – give him my number and have him call me.”

The project turned out to be recording “So This is Love” from the Disney cartoon, Cinderella, for the upcoming new ice show, Disney On Ice: Princess Classics. The producer explained to me that this was for the climactic moment in the second half of the show, and they were looking for an operatic tenor to do the vocal track to give the track as much grandeur as possible. Because I was busy at Glimmerglass, I ended up recording the track at a little studio in Albany, NY with a synthesized Midi-mock-up of the arrangement that they were planning on using. The producer was patched in from LA and coached me as I sang take after take along with the synthesized mock-up until he said he had what he wanted. He told me that he was going to mix my vocal track in with a big orchestra and choir that he was going to record in LA at a later point and that it was going to sound great once it was finished. He thanked me for my work, and I cheerily wished this man I never actually met goodbye and thanked him for the opportunity. I drove the 90 minutes back to Glimmerglass and promptly put the whole episode in the back of my mind as I was swept away by the stress of the summer.

A few months later, I had just moved to Houston, and I noticed that Disney Princess Ice show was coming to town. I begged my fellow studio artists to go with me so that we could hear the final version of what I recorded, thinking how hilarious it would be to have a bunch of opera singers go to a figure skating show about Disney Princesses. But to no avail – I couldn’t convince anyone to go with me. Between that and my busy rehearsal schedule at the opera, I never made it to see the show. I never heard the final version of my Disney-Voice moment.

Skip to almost a decade later, and as I was walking back to my hotel after a long rehearsal here in Denver Wednesday night, I noticed that the digital marquis outside the Denver Center for the Performing Arts was advertising, “Disney On Ice: Princess Classics! In Denver March 30 – April 3 2011!” My curiosity was piqued – could it be possible that I would be performing in two different venues at the same time this weekend? With a figure skating show at the Denver Coliseum and with the Colorado Symphony? Was it possible that I was – in a strange way – going to be in two places at once?

So I made a few phone calls to see if I indeed was going to achieve the impossible and sing in two places at the same time. I called the entertainment company that produces the show and was passed along to a very nice woman who offered to help me get to the bottom of it all and figure out if they were still using that track I recorded back in the summer of 2002. She said she would do a little digging and give me a call back. And she very kindly did just that – and she regretfully informed me that they were not using my recording anymore. “The music department did remember recording it and using it, but the vocal track was apparently replaced a while ago during one of the revisions of the show. I’m so sorry, but it’s not you singing anymore,” she said apologetically. I thanked her for her help and time, and sadly hung up the phone. I was surprised at how disappointed I was that my track had been replaces. It was a fun anecdote that I was rather fond of telling people when reminiscing about my beginnings as a professional musician. Aside from selling porn at the Classical Music cash register in Tower Records (our department sold more porn than classical CDs, strangely enough), it was one of the more unusual ways I earned my wages back in those early days of young adulthood. I was sad to discover after all this time that the record of it had disappeared, without ever having had the chance to hear it in its final version.

At least I still have the memory of the experience. My short-lived moment as a Disney-voice was fun while it lasted. Now my Disney-singing will be confined to karaoke bars – although I’ve moved on to other Princesses these days. I’m all about Ariel and Princess Jasmine now. Cinderella is SO yesterday.

Om

2011-03-24T16:07:00.004-04:00

My favorite yoga studio is coincidentally located just two and a half blocks down the street from the stage door of Davies Hall, the beautiful home of the San Francisco Symphony. During my last few trips to San Francisco, I’ve made it a habit to take as many classes as I can fit in while I’m there. While I had been looking forward to this last set of concerts with the San Francisco Symphony for quite some time simply for the chance to sing one of Bach’s greatest pieces with such a great orchestra, I was also looking forward to having another opportunity to take a week of classes at Yoga Tree.

After a mildly annoying trip west on Sunday night, I awoke slightly jet-lagged and eager to start both my first rehearsal and my first yoga class on Monday morning. I went out in search of some coffee, stumbled through writing some rather unfocused and incoherent morning pages, and then made my way down to my first class of the week. I settled onto my mat in my little corner of the studio, and the teacher began to lead us in the initial chanting that would begin our class that day. Before we repeated the day’s chant for the third and final time, the teacher asked us to stop for a second and consider the following as we brought our chanting to a close. As we chanted our last round, she asked us to be sure to hear every single, individual voice in the room, as well as our own, as a way of feeling the whole that we were part of, while still being conscious of ourselves. I opened my eyes and looked at her, surprised, for a quick second before we started again, marveling at the themes for the week that were so blatantly making their presence known before I began the Bach-ian journey of the coming days.

For the rest of the class, I found myself meditating on what it is to sing Bach, and the particular challenges it poses for the singer. I often contend that Bach’s vocal music requires complete selflessness in order to be performed successfully, yet as I contemplated my toes in a downward dog pose, it occurred to me that this isn’t a complete truth. Bach also requires the singer to be keenly aware and mindful of every single phrasing nuance, technical turn, and note that they are singing, demanding a strong sense and awareness of musical self while all the time being attentive to the interplay of all the voices (whether human ones or instrumental obbligatos) around their own vocal line. Being the bearers of the text, we must deliver the message and project our own voice, yet we must always remain part of that whole, conscious of the interweaving countermelodies around our line. If we fall off balance in either direction, we risk obliterating the delicate, beautiful, complex contrapuntal tapestry that we are but one part of.

Be aware of every single voice around you while being aware of your own. It is such a basic fundamental of chamber music – yet hearing it out of context, it shed a different light on the idea, making it seem completely new. Suddenly I was understanding that fundamental on a much deeper level. Be conscious of the whole you are a part of, while being conscious of your part in that whole. It was incredibly strange to hear that in such a different, seemingly unrelated context, but just how unrelated is any one thing from any other, really?

