Susan's Thoughts …

This will be my last post until after the concert on Monday. Everything is ready to go and I am really excited about it. We have dress rehearsal tonight, and I have a feeling that it will be very good. I am sure that part of this feeling is that the nasty weather seems to have given up a bit. I just went to look, and there is still 75% humidity, but at least it is a little cooler. I am a cool weather person so anything in that direction is good by me.

One thing that has been great about the concert preparation is that it has reminded me of how much I love to coach singers. It is something I have not done much of since I started composing. I have decided that that is what I am going to get back into in time. I have a lot of piano skills to refine and improve, and will never be good enough to play for concerts, but I am great at interpretation, and know how to make singers sound their best. I am not going to be able to retire, and this is something I can do until I drop. Besides that, I have shelves of music just sitting there. I will need a new piano, but I need a new piano anyway.

At one point, I went to hypnotherapy school and was pretty good at that also. So I can additionally help singers deal with blocks that they have which keep them from being their best.

Today I am very grateful to be working with all the singers Tracy Bidleman, Ilya Speranza, Anna DiRubio Schumate, Stephen Wilson, and Grechen Mundinger, as well as instrumentalists Mary Bopp, Gabe Smith, Leah Coloff, and Barrett Cobb, and our Mistress of Ceremonies, Lorene Phillips, all of whom are joining me on this concert.

I hope to see you there.

Last night was a long rehearsal. It was a tough one. By the time everyone got there, they were hot, sweaty, and tired. Everyone was ready for the season to change and settle down. This indecision on Mother Nature’s part puts sensitive people on edge, and by nature, musicians are sensitive. Also in New York City, when one is going to a rehearsal, you do not throw your instrument and music in the back seat of the car and drive to where you are going in air-conditioned comfort. You hike the blocks to the subway, and if you are lucky only have to take one train, then hike the however many blocks to the appointed place. Depending on the train line and temperature outside, the train platforms can be way over a hundred degrees with the humidity factored into the equation. Forget about the fact that you have to grab something quickly to eat, then really run. So like I said at the beginning of this paragraph, everyone was hot, sweaty, and tired.

We worked through a lot of problem areas, and added the narration to <em>Songs from a Jade Garden</em>. It boils down to the fact that we could spend weeks rehearsing this music because it is so detailed, which is the very character of art song. One of the perks of being in a university or conservatory setting is that rehearsal does not cost like it does in the real world. Everyone in conservatory always thinks they are overworked, which they are, but there is a big difference. When you are in conservatory, you are not going to a day job, and if you are, you know that it is a means to an end. If you are working because you have to, there is part of you invested in the day job whether you like it or not. In short, in conservatory you think that eventually you will be able to make great music and make your living by it (1% do), when you have been out a few years, you soon begin to realize that the day job will always be there (hopefully). It is an irrevocable part of your life and you will have to make music around it. This is easier said than done.

So in six days will we pull it off?  I think we have a very good chance. The people involved are committed to ironing out the issues. Always it takes a few times through to figure out someone has an extra measure, or a wrong note in printed in a part. It is only when we get past that point that we can begin making music. One of the pieces has never been performed. This means that anything can be wrong with it and has yet to be discovered. Often errors in notation are not found until many times through. It is assumed that it is just human error on the player’s parts. Then when the same thing happens several times, one looks further into the matter. This is where we were last night. Hopefully we found all the little snafus, and fixed the tempo errors. Things went marvelously once those issues had been addressed.

Now we see what happens on Friday.

It appears my post of Friday did not post. Apparently there are also many problems right now with WordPress. The internet has also been very hinky in general. Lots of pages redirected or not there, slowness, etc., and on different computers and systems, so it is not just mine–internet poltergeist, obviously!

I’m still suffering from pre-performance anxiety. Even though I no longer sing myself, I still go through all the pangs. In some ways it worse being the producer because you have little control over the situation. The anxiety builds, and then I begin to see every awful thing in the world and focus on that. Every bit of spiritual development flees leaving me with only a few tiny fragments in my hands. Eventually it gets bad enough that I have to take some positive action and the situation begins to reverse itself. Matters would certainly be helped by a cool, sunny autumn day rather than 70 degrees and humid! I am working on the return to a balanced perspective. Perhaps getting the messy locks on my head groomed and coifed will be a step in the right direction. Perhaps today’s rehearsal will also help when I am reminded about how much I love music and its gifts, and creating that gift with other musicians.

This is getting scarier and scarier–or more exciting depending upon what is happening at any given moment.

Today I would like to introduce you to the fourth song cycle, The Ghost of Mary (Songs of Mary Magdalene). My first exposure to the various theories concerning Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, were the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code, and its sequel. Then while doing research for another project, I became acquainted with the Gnostic texts which were revealed with the discovery at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. My works often contain thoughts about religion and spirituality, as well as portray strong women characters wronged by society or individuals. Therefore, exploring the conjectures about exactly who Mary Magdalene was became very intriguing.

Regardless of whether one believes that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene, it soon became clear that this purported relationship would have some of the same qualities as that of any other famous couple. If the husband, or beloved, were a controversial and well-known public figure, would not others vie for his attentions? His opponent might twist his words to suit their aim. If his spouse were an equally special person, the opposition might do or say anything to destroy her character. If she were in the same field, or a related one, her work might be seen as less important and not given its proper due. Rumors and intrigue might run rampant. How does this woman deal with this slander? What if the beloved were taken from her through murder or death?

Although the subject in this particular case is Mary Magdalene, is her story so different from other women in similar situations?For example, Eleanor and Theodore Roosevelt? Jacqueline and John Kennedy? Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King? Although none of the aforementioned males were solely devoted to a spiritual message, in each case, each had a message about justice and improving the world as they saw it. Each of these women, at least at one time, must have loved the man in question, or at a minimum, had high regard for his purpose. Each then had to suffer the loss, and find a way to go on, and in the aftermath, each made their own individual mark upon the world.

This seems to be a busy time for everyone. It seems everyone I meet in my travels is overly busy. This is just a quick little post because WordPress or Yahoo, did not save my prior post!!!

So today I meet with our MC to work on the script for our salon. We want you to come, have a glass of champagne, a snack and just sit back and listen. If you don’t want to read the poetry until later, we will introduce each song cycle. If you want to, you can read the program notes as we go, or later, or not at all. We are there to entertain you in the way you choose.

Tomorrow I will introduce the second song cycle on the program, Prairie Girl: circa 1955-67.