Soprano Primatology

When I’m not indoors rehearsing or outside and blinded by the sun, I’m getting to see some of the topography of the sunshine state, which I will write about in detail later. First, I’ll observe my fellow singers in their natural habitat.

Of all the phyla in the musician species, none have more magnificent plumage nor a more distinctive call than the singer. Her face is permanently made up for the stage, her wardrobe highlights her contours, and she makes certain to carry her breasts high and visible, downstage center. Much as other musicians may boast of playing a Strad or a gold flute, the singer inspires your confidence in her by exhibiting the beauty of her instrument, which in her case is her body. In my first days here, I was astounded at how beautifully painted and well put-together most of the singers present themselves, even at 8 in the morning. But it’s a strategy found throughout nature: look like an alpha and eventually the rest of the pack will believe you too.

Also as in nature, creatures make noises and behave in ways related to their appearance. A dense, meaty soprano emits a dense, meaty sound. A tenor’s vowels swell out of resonance and out of his mouth like the fat over his belt. The soubrette who talks about sex all the time and delights in flashing people performs coquettishly, regardless of the meaning of her song. Can’t tell a book by its cover? Take one look at a singer and you know exactly what kind of performer she will be. That socially awkward girl is never comfortable onstage, that wooden soldier guy is stiff as a board when he sings.

Although women (particularly sopranos) greatly outnumber men, nature’s diversity is evident in the range of personalities in any given population sample. There’s the crazy and the clueless, the diva and the obnoxious, the intellectual and the terrified. One woman greets you with a bracing “Hello ugly!” and can never take the hint that you would prefer to decline the opportunity to touch her breasts. Another will take it upon herself to correct you in rehearsal, even though she’s barely learned her own part. When congregated in high numbers, they all talk fervently about singing: commenting on recordings, marveling at musical examples, complaining about a passage, etc. I revel in it, until I grow weary. Perhaps the koala can subsist on eucalyptus leaves alone, but I need some variety in my conversational diet.

Every single one of us struggles with at least one aspect of technique or stage presence. By contrast, everyone offers a strength or two that I can learn from. Even if one of the Queens of the Night (the role is triple cast) has trouble with her runs, her acting and grace on stage is simply beautiful. A little soprano doesn’t have much of a voice, but from tip to toe embodies her character. The dapper but sleazy bass who is performing two roles (and oh how the sexual tension skyrocketed the minute he set foot among all the ladies!) can stay in character even while eyeing the maestro for his cues, and remains cool as vichyssoise while dashing between rehearsals.

Overall, however, I’m surprised at the level of singers here. I thought I would be struggling to prove myself among a competitive pool of accomplished performers. There are, however, quite a few singers who are just plain bad! Some even have advanced degrees! I think I’m somewhere in a respectable mid-range. If a singer’s career has as much to do with Darwin as it does with talent, I have a feeling I’ll be fit enough to survive.

If I’m inspired later on, I’ll try to write about some of the “culture” I’ve observed here in Florida, and tomorrow I’d like to tell you more about the nature of the state, which is drastically different from up East. I’m hopefully going to a little day trip tomorrow to a wildlife park, where I bet you I just might find my mammalian doppelganger!

Holy Smokes!

I'm famous! I mean, I'm really sad! I mean, I'm sappy! Actually, I can't type, and I leave emotional comments on other people's blogs!

In any case, one of cyber-eulogies got picked up by The Guardian, typo and all! Here's the article, look for the fourth paragraph to find me, aka "anonymous Boston blogger" in Jerry Hadley's obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2129478,00.html

And here's the original context of the quote: http://irontongue.blogspot.com/2007/07/jerry-hadley.html

Have I really made my "debut" into the blog world? Will my little musings now attract intrigue across the globe? Will blogging suck up even more of my time? Stay tuned to find out.....

Transfigured Week

Well, what a week!

A new experience works the mind in much the same way a yoga pose works the body, pulling you at once inward and out. We spent the first week here getting accustomed to our new surroundings, observing each other, and complaining loudly about the many apparent nuisances of daily life in northern Florida. I’ve been on sensory overload, until this week, when I’d taken everything in and could now return my thoughts to myself and my many questions about my singing.

Also, I had some nice experiences last week, singing wise, and I knew they would be difficult to repeat. To sing for different teachers after having only been with one for a stretch of time is refreshing, like having a few great dates after a lackluster relationship. Sometimes all it takes is the right turn of phrase to free up your sound, letting you make a stronger, more beautiful sound with less effort. Two teachers did this for me last week, and I left me feeling confident that I had the tools I needed to sing well, even if I needed more guidance on how to use those tools. “It’s your oyster,” one of them said to me, complimenting my former teacher’s work.

So that was last week. We started staging the operas this week, which has proved a stressful experience. I’m fairly new to the stage, having grown up musically in youth orchestras. I’m honestly more interested in the intimate communication between performer and audience found in chamber music or the most simply staged aria, rather than elaborate prancings about in the name of “theatre.” Also, adding physical and character elements to difficult music really challenges me; it’s so easy to forget all technique, choke on nerves, and lose track of where you are. The rehearsals have been going fairly well, but I feel I can never be solid enough with my knowledge of the score, or have enough time on stage to be comfortable putting together the many elements that make up a performance – music being only one of them, rather sadly.

There is also the fact that I am in two operas which tend to rehearse at the exact same time, a difficulty that affects only two people in both shows. I spend my time frantically running between rooms, trying to get my time onstage or asking colleagues to explain the blocking to me that I just missed. No matter where I am, I feel as if I should be somewhere else, that I’m missing out, that someone is getting something that I should be getting.

And speaking of which…..