New Collaborations

2011-03-14T16:31:00.008-04:00

My colleagues Shannon McGinnis, Nicholas Hutchinson and I have started a new vocal arts institute in downtown Chicago that we are very excited about: Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago. I've known Nick and Shannon since we were all students at the University of Michigan together, and we are excited to be kicking off this new adventure that will be both an educational resource for young singers and pianists in the Chicago area and (as soon as we raise a bit of money) a place for musicians and audiences alike to explore vocal chamber music in performance. You can read more about what we are doing (and even donate...) at our spiffy, new website: www.caichicago.org.

At our brand spanking new website, there is a blog called Collaborative Musings, where I will occasionally post a few ramblings from time to time in addition to the musings of my colleagues and our guests, and I plan on reposting those pieces here, as well. My first post at Collaborative Musings is below:

BACK TO BASICS

In the February issue of Details magazine, there is an article that talks about the rise in entrepreneurial culture in the US recently. They write: “The act of striking out on your own is hardly a new phenomenon – it’s in the DNA of the American Dream, after all – but it might well be today’s savviest career move.”

Back in 2005, writing about the current system through which most singers rise, Anne Midgette wrote in a New York Times article:

"A baseball-like farm system has developed in American opera in recent decades, as more and more young-artist programs have sprouted up around the country. Aspiring singers now follow a career path from a music degree and graduate school to a residency with a smaller house to, ideally, a place in one of the top programs for young artists: the Metropolitan Opera's Lindeman program, the Chicago Lyric Opera's center for American artists, San Francisco's Merola program or the Houston Grand Opera Studio. From there they are theoretically ready for the big leagues.” (NY Times, 11/13/2005)

When I enrolled in the voice program at the University of Michigan as an 18 year-old freshman, I quickly ascertained that this was a smart path to follow, and set my sights on following it as closely as possible. When home for holiday dinners, talking about my aspirations with my parents' friends, I would say, “Well, my plan is to get a master’s degree, and then hopefully join one of the major young artist programs, and from there hopefully find an agent and start building my career from there.” I was convinced it was a sure road to a big career, and I naively thought that if I could make it into one of these “top programs for Young Artists”, I was sure to find instant success. I knew with great certainty that I would be "ready for the big leagues".

I was one of the lucky few to be able to follow the institutional path that I set out in front of myself, quite closely – but was surprised to learn that even though I was lucky enough to have been afforded the opportunities I was, none of it meant that I was going to make my dreams come true by just proverbially adding some water and stirring. There was a long path of hard work still ahead of me, and there were still basic skills that I had to hone and keep working on that had been glossed over in my haste to get to where I thought I needed to be.

There is a lot of talk amongst young artist programs and training programs in schools today about the “Business of Singing”. American singers of the generation that graduated with me in 2001 (as well as further back) lament never having learned while in school the important lesson that when you choose to be a professional musician, you are running your own business. It is my impression that educational systems and young artist programs are now trying to remedy that, and teaching young singers that they need to start thinking of themselves as "Young Singer X, Inc." Now, there is an abundance of resources helping students and young artists alike choose the right 5 audition arias, choose the right audition outfits and headshots, and format their resumes so that they can fit themselves into the right boxes (fachs) to be most marketable to opera companies and opera administrators around the country.

In an economic age where opera companies, symphonies, and other presenting organizations are folding or downsizing left, right and center – it’s all the more important to be thinking creatively and embracing that spirit of entrepreneurship that was featured in that recent issue of Details. But I pose this: As young musicians, when we are thinking creatively about creating work for ourselves and how to market ourselves, thinking about our music and our music-making should be of the highest priority. In order for us to open the creative flood gates, we have to come back down to basics and meditate on what is at the core of what we do – music itself. How can we best hone our skills? What music is it that makes our hearts beat faster? How can we be the best that we can be in order to serve our communities in the most meaningful way possible?

The arts are definitely in a period of upheaval and cultural shift right now. There is a lack of money, and many institutions are struggling (for instance, the Detroit Symphony recently canceled the rest of it's 2010/2011 season recently as a result of its unsuccessful labor negotiations due to the orchestra's financial struggles), and signs seem to indicate that it is not going to get significantly better any time soon. Many bloggers and administrators are tossing around various ideas about how to market classical music and opera to wider and wider audiences. Many institutions are attempting to draw in audiences by crossing over. The Metropolitan Opera, for instance, presented Andrea Bocelli in a solo recital this year. But when I think back to what drew me into classical music, and what has drawn core classical-music lovers to the artform, it was not watered-down, crossover classical experiences – it was the core repertoire. Most classical-music lovers I know fell in love with the classical repertoire listening to Mahler symphonies, or hearing a phenomenally personal and beautifully-sung performance of something as simple as “Caro mio ben”, or seeing an exciting performance of the Dvořák Cello Concerto. This fear that the classical arts are “in trouble” is causing people to panic, and in the desperate search for people to fill the seats in our concert halls and opera houses, our focus is becoming diffuse, and therefore losing its impact. Rather than trying to energize and empower our core audience, we are leaving them by the wayside and scrambling for this nebulous idea of “wider audiences” and wondering why we are feeling like the classical arts are losing their cultural impact. Which culture are we trying to impact? Who are we trying to talk to?

