Paths of Sewanee

Written the morning of July 17, 2021 at the Blue Chair Cafe, Sewanee Tennessee

Paths of Sewanee

The clouds roll by as I step out for a morning walk in Sewanee.

Sleek shiny black skinks greet my bleary eyes as the bird song awakens my ears to their frenzy.

The morning sun waking me hours after waking the birds thrilled to meet another day.

Eating handfuls of wild raspberries growing by the haunted graveyard, crossing the path of Mr. Grumpy Turtle and a nervous, twitching little rabbit; I walk.

From deeper in the wood, movement happens and just as we exchange looks, a young fawn leaps away.

But mostly, and because they permeate Sewanee, it's the trees that silently make their presence known. 

The oaks courageously standing watch over the woods.

The exhalation of the forest spreads a kind of delicious, sweet air that I take in with every other step.

Breathing in the trees.

An exchange of sorts between their ancient wisdom and my ancient knees.

Paths open and close.

Drizzle.

Rain.

The heat of the sun.

All blend together morning after morning.

Then another music starts up, joining the bemused bird choruses of cardinal clicks, chick-a-dee-dee-dees; as the locusts' gnarly sounds rise to join the crickets: Another exchange begins, another complex interplay for the day as a lone tuba warms up on a bench outside, exploring their own paths of sound.

Another kind of sharing.

The singers start their warmups inside stone walls as a meadow of pianists fly across their keyboards in whirls of scales. 

The conductors wave their magic wands of birch in front of eager young magicians creating sounds from air, from metal, from wood, from horsehair.

A magic permeates Sewanee.

Courageous young musicians exploring their own unique paths via our many musical tour guides;

Following the maps of trails created by composers - some from long ago, some forgotten in time, some emerging as saplings from their own thousands of forests strewn across the world.

Music.

From under a canopy of green, vistas open before us - of majestic valleys and skies;

From under a canopy of symphonies and arias, real and imagined vistas open before us - visions created from sound that stir the soul.

And more steps are taken, magical and musical.

And more of the forest unfolds along these paths in Sewanee, visited by echoes of Beethoven, Verdi, and Williams; 

Echoing down into Abbo's Alley where children still dance to the music of the trees.

Listen.

My personal Opera Quest

    At the end of the movie "Eat, Pray, Love", Julia Roberts narrates the point of her journey. (If you haven't seen the movie, it's okay. The "eat" part is a wonderful journey through Rome that will make you crave pasta, the "pray" part is okay but has problems because of a whole crap load of fat-shaming references aimed at Julia (really?!), and the "love" part is my wife's favourite part - mostly because of Julia's love interest embodied by a man who cries, calls his children 'darling' as well as kissing them on the mouth. She sees me in Javier Bardem's character, who I'm nothing like on the outside, but quite the same on the inside.

Anyway -- the point of the journey gets narrated over a lovely musical theme and a montage of her biking to reach her love. This is what is said --

            "The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting - which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments - and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally); and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue; and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher; and if you are prepared most of all to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you. [pause] I can't help but believe it, given my experience."

It's a good quote. And an interesting one when looked at through the operatic lens.

To perform an opera, one needs to rehearse it. During rehearsals - if they are rehearsals with good intentions and solid collaborations - the singers, director, and conductor often search to find the truth of the story, or a phrase, or a moment, or a vocal choice. To find that truth often takes a combination of a few things: 1) Vulnerability, 2) the Courage to Fail, 3) the Courage to Stand by One's Ideas, and 4) Acceptance that one doesn't have all the answers. It's a quest of sorts.

Vulnerability is not weakness. It is the opposite. Those of use who have consistently tried to be honest, open, and vulnerable in our collaborations often face exposing ourselves to criticism. People nowadays seem to want answers, not questions. The vulnerable ones have to ask questions in order to seek answers. And - newsflash - asking questions does not guarantee answers! 