This program entitles us to three lessons a week with a voice teacher of our choice. (We won’t discuss the fact that they are only 30 minute slots, down from 45, and that we were initially promised a lesson a day.) However, we must sign up for lessons each evening when schedules are posted, an occasion that resembles a feeding frenzy. Some teachers are infinitely more popular than others, and missing a signup usually means not having a lesson at all the next day. Moreover, some teachers block out most of their schedule for their private students from elsewhere, and will offer only four precious slots to the hoi polloi.

This creates a problem when some private students are especially keen for lessons, and resort to tactics like signing up for two a day, signing up with false names, crossing off other people’s names from the list, and bodily attacking the poor guy who tacks the schedules to the wall. Such has been the scene since the arrival of one teacher’s minion, whose poor sportsmanship and defensiveness has been stressing everyone out.

After that lovefest with last week’s teachers I decided to sing for another teacher here, whom I will call Tarzan. She earns this name thanks to her, um, singular personality and teaching style, involving loud snorting through the nose (encouraging head resonance), pounding of the chest (chest resonance), funny faces (humiliation of the student), and hyperactivity. Tarzan belongs to the “monkey see monkey do” school of teaching, in which she sings at me, tells me all the things I’m doing wrong, and extols all the things she’s doing right. This is interspersed with frequent ugly of exaggerations of how I sounded and looked to her, and many inquiries of “Do you get it? Does this make sense?” Towards the end of our excruciating half hour together, I did make some progress, and latch onto the sensations the nicer teachers had guided me towards. She played favorites among students, encouraging some to come study with her privately while skimping on time with others, namely me. I was miserable, but I decided to take another lesson with her, in hopes that things would be different, or I could make things better. In other words, with the same attitude as a battered wife.

The presence of Tarzan’s minion didn’t help either. I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t direly intimidated by the other singers during my first week here, but after this floundering lesson and the stressful rehearsals, I began to doubt myself. The minion has a superior air and competitiveness that instantly made me feel as if I couldn’t compete. She dominates in the trio I share with her, and is not a flexible musician.

But the week went by, I’m sort of learning how to manage the rehearsals, and Tarzan started to like me. I know this because in our last lesson together, she confessed as much, along with the fact that she didn’t like my voice at first. I was glad to get to know her here, instead of paying for lessons in Boston. She got me to do some good things, but a little bit of draconian goes a long way.

In fact, I think her students all have problems, the minion included. After a week of her attitude, I was looking forward to the songs she was singing on one of our group recitals. If you’re going to scare me and make me feel bad, then you better knock my socks off. Well, she was a bundle of nerves (it is quite difficult to sing for 70 of your peers!), sweating and shaking, and then screeching and howling. I put my socks back on. I’m sure Tarzan was distressed, or else delusional. I was happy that my performance met with high praise from my colleagues, even though it was a very long program. I sang some Britten folk song arrangements that I had done in May with my lovely harpist, and I was able to rely on my newly revitalized technique to focus on the emotion and storytelling of the songs. A few people said I even made them tear up – I just love making people cry! I even got hugs and congratulations from both Tarzan and her minion. Overall, it’s been a week of transition from freaking out to gaining control.

When I sang last night, I dedicated the songs to Jerry Hadley, who had so inspired me earlier this year. But I don’t think people had heard the sad news, and I didn’t want to describe it at a concert. I was dismayed that the person who redirected me to such positive feelings about singing could allow himself to be so consumed by a strong depression. I suppose singers can end up living operatically, feeling emotions as deeply as the characters we portray. Are we drawn to singing because music most accurately reflects our feelings, or are our emotions heightened and exaggerated because we sing?

Pourquoi me reveiller, o souffle du printemps?
Sur mon front je sens tes caresses.
Et pourtant bien proche est le temps
Des orages et des tristesses.
Demain, dans le vallon,
Se souvenant de ma gloire premiere,
Et ses yeux vainement chercheront ma splendeur:
Ils ne trouveront plus que deuil et que misere! Helas!
Pourquoi me reveiller, o souffle du printemps?

Why do you wake me now, o sweetest breath of spring? On my brow I sense your most gentle caress, yet how soon creeps on the time, filled with tempests and with distress! Tomorrow through the vale, the traveler will pass, recalling all of the glory of the past. And in vain he will search for the bloom of my youth, and nothing will he find but deep pain and endless sorrow. Alas! Why do you wake me now, o sweetest breath of spring!

From Werther

Opera boot camp!

Because a weekend in Tennessee didn’t satisfy my curiosity enough for big-box/big-butt America, I am now in Florida (I believe the town is called West Bumblefuck) for a five week opera program with lessons, masterclasses, recitals, coachings, and four full-scale opera productions.

Here are my first impressions of the other Bush’s state:

A sleeping fat man spread out in an airplane seat really does embody the word “spread.”

Many black pastors in white collars.

Metal flamingos suspended from the ceiling of the airport.

A manatee emblazoned on the floor.

Wizened old timers.

Very young looking parents.

Toll booth workers all wear loud tropical shirts.

Friendly fatsos at the baggage claim.

A lost bag. DOH! Why has this happened 100% of the times I’ve flown out of Logan??

Anyway…. that shiftless sense that everything is not precisely where it should be probably contributed to my restlessness on the first night, and I was not soothed by the striking disorganization of the place, and the intensity brought on by concentrating 70 singers in one very small place.

Already at the airport, the one-upmanship started:

“So what school do you go to?”

“Vanderbilt.”

“Oh, I wanted to go there, but it’s just so expensive.”

“Well I got a scholarship, so….”

“Well I have a scholarship where I go too.”

You get the idea. I’ve also had to adjust my conversation parameters to a different level; it’s true when they say that singers aren’t always that bright. I tried to explain my current reading interest on nutrition and our industrial agricultural system to one of my two roommates, and she blinked back at me and continued crunching her Pringles. My other roommate stocked up on EasyMac, frosting, and no-bake Jello pudding mix. I feel like a believer among the damned.

