Coda

Here I am, with naught but two weeks left of my master's degree, stressing over journal articles, aria analyses, grading students' homework, and memorizing music for my final jury. I'm not going to pretend like my course load is any worse than anyone else's, but it is a lot. Especially while planning an album and getting ready to record.

I am currently getting final copies of scores from composers, rehearsing with my collaborators, and defining my role as performer. Which seems strange, but I feel is even more important on a CD than in person. When I am giving a recital or performance of any sort in front of an audience, I am able to connect with them vis a vis, while on a CD I have to portray everything through my voice. This is proving to be a difficult but important lesson. I am being forced to explore my use of timbre, dynamic, and phrasing in a very different way than I have in the past, creating almost a conversation-like atmosphere in the music. I am also relying more upon my collaborative pianist, Scott Koljonen, much more than I have in the past; he is a partner in conversation rather than background music or support. He and I have been working one-on-one quite a bit to create this dialogue and figure each other out as musicians. This is my favorite part of music.

Beyond learning the music, this opportunity has allowed me to work with the composers of the works I am singing. This rarely happens, as we opera singers deal with much older works and "dead white guys" more often than not. In this situation, I am able to simply ask the composer what he or she was implying with dynamics or vocal lines or phrasing. I can find out what the text means to them and why they chose those particular pieces. And, in the case of one composer who is also a vocalist, find out what vocal colors and effects he would have me use throughout his song cycle. This is an invaluable chance and I am so grateful and excited to have it.

But along with this comes the finishing of my course work. Writing papers on my favorite shows, analyzing arias that I have worked on but never really seemed to have the time to formally analyze... I am even working on an article for my pedagogy class that must be journal-ready. This has led me to have to do research into what journals to which I could submit, read up on a subject I know absolutely nothing about, make educated assumptions and remarks about said subject, and make it interesting to an audience of my peers. As a 23-year-old soon-to-be-graduated masters student, I had never really thought of myself as someone who could speak with any authority to my colleagues and, indeed, my mentors. But here I am, being required to do so and it is stretching my abilities and forcing me to take even more responsibility than I already have.

So there you have it, folks. An update on my current education and projects. I feel so blessed to be at a point in my life where my education is finally reaching its first zenith (or plateau, though that doesn't sound quite as hopeful), and I am being forced to fully grow up. Unlike Peter Pan, however, I am fine with occasionally wearing a tie. I love school, though I am a bit tired and ready for the real-world jobs. I am ready for this adventure called life, and I am ready to grow up.

In the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and one of the brilliant composers with whom I have the privilege of working:

"Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at they door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.

Awake! arise! the athlete's arm
Loses its strength by too much rest;
The fallow land, the untilled farm
Produces only weeds at best."

Toccata and Fugue

As some of you may know, I launched a fundraising page on indiegogo.com last November to try and raise money for my future doctoral program endeavors in the United Kingdom. I am getting close to the point where at I send in my applications to those programs, and I thought I should give an update to those who contributed and those who are interested for any other sort of reason.

First off, I raised $450 out of the hoped-for $20,000 that would pay for my visa, airfare, tuition, housing, etc. A BIG SHOUT-OUT TO THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED!!! I love you, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support in friendship and of my career, and for the arts in general! However, this amount seems to be exactly what I needed. I have found that, in my life, God always provides what I need and not what I want. So, this $450 is being deposited into a CD account over the next few months (BECU won't do it in one lump sum, since I had already opened the account previously). That will then mature on graduation day and I will use it to buy a new computer, which I sorely need as my current one is jerry-rigged and will most likely explode one of these days. This is a crucial piece of equipment as, presumably, I will be writing a dissertation over the next three years and I will need a working device in order to fulfill that task as well as other school-related things.

My topic is yet to be officially approved, but I will give you a hint: I have become very interested in studying women composers (or as I like to call them, composers) as of late, and I shall be studying (*fingers crossed*) in the United Kingdom. Interest piqued? I sure hope so. Also, to draw you in even more, I shall be applying not only to the wonderful University of Cardiff in Wales, but also to Cambridge University and, perhaps, Oxford. I won't bore you with long, drawn-out explanations of childhood dreams and their unrequited fulfillments, but I will say that getting into any of those three schools would make me the happiest I have ever been in my life.