At a Q & A session I conducted recently at a University with a very well-respected vocal program, students’ questions primarily centered on these things. Their questions were along the lines of “how do I get myself into the best young artist program possible?”, “what should I wear to my auditions?”, “do I need a website?”, “which competitions should I apply for?”, “which programs should I sing for?”. Curiously enough, though, not one question I was asked was related to music or the art of singing. Instead – the questions were all basically asking about different aspects of the same thing: “how can I best market myself as a commodity that can be bought and sold by an opera company?”

Like this larger debate that looms around the classical music community, the students at that Q & A session a few months ago seem like a smaller part of what is going on in our artistic macrocosm. In a way, while the questions they posed are important ones to be asking, they are of secondary importance. It’s important not to put the cart before the horse. What does this mean for us as young musicians and performers? It means that we must prioritize digging even deeper, pushing our technical boundaries even farther, and searching inside ourselves for more openness of hearts in order to give the most layered and expressive performances we can to our audiences.

Here’s another way to think about it: It’s a basic fundamental of any business: if you want people to buy a product, the first thing you have to be absolutely sure of is that your product is of the highest quality.

Detroit Memories

2011-03-06T13:59:00.009-05:00

People not familiar with Ann Arbor often mistakenly assume that it is one of the many suburbs of the Detroit area. Surrounded by a green belt, with the sprawling University of Michigan campus dominating much of the somewhat insular, academically high-minded community, and situated a solid 45 minutes away from the Motor City on a Sunday morning with no traffic, Ann Arbor is very much a community unto it’s own compared to the suburbs that ring Detroit like Bloomfield Hills, Farmington Hills, Livonia, Novi, Auburn Hills, and Grosse Pointe. As a result, when I was growing up there, Detroit felt very removed from the home I spent my childhood in, and being lucky to have an incredibly strong music presenter in town that brought in elite classical music groups from around the world, I probably only attended only a handful of concerts at the Detroit Symphony before I left home at the age of 22 to venture out into the big, wide world and begin my life as a professional musician.

That said – it was impossible growing up as a young, ambitious musician in Southeastern Michigan to be unaware that one of America’s major symphony orchestras was less than an hour’s drive away. For all four years of high school, one of my dedicated parents would drive me to Birmingham every Saturday and wait for me while I rehearsed all morning with one of the youth orchestras I played with as a young string player, the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. While I was in the violin and viola sections of MYS, a large percentage of the players in the organizaton studied with many of the players of the DSO, accounting for the exceptionally high level of playing in the youth orchestra. We played one concert each year at Orchestra Hall (the DSO’s home at the Fisher Center), and we worked our hardest for that concert every year, knowing what an honor it was to play on the same stage that many of our teachers played on throughout the year as part of one of the nation’s great orchestras.

Many of these same players would also commute to Ann Arbor on Sunday afternoons to play with the University of Michigan Youth Symphony, which also had an incredibly high standard of playing, and was even more difficult to get into. That high standard actually accounted for my switch to being a singer – after a year of playing with the University of Michigan Youth Symphony viola section, I didn’t make it back in when I re-auditioned for a second year because my playing wasn’t up to the level that year. Rather than succumb to disappointment, I decided to audition for the University’s Michigan Youth Chamber Singers, and my journey as a singer began in earnest. Years later, as a young singer in college, I would sing twice with the Detroit Symphony as a chorus member for some Holiday Concerts and performances of Messiah – they were my first experiences working in a professional symphonic situation and seeing both how incredibly inspiring it could be and how tense and temperamental it could get making music at such a high level.

I was not the only one of those young people who chose to pursue a career and life in music as a result of those formative years as young musicians in the Detroit Metro area – most of my friends from those heady Youth Orchestra days are professional musicians today, many of whom now have their own private studios of young students, passing on that high level of musicianship that we were so lucky to grow up with on to the next generation of young players and singers. Others who don’t play so much any more have taken jobs elsewhere in our industry at record companies like EMI, as well as administrative positions at arts organizations. The few of us who stopped playing and embarked on other paths altogether quite consciously maintain music as an important part of their lives and still play in their spare time.

Watching the Detroit Symphony go through its recent struggles this season has been heartbreaking when I think of its impact on my formative years. The irony is that it seems that much of the reason the negotiations between management and the players have been so unsuccessful has been related to community service issues. It’s caused a crisis of public image for the Orchestra – many of the comments on the Detroit Free Press’ February 21st editorial about the situation are quite vicious. The first two posted were: “So, musicians ultimately want to avoid outreach to the Detroit community. But, they want the support of the Detroit community?...” and “How many people are really going to miss the DSO? Both sides deserve to reap the rewards of their inability to reach a compromise…Good Bye and good riddance.”

Towards the end of a Delta flight that I flew back from vacation last month, out of sheer boredom, I picked up the complimentary copy of the airline’s magazine and noticed that the entire February issue was devoted to articles showing how Detroit was a city on the rebound. The Renaissance there really is continuing to happen, the mayor assured us, and it really is a wonderful place for businesses and people to base themselves. I was impressed to see that the city is taking a newfound care with its image and is putting effort into trying to rebuild itself. Yet flipping through the magazine, the plight of the DSO was forefront in my mind, discordant with the images in the Delta Magazine.