That is actually a righteous direction to go in, as we are staying at a Christian college, which happens to have the ugliest campus in North America. More than 60 of us are packed into 20 rooms (mostly triples), cleaning and supplies are all on our own, most – but not all – of our meals are provided, and there’s nothing much to do around here. I take that back: there are some trees. And farther down the road, some cows. For entertainment, I suggested a round of strip beer pong (i.e., attempting to whack ping pong balls into beer cups, drinking the ones you hit, and stripping every time you miss). A tenor countered that we ought to be more respectful of our hosts, and that perhaps a strip prayer circle would be better…..

The program hosts around 70 singers, mostly women, as usual, and they have a range of personalities. Mostly airheads and divas, but the occasional down to earth type you can actually talk to. I even found a friendly Seattle native who speaks beautiful Italian – thanks to a year’s stay in Rome – and is willing to chat with me.

Apart from many scomodissimo aspects (it’s hot and humid outside, freezing inside; we’re rehearsing some 40 minutes away by car, and maybe 10 people have cars; privacy is very, very, very dear) I can’t help but feel joy in the music we’re studying. I’m singing in The Magic Flute and Albert Herring (by Britten), which couldn’t represent more disparate styles. I call them Magic Albert or Herring Flute for short. If the Mozart could soothe you to sleep or inspire you to dream, Britten makes you laugh and coaxes a new comfort level out of your ears. While singing early music is about discovering voices that have been silent for centuries, and to learn with surprise that the human heart will never change, performing well-known operas is like visiting old friends, whose charms are as fresh the first time as the last.

And the fantastic pretexts of them all! How often do you tell your new friends that three young, beautiful, fair, and wise youths will hover over them and be their leaders? How often do you muse “that country virgins, if there be such, think too little and see too much?”

The last time I performed Flute was in the pit with the orchestra, where I loved the music for the three ladies above all. I am now singing the part of the third lady, whose line often functions as a cello in trio sections, and more like a horn or bassoon in quintets. But oh, it’s nice to have the words this time.

Cranes walking around on campus!! How cool is that??

The sign in the library, did they get this from the Italians? (Scusa, Paolo ;-)

Beauté

Last week, I felt as if I were on vacation in my own city. (Wow, there's a milestone: the very first time I call Boston my city! More on that later.) Once every two years, nerds from around the world gather for the Boston Early Music Festival, a curated collection of wide-ranging concerts, sales exhibition, master classes, fringe events presented by everyone one and their grandmother, and a fully-staged, imaginatively costumed, meticulously researched, and earlier-than-thou production of a Baroque opera. I was swooning with delight.

First of all, it's a very different city when the festival is on. Grabbing a sandwich between concerts involves overhearing a conversation about vielles, and bumping into a friend you met at another festival years before. "Amanda." I distinctly heard my name murmured on the street. Huh? A strange man I had never recalled seeing was speaking to me. "You were very good in the masterclass today, and I saw you at Amherst Early Music 3 or 4 years ago." Such is the experience at BEMF, where the small early music world seems to converge on just a few streets in the swank Back Bay, and where there is no such thing as strangers.

Moreover, I got to sing in two concerts and a masterclass: my lutenist Scott and I gave a recital, and I joined up with two other ladies - we called ourselves Le Tre Grazie - for some French and Italian, sacred and secular trios and duets.

Overall, it was a learning experience. Never again will I schedule FOUR concerts over the space of six weeks. Even if I can "pull off" a solo concert with frantic preparation (Scott and I were changing the program up until the night before), I never want to feel that I am simply hitting the notes but only making a superficial emotional connection with what I'm singing about. Still, it was so nice to see old friends (and hear their praise!).

And I will also try to keep my sulky attitude from affecting my performance. That is, relations with the ladies were sometimes not very graceful, and instead of being above it all and focussing on the music, I was distracted and nervous during the show. I performed acceptably, but not outstandingly.

But any thoughts of triumph or failure were melted away at the performance of the opera, the grandiose Psyché from 1678 by Lully. When the French royalty weren't off taxing the poor or in the boudoir making more bastards, they needed some entertainment to pass the time. Lully, an Italian, by the way, cranked out a spectacle every year, long on splendour, short on substance, but as delectable as a fine gateaux.

Man cannot live on cake alone, but I ate this stuff up. Little pink cupids dancing pretty courantes, deities descending from the heavens, costumes out of paintings, and trills, appoggiaturas, and gestures to make your heart ache. Don't we all dream of winning the favor of the gods? Or at least of prancing around in glittering finery, boasting of amour, desire, delices, et tendresses? Wouldn't you be thrilled if Jupiter descended and declared you immortelle, or if cupid himself fell in love with you? After all this, and a glimpse of the "bessere Welt" that music is meant to bring, what can one say, but grazie.....

Ohmigod!Ohmigod!Ohmigod!

There's a post that's been stewing in my mind for ages, but thanks to lots of music going on right now, it will have to wait yet another day. BUT! I couldn't let today go by without putting some words down. Namely, these words:


Hi Amanda --

We were very impressed with your talent, and would like to invite you to sing the role of Brangane in January and February 2008. If you still want the part, please contact Jane and she can work out the business/practical end.


Exsqueeze me? Really???! Yup, my first real-to-life, honest-to-goodness gig! In Boston and then in PARIS next year! With a wonderful group, doing exciting music in high(ish) profile places and with people who are interested in me. Check it all out here: www.bostoncamerata.com

I call the singer the economic bottomfeeder, the grub, of the musical world. I compare our struggle to the march of the penguins, I never really expect anything to work out- certainly not for me. But despite best efforts to hasten my own demise, this little penguin just got tossed a tasty fish!

I have other reason for neglecting my writing here, but we'll have to discuss them sometime when that reason is not falling asleep....

Even when we're not writing on our blogs.....

......we are still writing our own stories:

This Is Your Life (and How You Tell It)
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: May 22, 2007
The way people talk about their pasts reveals a lot about how they approach and write the future.

