Maryland's All-Classical Music Station
It’s probably no surprise to our listeners that all of WBJC’s announcers have off-air performing experience as singers, actors, or instrumentalists.With that in mind, I’m delighted to announce that our evening host, John T.K. Scherch, will be singing the title role in The Mikado at Young Victorian Theatre Company this summer. Earlier this week, I chatted with Music Director Chris Cicconi about the production.
Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is onstage at the Kennedy Center through May 26th. Recently, I had the immense honor – and pleasure! – of meeting and interviewing internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, who is playing The Old Woman in this production. She’s as lovely as her voice, both personally and physically, and we had a great chat about Candide, the importance of mentoring young people, and her take on the future of the arts. I’ve included both the broadcast recording of our talk and a special web-only version below.
A new BA designed to meet growing interest in composing and producing music for emerging and interactive media will be offered at the Peabody Institute from Fall 2018. It will be headed by music innovator, tech trailblazer, author, and Johns Hopkins Homewood Professor of the Arts, Thomas Dolby.
Voices Rise is a community choir for all people based out of Paul’s Place Outreach Center and supported by the Peabody Institute and St David’s Church. It’s lead by Douglas Buchanan.
Peabody is presenting its 6th annual Fret Festival. Guitarist and organizer, Zane Forshee, came to talk about it.
The virtuoso flute player, Marina Piccinini, will be conducting her International Flute Master Classes at Peabody next week, and the events begin with an opening gala on Sunday evening, called “Angels and Devils.”
Here she talks about both.
Who among us has never misheard the lyrics to a piece of music & gotten a good laugh when we found out what the real words are? Some of us – myself included – also like to make up new lyrics to familiar tunes, not that we’d ever sing them in performance. Oh, no, singers (especially those with classical training) are all perfect angels. Right.
Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana certainly lends itself to both linguistic misinterpretation & parody. The text is based on a collection of medieval poems found in a library in southern Germany in the 19th century. Many of the poems are written in Latin, but some are in German & a few are macaronic (a combination of Latin & a vernacular – in this case, German or French.) For a modern English speaker, hearing all of those languages sung in the same piece is bound to create confusion & possible hilarity. The first movement of Carmina Burana, O Fortuna, has been the subject of numerous “reinterpretations;” there are at least related 18 videos on YouTube. If you need a good laugh & have a bit of time to kill, I’d highly recommend watching a couple of them, but be warned: some contain potentially NSFW lyrics &/or images. Then again, isn’t that apropos given that the original words to Carmina Burana are all about spring, drinking, & the, er, physical side of l’amour?
If you’d like to hear Carmina Burana sung live – & with the original lyrics! – you can do so on Saturday, May 5th at 8pm. Concert Artists of Baltimore, their Orchestra & Symphonic Chorale, the Peabody Concert Orchestra, the Peabody Hopkins Chorus, & Peabody Children’s Chorus are joining forces to present the piece at the Lyric. Another of my favorite choral works, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, is also on the program, & I’m very pleased to say that I’ll have the privilege of being onstage that night. Maestro Polochick, if you’re reading this, I promise to sing only Orff’s “official” words. Really.
The Charles Theater is presenting The Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcast of Massenet’s Manon tomorrow & I’ll be on hand to greet audience members, hand out “swag”, & enjoy the show. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, right? It gets better. Sara Stewart, a wonderful, talented woman who’s a member of the Met’s regular chorus – & a longtime friend of Jim’s & mine – has a solo in this opera.
We first met Sara during Young Victorian Theatre Company’s 2001 production of H.M.S. Pinafore. If you saw that show, Sara was Josephine, I was Cousin Hebe, & Jim was The Handsome 
Dark-Haired Guy in the Chorus. Jim & I know a lot of extremely talented singers, but even so, Sara’s voice always impressed us. We’re all too aware that there are no guarantees in any business, especially in the arts, yet we (& many others) had a feeling she’d go on to do great things.
From 2002-2009, Sara & I sang in the Baltimore Opera Chorus together; she also had several small roles with the company during that time. In 2009, Baltimore Opera went bankrupt, which was devastating to everyone who’d worked there, both artistically & financially, but far more so to someone at Sara’s level.
In 2010, Sara announced that she’d auditioned for the regular chorus at the Metropolitan Opera… & that she’d gotten the job! To put this in perspective: if you’re a professional opera chorister, the Met is the best gig in the country. It’s the only company I know of at which such work pays enough to make a living – no office job, teaching, retail, or restaurant work required. Compensation aside, hello, it’s the Met.
Once a season, the Met, like other professional companies, has auditions for chorus members who wish to be considered for small roles. The character Sara is portraying in Manon is referred to simply as “Une Voyageuse” in the score, but Ms. Stewart, with the sense of humor I recall so well from our many productions together, has re-named her “La Voyageuse avec les Oiseaux Morts.” Apparently the props department has given her a birdcage to tote around the stage & its fine, feathered inhabitants are on their backs at the bottom of said cage. I do hope the “deceased” critters are clearly visible on the big screen tomorrow!
Singing in the Met Chorus is nice work if you can get it, true, but it’s also hard work, & the schedule can be somewhat erratic. One’s workload during a given week depends largely on casting. No chorus member sings in every show that happens in the season. Some operas have no chorus, others just men, others a smaller chorus. The small chorus operas get divided up among the regular choristers so that the work/pay is fairly close to even. Staging rehearsals typically begin at 10 or 10:30AM, with more music or staging work possible in the afternoon; the rehearsal day typically ends around 5PM. If a singer is in rehearsal for one show & simultaneously performing in another, which is not uncommon, they will need to be back at the theater around 7PM. The Met presents 7 performances a week, Monday through Friday and two on Saturday; there are usually four productions running concurrently. In Sara’s words, “Bottom line, it takes a master’s degree just to understand the schedule!”
Bravissima, Sara; we are so proud of you & can’t wait to catch your performance on the big screen tomorrow! For those who are planning to join us at The Charles, we’ll be there at 11AM; the opera begins at 12 Noon.