This weekend I am in Omaha, celebrating the Omaha Symphony’s 90th anniversary with some performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. It’s a big milestone for them, and the community here is celebrating with appropriate enthusiasm – this past week there was a very nice article in the Omaha World-Herald about the orchestra’s anniversary. Something jumped out at me in their profile however:

“The Omaha Symphony has felt some pain – some cutbacks, but no layoffs – from the recession that hammered arts organizations’ endowments and the investment holdings of many prospective donors.
What’s different in Omaha, the symphony leaders said, is that the economy didn’t fall as far, the symphony has a fantastic new home in the Holland center and local philanthropists and business leaders consistently prioritize supporting the arts.
‘We have a number of very wealthy people in Omaha who are very generous in supporting the symphony, as well as people who buy our tickets,’ said Pamela Cleary, interim president and CEO of the symphony. ‘They understand our mission and feel it’s vital to our community.’ Business people, in particular, see supporting the symphony as a way to keep and recruit talented employees, as well as create a vibrant arts environment for the community and opportunities for young people, she said.” - 3/3/2011, Omaha World-Herald

What people like the commenters on the Free Press editorial don’t seem to understand is that organizations like the DSO don’t operate in a vacuum, and their extinction has a ripple effect throughout the community – much as the DSO did when it was a successful, functioning symphony orchestra when I was a young, impressionable ‘tween. The symphony’s impact on me as a distant resident in the Metro area was certainly indirect, but it was no less impactful than those influences I experienced directly as a student. The orchestra’s presence created an atmosphere that supported at least three top-notch youth orchestras in the area, not only keeping hundreds of kids out of trouble but also helping them develop skills that would impact the rest of their lives, all the while adding to families’ sense that the Detroit Metro area was a stable, good place to live and raise your children. Communities are ecosystems, and as in any ecosystem, when one part of the food chain dies out, the rest of the system feels an effect.

Whatever the case, I do hope that the Symphony is not only able to survive this crisis, but also resolve their troubles very soon. It would be tragic to me if the orchestra's community influence and their players' tradition of excellent standards in music education weren’t able to continue. Without them there, I’m not sure I’d be coming back to a community that I recognize as home, and it would be devastating to see a part of my own musical history die away.

Shutting Down

2011-03-04T17:39:00.008-05:00

I received an email from a good friend today saying, “…let's finalize things soon, because I'm actually going on a silent retreat (no phones, internet, or TALKING - can you imagine anything more frightening?).” I laughed aloud reading it, thinking that actually, in this day and age of smartphones, Twitter, Skype, and Facebook that it could conceivably sound a bit like a horror movie to some – something like “The Social Network’s Nightmare On Elm Street: Mark v. Freddy”.

As the run of Barbiere came to a close in Seattle at the end of January, I was keenly aware that while February was going to be a month of downtime this season, my schedule from March – July is blessedly brutal, pressure-packed, and busy. Not having been on a proper vacation since August 2009, I decided that I would take the first week of last month and visit some sort of paradise for some much-needed and necessary R & R. I’ve wanted to visit Hawaii my entire life, and since I was already on the West Coast, I figured, why not go? What better way to shut down than go to Hawaii and park myself on the beach for a week?

The one perk of Hawaii is that it is a State – so, as an American citizen, you can go to one of the most remote places on Earth, and you don’t even need a passport. But when it comes to shutting down – the fact that it’s a state means that things like American cell phones work there. So in order to get the complete retreat experience, one has to do what my friend is going to do in April, and quite voluntarily, consciously turn off one’s devices.

Ten years ago, such a task would not have been too challenging. The heavy, black bulky rectangle that I called my laptop computer was so painfully slow to start up that I rarely had the patience to turn it on. Hi-speed internet was a luxury rather than something to be taken for granted, and I was only just about to purchase my first mobile phone. Now, my iPhone is like a new body part that I have had surgically attached to me, and, as a result, I have constant access to the internet, email, text messaging, and any other mode of communication that is currently possible. When I’m not running from place to place and able to plug in, I tend to have my eyes glued to a screen of some sort, reading news, email, or some blog someone wrote somewhere.

Realizing that I very much needed to fall off the grid for a week in order to really make the most of this vacation, I resolved to turn off the phone and leave it in the room and to refrain from purchasing internet access through the hotel while I was in Hawaii. Aside from needing to get on the internet once in order to buy a plane ticket that I had forgotten to take care of before I left, I managed to do pretty well. But I was saddened to realize how much it was a real challenge to truly shut down – I still felt a burning need (which I gave into) to check my email on my phone once a day. It sadly felt like a big treat that I was allowing myself, because otherwise my vacation started to feel like a white-knuckled, unpleasant fast as opposed to a pleasant time to relax. I felt like an addict going through withdrawal – desperate for just one hit of whatever drug I was hooked on.

As the sweaty, shaky pains of my withdrawal wore off, I realized just how much I don’t take in the world and people around me as much as I used to. Soon, I was grateful for leaving my phone in my room, because it allowed me to soak in the warm Hawaiian sun and watch all the fascinating people around me. I saw whales breach in the Pacific, I marveled at surfers doing amazing tricks on the incoming waves, and I had amazing bonding time with my boyfriend as we both simply sat and took in the beauty of the landscape that surrounded us. I felt the knot of anxiety that is generally wound so tight within my core gradually uncoil and loosen as my week in paradise progressed. It was heaven. And I started to wonder, why don’t I shut down like this more often? I mean, how hard could it be to turn off my cell phone at the end of the day and not open up my computer past certain hours?

Incredibly difficult, it turns out. I’m a little shocked at how quickly all of this technology has infiltrated my life. I am generally connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when I am going about my non-vacational, very vocational life. It’s no wonder that coil of anxiety is able to wind itself so tightly inside me so much of the time. It’s also no wonder that it can be so hard to be firmly rooted in the present moment, when I am hypnotized (held hostage?) by a virtual world so much of the time.

Maybe I should join my friend on that retreat…although who could imagine anything more frightening?

Parlous?