Vocal Technique

When I was a horn player, I looked down my nose at singers. All insane, always onstage, all concerned about their image, all with their hearts on their sleeves and their brains at the shrink’s. Why couldn’t they get over themselves and just start acting like musicians? When would they learn to put aside their emotions and get down to the business of creating music without all that drama?

Now that I have switched over to the dark side, I can duly confirm that singers are all insane. (Note: oboists are insane too, it’s the air pressure.) The emotional life I had observed is essential to becoming a good performer. That is where we find not only our courage but our musicianship. Yet by trying to be in touch with our productive emotions (joy, passion, humor), everything else comes to the surface too. We can use this situation to become mesmerizing performers, whose emotions are universally understandable. Or else it can take on a life of its own….

There’s a girl in my studio who embodies all that can go wrong with a singer. Her name happens to be Amanda (no, really, it’s not me!). In class last night, we watched as she talked herself into an emotional trash heap: her posture grew more rigid; her bony hand flailed about, wiping her eyes and shaking her fist; her mouth opened up like a wound and spewed curses. The girl is clearly manic depressive and needs help. But she is an example of the type that we find frequently among the musical kind, especially singers. There’s always an element of Amanda in us, and if we’re not careful, she comes charging out with a fury.

As I write, I am 10 days away from another big recital. Right now, I can either freak out that I’m not prepared, or enjoy themusic I've chosen. The battle is waged in the practice room, where I run between the two extremes, and wonder how I’ll manage to stay positive. In any case, I thought it might be interesting to write down what I know about singing:

Much of proper singing occurs outside of the mouth or the throat; the rest of the body expands (or contorts) to create resonating space for the sound. When I sing, I expand my lower ribs (much like the kind you eat), and let them stay expanded when I produce a sound. Beneath the skin, which is fortified by a thin layer of flexible aluminum (helps the support), the body is nearly empty. On the inhale, the heart floats up in the oxygen, and steel wires descend from beneath the collar bones to the soul, which sits on top of the pelvic bone. The soul is soft and unassuming, resembling a skinless, boneless chicken breast. The mechanism produces pressure, which my chords use to moderate air supply and produce sound. As long as only the heart and body do the work and the brain doesn't interfere, it all works out beautifully.

So that's how I sing. Now you can do it too.

Reemerging, Take II

Corraggio Amanda, back to writing!

For about the past six weeks, my head and body have been in too many places for me to be able to sit down and focus in this space. But I am determined that this blog not become a time capsule that perfectly preserves March 19, 2007, or one of the millions of abandoned blogs out there, when in fact, there's much to write about.

I should at least finish my Tennessee story, if only for posterity's sake. But lately I've been considering my grad experience, and thinking about the unexpected position I've come to after this journey. I won't reiterate here my anxieties about my singing or career prospects. They're still there, and informing the picture I'm trying to envision of myself now that I'm close to getting my piece of paper. School has been a disappointing failure; school has been a rewarding triumph. I am a better performer than ever; I can't compete. The gains I made musically were worth the costs to me personally; I miss some parts of my old life, including the part about having a lot more money than I do now. During my studies, I received messages that strongly suggest I bag this whole dream and stick with my day job; I've received other messages that give me hope and encouragement, and confirm my ambitions.

But since the beginning of March those negative voices have spoken louder - as they often will - and I find myself coming into the practice room with a sense of dread. I can work through it, remind myself of how beautiful the music is, and how personal it is to me, but too often I'm spending my energy on fighting my demons. I've even started to fall into the pattern I was in towards the end of my life as a horn player: feeling guilty when I'm not practicing, and feeling inadequate when I am. At the same time, I know perfectly well that life is too short for all this whining! In fact, more solemnly, I can't get out of my mind the deaths of two young people I heard about by chance: Scott Parkinson, with whom I played in a quintet with at Chautauqua in 1993, and Giavanna Kersulis, a BU alum who was on her way to stardom. I'm wrestling with the fact that I am jealous of both of their accomplishments, even though they would gladly trade their fates for my humble destiny.....

Reading about them online, I feel as if I'm going through their old clothes.

If I can do something as shallow as turn from mortality to vocality, I'd like to finally write down an experience I had earlier this month that steered the course of my singing a bit.

Jerry Hadley was at BU for a couple of weeks, giving master classes. I was surprised to walk away from those classes brimming with emotions; usually the affairs inspire only some thoughts about vocal technique and quite a bit of boredom. I first heard him work with a girl in one of my classes, who is capable of producing some ethereally beautiful sounds. She also makes some flatly unattractive noise, and like many of us, radiates insecurity and fear when she performs. After she sang her aria he introduced what would be his running theme for all his classes: listen to your own emotions that this music inspires in you, be yourself and communicate them. You no longer need to think or worry about technique.

He had her say the text in English, slowly, and think about a time in her life when she was in the same position as the character she was portraying. Teachers always urge us to inhabit the role by imagining what it might be like to go through what the character is experiencing. But why do that when it's likely that you've felt something just like this character in your own past? After all, opera does have a rather strong human appeal....

He then got her to sing the aria without the "singer's stare," that glassy-eyed, "I'm concentrating" look that is free of emotion, connection, or ease. We all adapt it as we try to zone out and counter nerves. But isn't it more pleasant for performer and listener alike if we forget about technique altogether and let ourselves revel in the emotions that attract us to music in the first place? Her second performance was riveting, leaving her and all of us near tears.

In another class, as he was coaching my handsome scene partner, and he addressed the entire class. I even took some notes, just a few words that strucka nerve:

Every one of you has this gift from God, and you are worthy of that gift. Do you hear me? You are worthy of that gift. And no one can take it away from you, because it's a gift from God. Therefore, you are invincible. There is nothing more that you love doing, because you are most you when you do it. If people tell you negative things about your singing, if they reject you, it's all lies. Your love of singing threatens them, you're doing something and experiencing things tehy wish they could, they are jealous and must protect themselves. If you really want to do this, nothing will stop you. The minute you take no for an answer, you are dead in the water. Your job is to sing as beautifully and as honestly as you can. In old meanings 'perfect' actually meant compassionate.