As Hemingway once said, "The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed." I've certainly been feeling quite vulnerable trying to create opera during this pandemic. A few have been quick to point out that I'm not doing everything as easily as I used to pre-pandemic. It's easy to cast critiques my way because I've forgotten to do this, to proof that, to administrate contracts, to return email, to get others onboard, to get decisions made, etc. It's been an impossible job to do, yet I set out on a very specific quest this year -- to produce an unprecedented amount of opera for my students at McGill. This quest has left me feeling exceptionally fragile while at the same time feeling unbelievably proud.

The Courage to Fail is just that. Allowing yourself to see failure as a good thing, a teacher, a learning experience. When one fails - in small ways or in big ones - one can move forward a little bit easier knowing that you know things now, many valuable things, that you've never known before... To put it mildly, I've learned a shitload of new things this year that I never knew I'd ever need to know, want to know, or be able to teach to others who also needed to know,

The Courage to Stand by One's Ideas is a vital part of any quest. How does one question anything or anybody unless you've got a starting place, a home, somewhere that feels familiar and comfortable? Because to stand by your ideas means you're going to have to enter through unfamiliar doors and get into uncomfortable spaces to test yourself, your ideas, your mettle, your resilience. It's been my resilience that's gotten me through these long months. I've discovered an inner strength that was always there externally. My work ethic was always a mix of some strange ability to get up at 6am everyday and push through till midnight day after day after day, juggling multiple projects, without getting fatigued physically. However this year has been about a mental fatigue all of us recognized soon enough: zoom fatigue, the eye fatigue of screen time, email fatigue, and the psychological fatigue of being disconnected from other humans. I've had to discard quite an awful lot of my ideals, which have left a small amount of extremely strong ideals that have become pillars supporting me through this past year.

Acceptance is hardly talked about anymore. "God grant me the strength to accept what I can not change." is a mantra for millions. For many years, my mantra was "Patrick grant me the strength to change what I can not accept." Through sheer force of will, I've managed to change quite a lot in my years on this planet. But this year has made me question the sanity of trying to make changes - in people, in programs, in places - that aren't mine to push onto others. I've accepted that perhaps my next move forward is to stop pushing for change in others and to start pushing for change in my self, but especially my life.

For you see, I've been on an Opera Quest and not known it! I know I'm brave enough to leave behind the familiar and comforting because all of us in opera do this every time we open a new score to learn it, or open up an old score to re-think it. This is how we can re-discover "La Travaita" year after year -- by leaving behind our comfortable, familiar ideas of this masterpiece and diving back into it as a newbie would. I go on truth-seeking journeys every time I coach a singer, or imagine stagings, or raise my hands to conduct a downbeat. That's what all who live in opera days are filled with - lucky us! 

There is no truer statement than everyone we meet on our life's journey is a teacher. And what teachers I have had! I've blogged about a few - my first piano teacher Berneil Hanson, my humanities HS teacher RH Fanders, my master's piano teacher Joanne Baker, and my dear mentor of all things opera: Robert L. Larsen. And because my identity is very tied up into being a teacher, I see them in all of my bits and pieces and in all of my interactions with students. Teaching is also a journey, and the best evolve along that journey. I certainly have.

So the question arises, to follow the EPL quote from above -- have I been willing to face and forgive some difficult realities about myself? Yes - and my next pivot as a person will be in response to those realizations. My ego got some good bruisings this year. I've had to quite humbly admit I'm human and haven't been taking care of myself, my relationships. If I was a garden, I'd be a really cool and fabulous garden with tons of weeds growing and large sections looking quite neglected. Time to dig in, to dig up, to weed out, to replant, and to prune.

The truth has not withheld itself, it's just taken a year of a pandemic to make itself known to me.

And that's ultimately how truth in music happens. After hours and hours of practice, after endless discussions and coachings, after thousands of opinions tossed about - truth appears almost magically. But you need to be open, be honest, and be vulnerable to let truth show itself. And then, the hard part, face the truth, forgive yourself any failings, so that you can celebrate that truth as best you can.

