We're Off To See The Wizard

"It just needs to be beautiful."

These were some of the words of wisdom Ian Partridge spoke today during his master class with University of York students at the National Centre for Early Music 'English Song Day.' They're such singer's words, and when he said them I sort of laughed to myself because they suggest such a simple task, and yet most of my life thus far has been spent trying to do just that - to create something beautiful, to be beautiful, to have a beautiful spirit in a world that is ugly in far too many ways. Maybe that's why I enjoyed coaching with him so much. That, and the fact that I was entirely humbled to be standing next to and sometimes singing with one of the finest tenors that has ever lived, with probably the most honey-smoothe, warm voice I've ever heard, even now when he is in self-enforced retirement from performing. The first question Ian asked me today after I sang Samuel Barber's 'Crucifixion' was, "what is the one thing that makes Barber's writing so special?" I immediately started racking my brain, trying to recall every impressive bit of Barber trivia I have up my sleeve, but I had nothing to answer this question simply. "I don't know..." I finally said, because, in truth, I was coming up with too many reasons in my head. But, as already explained, Ian talks singer speech. Everything was sort of simplified and direct, without much frill - very un-British actually, at least when he wasn't telling incredible life stories. So he answered his own question, without hesitation, as if he'd hoped I wouldn't be able to answer, "it's that he was a singer himself. He understood the voice and knew how to write for it," and I finished his sentence, "and how to create a relationship between the voice and piano." That's when we started making music together. I felt warm, eager, ready to try anything he threw at me. The warmth was a good sign, because when I get nervous I always go cold. He told me later that he thought I seemed nervous, but if I came off that way I didn't mean to, and I definitely didn't feel it at all; I was just giddy with excitement and awe, to be sharing that moment in time with someone I've admired for so much of my life. I can't describe what it's like getting to stand next to someone truly great. I am probably the luckiest girl in the world because I've been able to experience this many times now, and even in my daily life when I look at the professors around me, or the people/performing gods I get to keep in contact with on facebook and call 'friends' even though they will always be my heroes. It's such an unremarkable word - great - but it means so much, and he was it in that way that the people who change lives are, the way the best artists are, the way I want to be one day. Weak? Too honest? Maybe. But it's my truth, and it struck me today how happily swept up in this world I am. I may never be one of the 'greats', but I don't think I can stop at least trying now, and I don't think I can turn my back on the blessings that keep coming my way. I was so ready to find something new in this simply profound masterpiece of Barber's that I've come to love, and to love to sing since I first learned it almost five years ago, and I think we did manage to unlock some unexplored magic today. 

Ok, so why my Wizard of Oz reference in the title of this post? The last thing Ian Partridge said to me during my coaching was "I want you to have courage. Take risks. The beauty in performing is that there is no need to sing something exactly the same way twice. We get to try things out, tell stories, do things differently every time...Now you just need to find the courage to do it." I was completely overcome, and it hit me: there's no more room to be a cowardly lioness. I made the biggest decision of my life moving over here, leaving everything/one behind. I knew that it was worth it today. And I felt in that moment like I was being given permission for the first time ever to completely let go, submit, and love the music I love, and use my voice - not some closed-minded voice faculty's projection of what my voice should be. In a sense Ian was giving me permission to be a singer, so that from now on I can try to just "make it beautiful". There are plenty of days when I want to click my heals three times and be back in the comfort of home, but Toto, we're not in America any more.