In another session, each singer was transformed. I couldn't help but watch them and let myself believe the conceit: during their performances, each singer was no longer my rival or friend or colleague. Each became the most beautiful singer in the world, the most beautiful person, and I wanted nothing more than to feel the emotions they felt in their songs, and be close to them and feel their sound resonating on my own face and heart. Afterwards, having brought new depths to their sound and their performances, they floated back to their seats, taking with them a new gift to share with listeners.

I could have sung for one of those classes. There was time once, and I even left the room to warm up. But I lacked the courage to speak up and ask him.

Where'va ya been?

There were many alternative titles to this entry:

Far and Away

Verfluchte Ruh

You Can Get There From Here, But Why Would You Want To?

'Hi!' Has Two Syllables

Macaroni is a Vegetable

WalMart: The American Piazza

Civic Life in the Big Box

Not a Chance in the World

In addition to the usual excuses (one full recital coming up, in addition to a lecture recital, concerts to plan for BEMF, yet another summer audition, aargh!), I hit the road a few weeks back to participate in a singing competition. Yes, opera has come to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a dismal place about 30 miles from Nashville, a dismal place in and of itself. I hesitated to go (aren't all competitions rigged?) but decided that the experience was worthwhile, I could always network, and the odds were actually in my favor to win (I was one of 28 semi-finalists, 18 actually competed).

So we were off! Of course, I went about things slightly unconventionally. Apparantly, that first weekend in March, tous le Bible Belt descended on humble, sprawling, Murfreesboro. There was not a hotel room to be had, I was told, and public transportation between nearby cities quite literally does not exist. So, I took the logical step of arranging to stay in the home of strangers. And I trusted that everything would be okay. Right?

Oh, one wrinkle. I would have to travel back and forth between Nash and Murf. To do this, one required a car. I, staunch New Yorker and something of an environmentalist, have not owned or driven a car in ages. I can't remember when I last drove to the drug store near my parents' house. Of all the unfamiliar things I would encounter on this trip (new people, cities, state, experience, Civil War prespective....), I most feared the driving.

"Buy the full insurance, buy they most coverage they offer." On the phone with my Dad from the DC airport, I had accidentally let him know about the car, and I was listening to him disintegrate as I told him I would spend three days driving. It gets a little tough to buck up your confidence when your parents are convinced that your every encounter with the modern world will likely lead to your quick and violent demise. (I'm not kidding. Before my first solo car trip of 2 hours, my Mom prayed on her knees for my safety. When my brother was once minutes late for his curfew, my Dad call area hospitals to see if a kid named Matthew was there - there wasn't.) Mom, Dad, love you!!!

Anyway, after a day of travelling; anxiety about one too many new encounters; dismay with the bland, uniform, Applebeed look of the American highway; wonder at the caramel-chewing drawl of the Tennessee twang, I said to myself: "I want lasagna."

And the lord provideth! The competition hosted a dinner for the singers and donors who sponsored prize money, which featured a big tray of veggie lasagna, which I spooned it up with them all. I had been advised that the occasion was casual, but casual down South means just wearing smaller diamonds than usual. I found a nice old man named Bud to talk to, to lose my self-consciousness in my clunky shoes and wool sweater.

Around 8, I was ready for bed and dreading the long drive back to Nash to stay with this couple I had never met. "Skip it," offered Bud. (His name, by the way, is pronounced with two if not three syllables: Buuuh-öööööö-ehd.) He offered for me to stay at his house, a huge McMansion in a gated community just about a 10 minute ride away. Faced with a choice between a long ride to a host I don't know and a short ride to pops, I chose the latter, and set aside my lasagna and headed out with Bud.

Speaking of ready for bed, I'm going to have to finish this when it's not 1:30 in the morning. For now, four video clips from the Stones River Civil War Battlefield and a quick tour of Bud's abode can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/thewooddove

Sometimes, you just have to respond

I know my Dad won't think it's a good idea to publish this, but I'm feeling sad about this news, and I want more people to know about it. Below is my response to a message from the BU Dean of Students. I encourage anyone who is interested to weigh in as well.


Dear Kenneth Elmore:
In the 2006-2007 academic year, four Boston University students have died. I am disappointed and heartbroken to receive the same, barely-edited, boilerplate email from you on every occasion. Obviously, Boston University is not doing enough to keep its students safe, and these deaths deserve more than an email and a statement on the availability of resources. You and your staff must make a public effort to start a dialogue with students about safety issues, and begin to change the culture that leads to these accidents.

This is not a public relations issue, nor is it merely, as your emails suggest, a matter of consoling ourselves after yet another tragedy.

I urge you to address this more responsibly. Students' lives evidently hang in the balance.

Sincerely,
Amanda Keil
(CFA '07)

--- Dean of Students <dos@bu.edu> wrote:
Fellow members of the Boston University community:

Today, I must write to you with terribly sad news. Early Saturday morning two Boston University students died in a tragic, accidental fire in an off-campus residence. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these students and those who knew them - we share their grief and sadness. Our community has suffered two great losses and I can only imagine the feelings of the families and loved ones of these young students; I wish to extend my deepest condolences to them. Our thoughts and prayers, too, are with another BU student who is being treated for injuries suffered in this fire. At the request of these students' families I am not releasing their names at this time.

I encourage you to take advantage of the broad network of available University professional and peer resources, as needed. Support for students, faculty, and staff is available throughout the campus. Tomorrow, University chaplains are available from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Marsh Chapel's Robinson Chapel for anyone who feels the need to gather for group or personal prayer and reflection. In addition, we have counseling services available through the Behavioral Medicine Clinic at Student Health Services.