What's the future hold for me? I think perhaps the same thing it did for Julia and Javier -- some private time on a boat far away from others holding the only truth I know: love and family.

Singing in the Darkness

From time to time I think about how I started out in the opera business. I was very naive, very young, but certainly in love with the human voice, the art form, and all of the collaborative elements that poured into creating that operatic sonic thrill.

This happened in Indianola, Iowa. The home of Dr. Robert Larsen and his department of music at Simpson College and Des Moines Metro Opera, for which he was the founding artistic director. Dr. Larsen was an incredibly gifted pianist, an amazing director, an inspiring conductor, and a profoundly tireless professor, mentor, and leader.  We created opera in a very small department that was primarily populated by midwestern kids who'd never seen an opera, let alone knew how it was supposed to sound.  Because of this, we were free to sing it our way, free to make noises we thought were operatic, free to create art and characters (via texts in our own language - all of the opera was performed in English translations, or English operas by Britten and Menotti), free to express ourselves without the world looking on.  In a way, we were singing in a wonderful kind of darkness.

We didn't have a hyperawareness of the world's operatic landscape, unlike today where the light of opera can shine into every crevice of the internet. Working on Puccini's La bohème? There are hundreds of videos and recording to choose from just on Youtube. At Simpson, we had the Freni/Pavarotti LP recording. I loved listening to it when I was preparing to play Bohème for the first time (I was a Sophomore and had only played Hansel and Gretel plus a few scenes before heading into the listening library to take a listen to the whole opera.) I imitated what I heard and listened to my friends in the cast do their best with the challenging music (headed by remarkable singers - the Rodolfo, Mimi, and Musetta ended up working on the Lyric Opera of Chicago stage, as did a few of the younger choristers and myself years later!) It was a great weekend of Puccini; maybe a few hundred people saw it.

I do wish that young singers today had a chance to sing in the same sort of darkness; to be able to experiment, make sounds that don't work, fail sometimes - even in performances, but give it the ol' college try.  Nowadays so much importance is placed on each and every moment that I worry it straightjackets the artist part of the next generation of young singers' talent way too early. They get so worried about doing everything correctly, making no one upset at any of their choices (that thought never occurred to me, since I didn't know there were any "incorrect" choices except making Dr. Larsen unhappy by not knowing my music!), but especially, many are in a constant state of "fixing" something about their talent.

News Flash: Y'all ain't broken. There's nothing to "fix". You need chances to sing, to perform, to work out the wrinkles in your sound, or in your craft, or whatever combination of artisanal/artistic ingredients you need in order to move forward in your career paths.  Perhaps finding a place to work on these things, out of the way, or in non-traditional places/venues might be a better use of time and money? I'm not sure, but I do know that my time in the Indianola "darkness" was exceedingly enlightening, invigorating, and massively educational. I'm fond of saying that my years at Simpson gave me my 10,000 hours of opera, prepared me for doing what I do now professionally, and taught me more than most undergrad, graduate, and post-graduate programs combined.

Dr. Larsen is still living in Indianola, mostly retired I hear. I wonder if he really knows just how special his aesthetic was, how unique he and his students were?  I hope he does. He certainly was a shining operatic light for many. On a personal level, I think of Dr. Larsen as a kind of lighthouse sitting out on the shore of some operatic ocean. Whenever I'm a bit lost at sea, I remember back to those care free days when making music was just something that happened naturally and without very much effort. It reminds me that I can do anything - if I just relax, open the score, and begin.

UPDATE: Dr. Robert L. Larsen passed away on March 21, 2021. His students from all over the world are posting memories on Facebook. His passion for teaching touched tens of thousands of students and opera singers, for those thousands who were lucky enough to learn and/or work with him at Simpson or DMMO went on to become teachers of their own thousands of students, or to create professional careers that reached so very many. He left an indelible mark and I'm forever indebted to him. 

Rest In Peace dear Dr. Larsen!