2011-02-20T17:23:00.005-05:00

This month is my one moment of respite in the middle of a blessedly busy and pressure-packed season, and I've done my best to make the most of this downtime, trying to rest, relax, and recharge. As part of my effort to recharge my creative batteries, I've tried to take advantage of this opportunity to actually sit in the audience and remind myself what it is to be on the flip side of the stage, so to speak. Having the chance to watch my colleagues and heroes strut their stuff has been inspiring. They have rekindled the fires in my soul and reminded me how great a privilege it is for us to do what we do, and the power of live performance.

The Friday before last, I was in awe as I looked around at Carnegie Hall's Stern-Perelman Auditorium, which was so packed full and oversold with Mitsuko Uchida fans that they added chairs on stage, in order to fit people into the hall. What heartened me the most was how few people I recognized as "industry" folk – this audience was simply full of music-lovers who just wanted to see Mitsuko. I watched as the father next to me sat with his daughters, waving his hand along with the music, silently showing his daughters the parts that he found most magical. I listened with a big smile on my face as I heard the great, superhuman care with which Mitsuko shaped each phrase, daring herself to play so intimately and quietly at times that she pulled the 3000 of us to the edges of our plush seats simply with the tips of her fingers.

The next night, I went to the Metropolitan Opera to catch the opening night performance of Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride. It turned out to Placido Domingo's 771st performance at the Met - apparently just one of the over 3500 performances he has given over his lifetime. I sat in the audience as I watched this septuagenarian do a fight scene, struggle with being shackled in chains on stage, and sing with such beauty and technical brilliance that I found my heart racing as I listened to him sing. I marveled not only at the fact that he was still doing all of this at the age of 70, but doing it with more commitment, style, emotion and beauty than most 30 year olds I know. I was keenly aware that I was in the presence of a true master.

Then last Tuesday night I attended Joyce DiDonato's recital with pianist David Zobel at the Kennedy Center. Joyce’s performance embodied everything a great, legendary artist is capable of: she wowed us with her technical virtuosity, she transported us with the extremes of her expressive capabilities, and she moved our hearts and souls with her openness and vulnerability. I (along with the rest of the audience) happily jumped to my feet at the end of the recital, after being riveted song, after song, amazed at how 2 hours could fly by so quickly.

It was ironic to me then, to read this blog post by the Kennedy Center's president at the Huffington Post on the way home from DC. After attending a concert at his hall where I felt I witnessed classical artistry at it's most excellent, high level of mastery and communicative and emotional import, I was stunned to read the following as his hypothesized reason for the "troubled" state of the arts today:

"It is no surprise to most of us that the arts are in a parlous state. But contrary to popular belief, it isn't the fault of unions, the absence of arts education in our schools, the lack of involvement by boards, or even a dearth of arts management training.

The arts are in trouble because there is simply not enough excellent art being created.”

Mr. Kaiser went on to say:

“I know that I am risking the wrath of the entire arts community, and I know I am also at risk of sounding like the classic old-timer ("When I was a young man... "). But when I was a young man we had Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey and George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. And I am just mentioning a few of the astonishing dance artists working in the 1950s and 1960s. We also had Bernstein and Rodgers and Stravinsky and Rubinstein and Horowitz and Tennessee Williams and...

… True, we still have among us a few of the greats -- Paul Taylor, Stephen Sondheim, etc. -- who have been producing great art for many decades. But these geniuses cannot be the vanguard for a still young century. And while we do have some amazing younger talents -- Mark Morris, Yo-Yo Ma and Alexei Ratmansky among them -- we need more. Where are the new brilliant voices that astonish, educate and entertain us?”

I don’t know…but it seems to me that we have many voices out there now astonishing, educating, and entertaining us in the classical world. I mean, what about John Adams, Steven Stucky, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Mason Bates, Gabriela Lena Frank, Joyce Didonato, Mitsuko Uchida, Susan Graham, David Daniels, Juan Diego Florez, Joshua Bell, Jonathan Biss, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Denk, Yuja Wang, Eighth Blackbird, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Muti, David Robertson…just to name a few?

Part of what was so inspiring about going to all of these performances over the last few days was that it demonstrated to me not only that audiences are willing to be engaged and want to experience classical music, but that great music-making is happening all over the place.

It just seems to me that if I can see three performances of the highest quality in only five days, the quantity of artistic excellence is clearly not the reason for the arts’ “parlous state”.

Small Yoga

2011-01-28T01:59:00.006-05:00

Seattle has most definitely lived up to its overcast, wintry reputation during my sojourn here these past six weeks. The city is covered with a low ceiling of grey cloud-cover most days, with a gentle foggy mist generally floating around in the air. I have a beautiful view of Elliott Bay from my balcony here in Seattle, which much of the time is shrouded in fog, blocking the view of the mountains across the way. When the clouds clear and the sun manages to peek through the grey, I sometimes get an incredible view of the snow-capped mountain range across the bay, reminding me that the earth does extend beyond the cloudy-grey dome that wraps itself around Seattle. On the rare occasions that the sun burns off the cloud cover, and the mountains across the bay show themselves, it feels as though we have emerged from some strange netherworld and rejoined reality. For the first time in my travels, the past six weeks here have given me the sensation that I am at the edge of the world, sometimes looking in, and other times completely isolated in a mysterious limbo.

After an autumn of being in a different city every week, coming to Seattle was a welcome chance to remain in one place for a bit, and the isolated feel of the place has afforded a lot of time for introspection and inner exploration. I’ve been fortunate to have a very small, community-oriented yoga studio right behind the apartment that I’ve rented for my stay here (HOME yoga, for you Seattle-folk), making it incredibly easy to go to a class every day. Even though I am generally pretty diligent about my daily yoga practice, my travel schedule requires that I do much of it on my own. It’s a rare opportunity for me to be able to surrender my practice to a teacher on a daily basis. Yoga has a way of forcing us to constantly be small – showing up every day at the mat forces us to contend with both our strengths and our limitations, and it forces us to focus on finding balance, patience and compassion.