You may speak with a member of the counseling staff by calling (617) 353-3569 or by going to 881 Commonwealth Avenue, West. Residence hall directors and resident assistants from the Office of Residence Life are also available at our campus residences, and can be contacted by calling or visiting a residence hall office. As always, I am grateful to the chaplains, counselors, residence life staff, and other members of the community who made arrangements to provide support today.

The death of any member of our community is a tragedy that saddens us all, no matter the cause or reason. Our campus should join together to seek support and sympathy during this difficult time. Please let me know if I or a member of my staff may be of assistance. This tragedy has received a great deal of media attention; I encourage you to let your loved ones know that you are safe.

Sincerely,
Kenneth Elmore
Dean of Students
dos@bu.edu
617-353-4126

Destino

Grab a hanky, roll your eyes, and clutch your sides: Amanda's feeling maudlin and philosophical again. (In actuality, I thought of this story weeks ago; it takes me some distance to go from thinking to writing.)

One day, while passing on my daily trot to work, I had a thought. It's worth mentioning that the trot itself is not too shabby.......




.........and almost looks like a city. And brings me to the historic Fort Point neighborhood, which hosts Boston's artist community.

Anyway, something made me think of a conducting student I once knew named Tom Whatshisface. He was a large Welshman with all the joviality of Jove: a fair round belly, hands like bear claws, and a doughy face that was always ready for a laugh. One day over a cuppa in the caf (or, more likely, a pint in the pub), he told some of us youngsters about his path. It started with a stipend to study composition in Poland. From there, he made his way to a teaching position in Greece, which he gave up to follow a girl to Norway, where he continued his music studies and cultivated an interest in Arabic liturature (!). He picked up and went to the Sudan for a while, studying and travelling, eventually going back and forth between Wales and Holland (was it for another girl?), and then Wales and the States, where his conducting studies had finally taken him.

I listened with greed. My semester abroad had given me a hunger to not only see the world, but live in as many places as possible. I wanted to know his secrets- how did he manage to accomplish so much, live in so many places, have so many lives?

We met over lunch and he gave me more of the details. But he told the story without joy, and with a distant look. The cosmopolitan life is not as easy as it sounds, apparently, and there were bumps in the path: one of the girls got pregnant along the way, and the subsequent marriage and divorce and leftover child are the banes of his existence. He spoke with nostalgia of the people he left behind, and likely will never see again. He doesn't feel as if he has roots anywhere, and expressed that all those years in different places were just wasted time in the end, as professional contacts in one place don't mean a professional life somewhere else.

I remembered Tom when I was thinking of this: What if your dreams are really blind alleys? What if you trust your instincts, but it turns out that your instincts are dead wrong? What if happiness eludes you while you're busy chasing happiness? These thoughts came to mind as I headed to my practical day job, having given up who knows what sorts of destinies.

Truthfully though, these melancholy thoughts seem less relevant to me right now. It is deep winter, and bone-chilling cold has finally joined us. Valentine's Day in Boston literally looked like Hell frozen over. But there's a warmth that's thawing out my stubborn anxieties, and I think I'm ready to give my intellect a rest, and let my instincts lead me. At least for matters of the heart......

Ages ago I heard a radio interview with a woman who had had an extraordinary career in publishing, but did not fulfill her original dream of having a family. "I sometimes think that if I had made other choices I could have gone on to have a family and children and all that," she concluded. "But if I could do it all again I would do it the same way and even make the same mistakes. I would do it knowing what those mistakes were and what the consequences would be, because I believe in following your heart."

Enough with the morality, just check out this guy. He has a way of making T stations look the Baths of Caracalla.....

Procrastination

Ay! Translating to do, emails to write, schoolwork to finish, concerts to organize.... but why worry about all that? I went a bit nuts tonight: instead of working, I went grocery shopping and came home and cooked. Why am I feeling so homespun right when I should be an aggressive, go-getter, ambitious musician?

No matter. Now, mushroom barley soup is cooling in the fridge, along with wheat berry and butternut squash salad, blood oranges, fresh blueberries, rainbow kale, roasted sweet potato, and miso soup with soba noodles.

I guess I'm into comfortable, pleasurable things right now, which also explains my great joy in seeing this on a bumber sticker tonight:

You can also order this on a T-shirt or thong. Harry Potter fans will instantly recognize the Dark Lord's name; but do they know that even he has his own fans: http://lord-voldemort.org/

Ha! (now off to work....)

I O U A Post

Meanwhile, it is all too amazing just how funny this is:

SHEEPISH

by Paul Rudnick
The New Yorker, Shouts and Murmurs
Issue of 2007-02-12 Posted 2007-02-05

Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay. Then the news media and the blogosphere got hold of the story. —The Times.

Enough already. I’m Troy, a gay sheep, and I’ll tell you the truth. Although I’m conflicted about calling myself a gay sheep, because I don’t like to think that my sexuality defines me; let’s just say that I’m a sheep who happens to be gay. Being gay is just a simple biological fact, like having a fleecy undercoat or bleating while you’re being shorn, or getting aroused whenever you see a bulky turtleneck sweater.

When I was growing up, I assumed that I’d be just like everybody else, and that someday I’d be bred with a ewe and slaughtered. But, of course, those other feelings were always there; even when I was only a few years old I would gaze at another male lamb and think about sharing a stall, with just enough hay and maybe a nice mid-century trough. I tried not to focus on my urges, and whenever my mom caught me rubbing up against the fence post that I called Skipper I’d pretend I had lice. But as the years went by I started to act on my desires, first with Ed, who was a ram, if you know what I mean. Later, I became involved with Rick, a sheep my own age, although after our encounters Rick would always claim that he was drunk on compost, and he’d butt me with his head and insist, “Dude, let’s go get us some mutton.”

