New Collaborations

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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