It’s been the most fascinating journey these past six weeks, and I’ve been surprised at how much that outward physical practice has bled inwards. After so many milestone events in the past few months, it was quite the challenge to find the patience to be a beginner again, and I found that my daily time in the yoga studio was at times very frustrating. When one encounters a physical limitation in yoga, you realize you can’t force the issue, and it is only with acceptance, patience and compassion that you can overcome it – otherwise it is the psychic equivalent of repeatedly smashing your head into a brick wall. Finding that patience within yourself can be incredibly tricky. I realized that one has to have the ability to be small in order to find that compassion – something that can be very difficult to be at times. I’ve discovered that it strangely takes a great deal of confidence to be small.

Going straight from the yoga studio to the rehearsal studio every day has been an interesting journey, as well. I’ve noticed that by applying the same amount of patience, compassion, and willingness to be small, I’ve been able to take greater strides operatically-speaking, as well. It’s been revelatory to see how the bigger I try to be, the greater and more exhausting the battle that I fight within myself, and I inevitably step in my own way. It’s been a great deal of fun to play around with the concept of being small in the rehearsal and on stage (a place where it’s easy for one to think that bigger is better on a variety of levels) and to see just how powerful and liberating that can be.

I’ve started saying things to myself like: “It’s ok that you don’t know what you’re doing here – we haven’t done this before,” and “it’s ok if you don’t sound perfect at this rehearsal today – you didn’t sleep well last night and you are tired – you’re a human being and don’t have to be perfect 100% of the time.” Statements like these have led to asking myself questions like: “What happens if I try singing this phrase out in rehearsal tonight despite the fact that I am tired – just to see what I can do with it?”, “What happens if I try this new ornament here today?”, and “What happens if I give into the momentum of the music here and try to sing a bit faster?” What’s been amazing is that each time I accepted a limitation and allowed myself a bit of compassion for my human-ness, I was able to ease further in the direction I was pushing for originally and what was once a rigid boundary would give way to a much more flexible one with infinitely more possibility. Fear at what I might not be able to do melts away into the courage and willingness to try, and suddenly what was once deemed impossible is now completely possible.

Compassion, humility, and patience – with a little breathing, they apparently have the power to amaze, shine, empower and liberate. Who knew?

New Beginnings

2010-12-31T22:19:00.010-05:00

As the turn of the year approaches, I find myself rehearsing a for another production of Barber of Seville in the Pacific Northwest, this time in Seattle – a new city to me. I’m in physical and musical territory that is familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time – I have the feeling that I’ve come full-circle at the same time that I have the sensation I’ve never been here before. The cycle begins anew.

2010 was a year of moving forward – it was a year of becoming aware of how far I have come, with many proud markers along the way. I saw a lot of lifelong goals come to fruition and had more than my fair share of dream-come-true moments as the year progressed. It was a truly mind-blowing year, and one that I will take great pride in, being filled with many special moments of accomplishment. The professional highlights:

- Going home to Ann Arbor to sing Messiah – I’ve dreamed of taking part of this annual Ann Arbor tradition since I started singing, and to do so was yet another dream come true this year. It was one of the best Messiahs I have ever taken part in – not one 16^th note was taken for granted that week. What caught me off-guard was the sense of pride I felt as I reunited with former teachers and fellow-alums, and being reminded of the exceedingly high musical standard we were held to. I was teary-eyed at each performance as I realized how fortunate I was to have had that kind of musical education.

- Performing Schumann’s Dichterliebe for the first time with Mitsuko Uchida – To me, Dichterliebe is the most holy of all song cycles – it’s a piece I have studied intermittently for the past 11 years. All that time, I never felt ready to take it out into public – it just somehow never felt fully-cooked enough. This summer at Marlboro, Mitsuko asked me to work on it with her, as she had, much to my shock, never performed it before. As our rehearsals progressed, we decided to perform it together on one of the Marlboro Concert Programs. It turned out to be one of the most emotionally intense performances I have ever been involved with. Feeling her pointed, crystal clear emotional intensity at the piano guiding me through the psychic tumult of the poet’s heartbreak, I poured every bit of my being into the cycle. To perform one of the greatest pieces of music ever written with such an accomplished master was truly astonishing. You can hear our performance here as this year's holiday gift from the Festival.

- The CSO Stravinsky CD being nominated for a Grammy Award – What was already a pinching-myself-to-be-sure-this-is-real experience became even more surreal when the 2010 Grammy Nominations were announced a few weeks ago.

- Making my recital debut in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall – I used to fantasize about singing a solo recital at Carnegie Hall when I was a teenager studying art songs with my voice teacher back when I was starting to make the transition from violinist to singer. To be presented in a solo recital by the Hall was one of the most tremendous honors of my life.

- Barber of Seville at the Portland Opera – This particular production of Barber was perhaps one of the greatest experiences I have ever had in an opera house. Rarely have I experienced such warm camaraderie and support from such fun-loving and excellent colleagues. We laughed our way through 5 weeks of rehearsals and performances, and I found that not only did I have one of the best times of my life, but I was able to accomplish things on-stage that I never thought I could before. With a little laughter and light-heartedness, things that were once daunting challenges simply became fun games to play.