Finally, my dad found me with Rick, and he flew into a blind rage, yelling that he had no son, and that if I was lucky I’d end up as a cheap Peruvian cardigan worn by a truck-stop hooker in Alaska. And so I ran away, and I went wild. I experimented with everyone and everything. Bulls. Mules. Duck, duck, goose. I found out exactly why they’re called the Three Little Pigs. Call me Old McDonald, because I had the farm. I even made some adult films, and maybe you’ve heard of them: “Wet Wool,” “Lassie, Come Here,” and the mega-selling “Hoof and Mouth.” Then, one morning, I woke up next to a horse, a hen, and an ear of corn—that’s right, all the food groups. And I was disgusted with myself. What was I, livestock?

And so I re-joined my flock, up on Brokeback. I didn’t expect to be accepted; I just needed some time to graze and grow. I had some terrific long talks with a wise old mountain goat, who told me, “Look, you can be anything you want to be—gay, straight, pashmina, whatever.” And I found my faith again, when I realized that, hey, there were sheep on the ark. There were sheep in the manger. And at the Last Supper there was stew.

At long last, I found the strength to come out to my family, my friends, and even my co-workers, to say right out loud, I’m Troy and I’m gay, but I hope that isn’t the most interesting thing about me. I’m just like you: I like to stand around in the rain and get caught in barbed wire and defecate while I’m asleep. And the amazing thing was—it was no big deal. Everyone nuzzled me, and my mom said that deep down she’d always known, and that she’d hoped that I’d grow up to be an artist or a performer or a cashmere crewneck. Of course, Little Bo Peep, my shepherdess, got a little teary at first. “Are you sure?” she wondered. “I mean, you’re so masculine.” And I informed her that being gay doesn’t mean you have to act like a hummingbird or a Chihuahua. And then she asked, very confidentially, “Is it true about Elsie the cow? And Ellen?” And I just rolled my eyes and said, “Darling.”

Right about then is when I met Doug. I saw him across the pasture, and I just knew. I assumed there’d be talk—he’s a black sheep. And, I’ll confess, I used the oldest line in the barn. I sidled right up to him and I said, “Baa baa, black sheep, have you any wool?” And he looked me right in the eye and murmured, “Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full.” And I replied, “I can see that.” We’ve been together ever since, and we don’t care what anyone thinks. Because, baby, at the end of the day we’re all just animals.

Meet Amanda and Duncan. You'll find them in this week's style section, which I admittedly glean on occasion to compare the couples' ages to my own. There is usually a strong crowd of thirtysomethings, and fewer and fewer young chickens, which is reassuring. (Amanda in the picture is 33. Duncan is a yucky 46.)

Anyway, this is lovely portrait of a good looking couple. Besides the fact that she is a fellow member of the Worldwide Amanda Association (the WAA), I was drawn to her distinctive look. Maybe it's just the sunlight on the hair, but those cerulean eyes, that ivory skin, evoke to me a lady descended from royalty, a princess or a goddess from antiquity.

But then, I broke the spell by watching their little love video. True, this is invariably the most boring crap on the web. The Times films the couple recounting how they met, mixed with shots from their vacations and dopy footage of the pair fawning over each other. But Amanda, really, must your voice be so whiny? Must your comments be so dumb? Must your posture be so bad? You have a name to live up to! Next time, I'll leave the back story (complete with voiceover) to my little imagination.

Ouch

Wow, nearly a month without writing, that hurts.

In reality, cherubs, I've been biding my time a bit, getting ready for my next and final and most demanding semester. To facilitate this process, the night before my first day of classes, I decided I would achieve fuller zen if I clocked my head against a brick wall and took a trip to the emergency room. Seriously. The fresh wound on the back of my cranium completes the scar triptych I had begun at the age of 5 (when I expressed my dismay at someone changing the TV channel by flinging my head against a wall and smashing my barrett into the skin) and revisited at the age of 13 (while ice skating, I learned that a mild concussion is an effective way to come to a complete stop).

But after trauma and drama, kindness from strangers, my cut and my face bathed in salt water, eight staples - that's right, staples, not stitches - plugged into my scalp, I was cared for and brought home with a tenderness that made the distress evaporate, and let me sleep dreamlessly.

Besides that excitement, I have also been figuring out how to make good on my New Year's resolutions. I was considering posting that weighty list for your amusement, but I felt too embarassed. Really! After sharing all sorts of inner thoughts in this space, it just seemed like too much to broadcast my innermost insecurities. I have a few sundries to offer, and then, I will tell you a few of my resolutions, which I decided to phrase as Quaker worship queries, rather than the customary list of commands.

* * * * * * *

Top 10 things I like about Boston:

1. It's not too far from New York.
2. You occasionally run into New Yorkers.
3. The pizza, transportation system, provinciality, lackluster restaurants, limited culture, cold weather, and eerie lack of diversity make me really appreciate New York.
4. In their heart of hearts, Bostonians want to be New Yorkers.
5. When I say I'm from New York, Bostonians occasionally look at me as if I had just said that I am from Heaven.
6. Civic life takes place behind closed doors.
7. Like New York, you can talk to yourself on the streets (in Boston because they're so empty, in New York because they're so crowded!)
8. The backwards ways of doing things reminds me of Europe. (New York isn't European
   at all.)
9. New England apples are just as good as New York apples.
10. Although it's more difficult to meet friends in Boston than in New York, once you do meet them, it's easier to keep them.

* * * * * * *

Read this and write. The rightfully hyped Orhan Pamuk describes in his Nobel acceptance speech his singular motivations for writing, and gives a glimpse into the experience of creating art using only yourself. I found some parallels to the study of music, and it made me want to be more diligent about my writing as well.

* * * * * * *

A little while ago I steamed up some artichokes. My Chinese roommate, unfamiliar with the plant, peeked into the pot and thought they were little animals!