Currently, I am rehearsing three hours a day for the University of Montana's production of The Legend of Orpheus, a pastiche opera written by Prof. Anne Basinski and Dr. David Cody. I play a shepherd in the first act and Pluto, the god of the underworld in the second act. I promise you now that there will be photos of both personalities posted to this blog as soon as we go up (February 14, collective "aww"). Following that, I will finish out my time here in Missoula teaching and taking my final classes to qualify me for my masters degree and will graduate in May. I will let all of you wonderful readers know as soon as I find out about UK acceptances and (hopefully not, but let's not swell our heads too much) rejections.

Until there is further news, or I come up with a random music-related topic to discuss on this blog (perhaps an exposé on my transformation from "barichunk" to "barihunk"?), I bid you adieu to continue on into my collegiate fugue state.

"What a good thing this isn't music." - Gioachino Rossini on Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique

A Vocalist's Dilemma

This Saturday I will be performing my graduate recital. I have been practicing for months and hardly feel ready to performing such amazing works as the video posted above (Fauré's "L'Horizon Chimerique" sung by the performer it was dedicated to, Charles Panzéra). One of the things that constantly flusters me, however, is the import I put on conveying the beauty of the music to the audience. I find myself constantly stressing over the slightest thing and causing myself to have memory slips and second-guessing what I know to be true because of things I think are getting in the way of the performance.

Truth be told, I have completely fallen in love with all of the repertoire in this recital. From four arias by Scarlatti, to four Lieder by Mozart, Fauré's "L'Horizon Chimerique", and three of the four pieces from John Corigliano's "The Cloisters", there is not a piece I love more than any other. The task of a musician is to take what is written on the page and make it useful to the audience. One of my professors used the analogy of a recipe: The music on the page is a recipe to which we add spices, colors, flavors, and a place setting, even a paired wine, in order for the recipient to enjoy it all the more. If a singer gets onstage and sings what is written, that is music, but it is not necessarily art. Art is understanding what the composer is trying to say and conveying that to the audience in a skilled, compelling, and relatable way.

Now, there are many obstacles that can come between a musician and his/her intended audience. The hall may be below par (though this is not the case for me on Saturday), the accompaniment may be less than stellar (again, not my worry), there may even be weather that keeps the audience from attending. Most of these are out of the performer's control, however, if your accompaniment is below par, I would suggest researching new options for next time. The greatest obstacle I have come across in my time as a singer is language. Many of my friends and acquaintances who are not of an operatic ethos find classical vocal music dull because they cannot understand what the singer is saying. There a few ways I combat this: 1) Translations in the program notes! Now you know exactly what I'm saying because I translated my songs word-for-word and changed word order in my translations but rarely. 2) Acting! I work hard to find ways to act out my songs so, even if you do not understand the words, the audience can understand my emotions and what I am trying to say. 3) Post-recital conversations! I love to have audience members come up to me and question me about my music. I do this because I love to discuss it and learn about it, so ask me questions. Feel free to pry anecdotes and subtleties of text out of me. You won't have to work too hard.

While there are many things I could say about performing, I shall leave it at this: Don't just live in your music, thrive in your music. Convey your thoughts to the audience by experiencing the music with them. Think about your performance from their eyes and express what you are thinking in a way they can understand.

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Musical insult of the week:

"Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." - Aaron Copland

Prologue

Here I stand at the start of a new journey. I am finishing my penultimate semester of my masters program and am looking ahead to the prospect of travel and entrance into the grand opera stage. I am a young baritone with great aspirations.

I will be posting on this blog weekly, chronicling my travels, tribulations, and triumphs as I enter the world of classical music. Stay in touch to hear the latest news about upcoming performances and appearances, as well as the production of my World Debut Album and application to doctoral programs. Feel free to leave comments and I will reply whenever I can.

Allonsy!