Here in Seattle, revisiting Barber, trying to approach familiar territory with fresh eyes, I've been thinking back to this past summer at Marlboro and how pride can so easily open the door for the ego to get in the way of discovery and growth. So, as we turn the year and start a new cycle, I have one resolution – I hope to find the grace to be a beginner everyday, remaining open to all the teachings that each new opportunity brings, and start each day with a clean slate. Being a beginner doesn’t mean I have to let go of everything I have already learned – it just means that I remain open to adding to the pot.

All the best for a happy, healthy, and wonderful 2011.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-24T14:19:00.002-05:00

The Holiday Season and it's music has completely swallowed me up these past few weeks, resulting in my absence from here so far this month. I hope to be back with a year-end post next week. In the meantime, here's a sweet video about some letters to Santa going to an address that is not the North Pole.

Happy Holidays...

Homecoming

2010-11-30T17:48:00.004-05:00

I wrote a little blurb for the program for this week's performances of Messiah in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan - a real homecoming moment for me. Here it is, for those of you who are not going to be in Michigan this weekend:

The very first time I ever heard Handel’s Messiah, I remember sitting in the first balcony of Hill Auditorium, carefully reading the program notes before the performance, trying to understand what exactly this Messiah-thing was. I was so young I don’t even remember precisely what year it was, but it was long before I ever considered becoming a singer. The reason I remember going was to see my violin teacher play in the Symphony. I had lots of questions: Did it tell a story? Why do we all stand up to sing along with that ‘Hallelujah’ moment? What is an ‘Oratorio’, anyway? My inquisitive mind absorbed as much as it could before the first notes of the Overture. From that moment on, I was transfixed.

The first balcony of Hill was my favorite place to see concerts while I was growing up in Ann Arbor. It felt like the perfect distance from the stage – I wasn’t too far away to feel disconnected (not that distance matters in Hill – the sound actually gets better the higher up you sit), and I wasn’t too close, so I could see all of the action without missing a thing. It was from that first balcony that I caught a glimpse of how powerfully expressive music-making could be, watching Yo-Yo Ma play the Dvorak Cello concerto with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, getting my first taste of great singing live when Cecilia Bartoli gave a recital, and having my heart broken by Les Arts Florissants’ semi-staged performance of Acis and Galatea.

I cultivated my passion for classical music as an audience member in Hill, and it was on the stage that I cut my teeth as a young performing musician. It was in Hill, sitting in the back of the viola section of the Michigan Youth Symphony where I discovered what it was like to play in a large symphony orchestra. A year later, on a whim, as a sophomore in High School, I went to sing a last minute audition for Jerry Blackstone to try and get into the Michigan Youth Chamber Singers. Not having anything else to sing for him, I sang the National Anthem. After I had finished, he said ‘sounds great!’ and told me to go pick up some music for our first rehearsal that afternoon. A few months later, he would assign me my very own first, tiny oratorio solo to sing in Hill in Mozart’s Regina Coeli, and my journey as a singer had begun. I would spend the next 7 years performing intermittently and even recording in Hill as a choral singer and soloist, honing my craft and gaining valuable experience that would set the foundation of what would turn out to be a life in music. To come back to Hill for such an important UMS tradition, standing on stage as a colleague with the people who started me on this life journey, marks not only a dream come true, but the ultimate homecoming.

More information about the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor can be found here and here.

Debut-ing

2010-11-20T15:55:00.005-05:00

So, what was it like?

In a word – incredible.

Miraculously, I was able to sleep the night before. After two nights of less-than-ideal sleep and anxious tossing and turning, I managed to sleep for an almost blissful 10 hours. I was quite dead to the world, lost in my surreal subconscious.

As I slowly started the morning, I went about my usual routines. I read the news on my iPhone while I debated getting out of bed. I got up and drank a cup of coffee while I wrote my morning pages. As I wrote my pages, I felt my heart rate start to pick up speed, adrenaline starting to course through my veins. It’s ten in the morning, I thought, am I going to feel like this all day? My daily horoscope was waiting for me, as usual, in my email. In what seemed like an eerily apt theme for the day, it encouraged me to have courage in expressing myself.

A couple of hours later, I went to a yoga class downtown, in an attempt to get my body warmed up for the day. I unknowingly signed up for a beginners’ class and was frustrated that it wasn’t more challenging. As the teacher implored us to let go and focus on our breathing, my mind was screaming silently, “I don’t want to let go of anything right now! I want vigorous poses and flow!” I was like a racing horse, restless at the gate, anxiously waiting for the starting gun to fire. After the unsatisfying yoga class, I rushed back to the gym in my apartment to spend some time on the treadmill – where I noticed that when my mind wandered to the evening’s performance, my heart rate would jump up to around 165.

Maybe that yoga class was just what I needed that afternoon, after all.

When I got to the hall, the stage manager greeted me, “Hey, Buddy! It’s good to see you again!” putting me a bit at ease. He remembered me from my previous times singing in the hall, and the strange dichotomy of the familiarity of the hall and the sense of routine that entailed combined with the pressure of it being my “Recital Debut” (yes, capitalized) at “Carnegie Hall” sunk in. I took a moment to be grateful for the familiar faces and surroundings – I don’t know how I would have coped without those comforts there.

Before I knew it – we were off. The first half of the program whizzed past, and by intermission the extremes of bouncing back and forth between excitement and nervousness were starting to wear off, and I noticed that we were really having fun. In the second half, as we started “The Last Rose of Summer”, I looked around the audience, and took in just how many people were there from so many different parts of my life. I suddenly realized that the Last Rose isn’t just about the death of loved ones – I realized that it is also a commitment to enjoy every single second we have with those people important to us while we still have the time on earth together. I looked around the auditorium and saw my parents, my aunt, family friends who took had taken bets on when I would be born, my closest friends from my adolescence, friends from Marlboro, from my Houston Grand Opera Studio days, from my days at the University of Michigan, in addition to friends from this most recent stage of my life in New York. Then I thought of all of the teachers and friends who have passed on, and whom I have had to let go over the years. It occurred to me that with so many of my loved ones spread out all over the world, and with the complexities of life’s logisitics, it can be so difficult to be together, and it dawned on me that the most special part of the evening was that I was able to share that incredible moment with so many people whom I love.