* * * * * * *

This month's break from the conservatory treadmill has been a relief. I had become too deeply conscious of the negative concerns of performing and studying: competition with others, proper deference to instructors who might eventually be career builders, self criticism at the expense of any self praise, etc. For various reasons, I am beginning to rediscover a love for the art itself, a passion that is easy to lose sight of.

With that, here are some questions, musical and otherwise, that I want to think about this year:

• When I perform, how do I want the audience to feel?
• What would happen if I trust that my technique is strong enough to allow me to be musical?
• Do I believe that the composer's intent is still clear, even if the performance isn't perfect?
• What kind of character do I want to be? As a performer? As a friend? As a person?
• What is my role in this city?
• What traits do I hold dear, and which I could cultivate in myself and others?
• How would it feel to perform without doubts or questioning, but instead with pleasure and empathy?
• What if a lifetime is long enough for a dream or two to become reality?

Christmas in Boston

Ahem. Before my rapidly-fluttering sentimentality takes wing, let's take another look at life in Boston, shall we?

"For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county."

From the records of the General Court,
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659

Excuse me? This Irish-Catholic stronghold, this bastion of New England moral uprightness, this WASP-nest actually banned Christmas?? Yup, for 22 years under Puritan rule any such celebration was outlawed, and it was only in the mid-1800s that it was no longer considered a dishonor to God to forbear labor and raise a glass of spiced wine. The Puritans wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from old England, and, more importantly, the custom of poor people wassailing the wealthy (i.e., assailing them for food and alms through carols and cajoles) was getting out of hand.

What's odd is that at Christmastime, it seems like everyone in Boston celebrates Christmas. A creche appears on the Common with no conciliatory menorah; tourists from the bible belt book their holiday here, in the one Northeastern city that feels righteous enough to them; groups of carolers stroll through downtown singing of Christ and redemption. When I spent a few frozen hours singing 'Rudolph' and 'Silent Night' around Faneuil Hall last year, I would not have been surprised if our wide-eyed listeners had fallen to their knees and received the eucharist. Can you picture the same on 34th Street?

Oh, there I go again, Annoying NYC Lady, comparing Beantown to the Big Apple. But the odd lack of diversity (or rather, presence of a rigid class hierarchy) makes Boston a largely Christian town. I freely wish "Merry Christmas" to most every white or black face I see. If I'm wrong, well then, they ought to know that they are merely guests here in the Divine Commonwealth.

In any case, those party-animal Bostonians apparently put the 'ho' back in holiday after the ban was lifted in 1681, as evidenced by this loud tongue-clucking:

"The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonourable to the name of Christ. How few are there comparatively that spend those holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, in playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, in mad Mirth ..."

- Reverend Increase Mather, 1687

So while you're enjoying your tasty Compotations, listening to Chopin Interludes, playing strip poker etc. etc., I offer you some mad Mirth from the archives of the You've Got to Start Somewhere Department:

Victorian carolers Amanda Keil (left), Ellen Peterson, Cyndi Geller, and Justin Dilley visited Globe Santa and his sleigh to sing a carol in Faneuil Hall Sunday. (Christina Caturano for the Boston Globe)

Can I confide in you?

I've had more than one occasion to look a companion in the eye and recite the following:

Wenn so lind dein Auge mir,
Und so lieblich schauet,
Jede letzte Truebe fliehet,
Welche mich umgrauet.

And yet, I've never brought myself to finish the verse:

Dieser Liebe schoene Glut,
Lass sie nie verstieben!
Nimmer wird, wie ich,
So treu dich ein andrer lieben.

But maybe I will sometime. Maybe I will.

(That's all I'll reveal! Gentlemen, start your Googles!)

fall

Oh cherubs….

My writing will have to be on hiatus for a while, as I wrap up this semester; meet application deadlines; prepare for, travel to, and execute auditions; catch up on missing work hours (from all that travel), and perform my little gigs in town. But in what seems to be a trend, I am also reckoning with some other obstacles.

I do well with the return of autumn. The refreshment of cold air, the comfort of long sleeves. While summer boils our senses and exfoliates our cares, autumn’s intellectual sunshine brings us back into balance, and our lives resume their rhythm.

So I’m fine until around mid-November, at which point nervousness seizes my gut like algae infecting still-water. It might happen only because I’m in school, and the cloistered fish-tank of vocal studies can make anyone claustrophobic. But these past couple of years, along with a aspirations for the future, I’ve nurtured a healthy crop of my own neuroses. At home with my parents over Thanksgiving, sleeping deeply in my childhood bed, I was in the eye of the storm. But the instant I’m back into the fray, my nerves spring to life, despite my best rational efforts to keep them at bay. As these feelings are better explored in my offline journal, I will sign off (did I mention I have a presentation tomorrow and I’m also supposed to get some work work done?) and lighten up. And there are plenty of things out there that make me laugh....

Or even better....

Vittoria! Vittoria!!

By now, we’re all back to business as usual. But there was a day or two just a little while ago, when it felt like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and a kid’s birthday.

American Democrats had a successful election.

Who can remember that such a thing is possible? And the occasion just kept getting better: I went to bed and we had won the House, in the afternoon we were toasting Rummy and Coke, and the next day the Senate was ours. Do I hear impeachment?? It’s been a long presidency, and I will continue to count the days until it ends, but at least now there is the faintest flicker of the notion that there might be some hope in the next two years.

It will be rough going, and this success didn’t happen because of middle America’s sudden rapture with the donkeys (that sounds nearly biblical, doesn’t it!). The Republican base fired Congressmen who have blood on their hands and are riddled with scandals. I’m worried about the Democrats: they haven’t articulated a plan for all our ills, and they are quick to bicker amongst themselves. But this election was indeed a referendum, and I’m hopeful it will give our new leaders the energy boost and the legislative power to act and make changes. I’m also hopeful that the momentum that made these campaigns successful will carry us through the next two years, and even beyond….

Let’s just hope they don’t blow it.