Winter Words

2010-11-11T10:48:00.005-05:00

Benjamin Britten to Peter Pears, 17 November 1974:

"My darling heart (perhaps an unfortunate phrase - but I can't use any other) I feel I must write a squiggle which I couldn't say on the telephone without bursting in to those silly tears - I do love you so terribly, not only glorious you, but your singing. I've just listened to a reboradcast of Winter Words (something like Sept. '72) and honestly you are the greatest artist that ever was - every nuance, subtle and never over-done - those great words, so sad & wise, painted for one, that heavenly sounds you make, full but always colored for words & music. What have I done to deserve such an artist and man to write for? I had to switch off before the folk songs because I couldn't anything after - 'how long, how long.' How long? - only till Dec. 20th - I think I can just bear it.

But I love you,

I love you,

I love you ----

B."

Pears' reply to Britten, 21 November 1974:

"My dearest darling,

No one has ever ever had a lovelier letter than the one which came from you today - You say things which turn my heart over with love and pride, and I love you for every single word you write. But you know, Love is blind - and what your dear eyes do not see is that it is you who have give me everything, right from the beginning, from yourself in Grand Rapids! through Grimes & Serenade & Michelangelo & Canticles - one thing after another, right up to this great Aschenbach - I am here as your mouthpiece and I live in your music - And I can never be thankful enough to you and to Fate for all the heavenly joy we have had together for 35 years.

My darling, I love you ----

P."

Nor can we be thankful enough for all that both of them left us.

Shirley Verrett

2010-11-05T22:08:00.003-04:00

While waiting for tonight's showtime to come around, I read the sad, sad news that Shirley Verrett passed away today.

The first impression I had of her singing (which blew me away) was listening to her recording of Verdi's Lady Macbeth when I was a freshman at the University of Michigan - I remember being in awe that we had the privilege of having this extraordinary woman teach at our University.

The thing I really appreciated about the University of Michigan was how supportive the entire voice faculty was of every single singer who came through the program at the time. While I was never a student of Ms. Verrett's, I remember her being one of the most supportive teachers on the faculty while I was there. I will never forget her coming to sit in every single opera rehearsal that any of her students were involved in, watching carefully over the development of her brood of singers, and always willing to offer any singer supportive feedback and guidance. She stood by all of us, and one was always left with the impression that she willed each and every one of us to succeed, regardless of whether we were one of her private students or not. Generous, classy, dedicated, protective, and always the epitome of elegance, she was an inspiration to all of us voice majors there. She will be greatly missed.

Columbus

2010-10-27T14:01:00.006-04:00

A week and a half ago, Myra, Ed, Abby and I all packed our bags (Myra and Ed packed Abby), and we traipsed off to Columbus, Georgia for the first performance of our little recital tour. We pulled up to our hotel late Friday night and after a deliriously exhausted search for the nearest Walgreens to buy some survival items we forgot at home, we collapsed into our beds in the wee hours of Saturday, hoping for a full night’s sleep before our first big step from the rehearsal room into the concert hall.

We had a leisurely day relaxing and resting up for the show (Ed, trying to make the most of his adventure out of NYC, wanted very much to experience the magic of Waffle House for the first time), and then headed over to the theater at 4:00 to rehearse a bit in the hall. Not having any idea what to expect, we were awed to walk into a wonderful, state-of-the art facility with a gloriously resonant recital hall and a beautiful Steinway. Myra played a few notes to test out the piano and turned to me saying, “Wow…we’re being spoiled…” The hall was a wonderful size with an incredible acoustic. Beautiful, warm wood surrounded us, and behind us was a fantastic-looking organ. We were excited to play with such a fantastic space.

After having spent so much time rehearsing all of this music by ourselves, both Myra and I had never felt more ready to take a recital program out on stage – we both felt relatively calm, and excited to see what was going to happen when we added an audience to the mix. It was a really fun performance, although I have never felt more exhausted from a program. An evening filled with a myriad of intense ups-and-downs and so much complex, intricate music, it took incredible focus and energy to give the audience all that we wanted them to have after our hours upon hours of rehearsal and discovery.

While in some ways performance is the end goal, it is still a part of the learning process and merely a stop on a long journey. Stepping out in front of that appreciative audience in Georgia, their energy foreign and fresh to our music-making, brought out in us a different kind of focus and adrenaline in which new intricacies and subtleties of the songs started to open up to us, and we started to scratch the surface of newer, deeper layers in many of the pieces. It’s one thing to talk to yourself, but it is quite another to communicate your thoughts to another person – through dialogue comes discovery.

It’s been a real luxury this past week to revisit each of those moments again in the rehearsal room, exploring those new possibilities of expression and depth. So often, once a program or show is up and running, there is no time or chance (or willingness) to revisit and build upon the discoveries that we happened upon once an audience in the room transformed our solitary music-making into a moment of communication and dialogue. Tonight, we take our recital out for display again, this time up at SUNY Oswego. I’m really excited to see what new things we discover tonight – which doors and pathways this audience will open up for us, and the new worlds to which they will lead.

Purple

2010-10-20T14:44:00.004-04:00

I hope you are all wearing purple today like this little guy...