Here Comes 2021
I hope this missive finds you all well at the end of this unimaginable year.
I like year-end look-backs. I like to take stock and count my blessings no matter how challenging a year it’s been. And it has been, to say the least. I’ve been lucky this year in so many, many ways. And I don’t need to repeat all the Terrible Year year-end posts. I’ll just take a moment to lead you through my artsy world and many of its goings-on over the past twelve months and take a peek ahead…
Teaching and coaching have started to blossom in my work which is delightful. Last March, at Concordia University in Montreal, I was a guest artist and I facilitated an expressive voice workshop. That work snowballed into one-on-one mentoring, online voice workshop offerings, as well as other teaching opportunities.
Miniature works! In early 2020, I started the Micro Opera series (or maybe, it was in December 2019). The Micro Operas are miniature voice and video works. I produced and released 13 miniatures over the course of 2020 with the most recent, conspiracy of beauty, released in November and published in Synkroniciti Magazine, a zine that is curated and edited by Katherine McDaniel.
The music video Visible Darkness was released July. Visible Darkness is one of three works finished in 2020 with the other two slated for release in early 2021 to complete a three-song video EP. My marvellous collaborators on the project are George Heathco with his guitar wizardry and Chris Becker with his magical beats and atmospheres. Todd Hulslander mastered the music with his usual WOW. The videos were shot by Dave Nickerson and Raul Casares, and edited by me.
The (micro)Requiem was released for Hallowe’en / All Souls Day. This piece is a 4-minute, 6-part video work inspired by Mozart’s unfinished Requiem. There were so many surprises in creating it—from ‘it’s an experiment’ to the realisation of its full-blown beauty and breadth as a work of inspiration and healing:
In November I was a guest artist as part of the University of Houston Honors College online event, An Evening with Honors, which also featured poet Martha Serpas and actor Greg Dean. It was lovely to be hosted by Honors College Dean William Monroe and faculty including Robert Cremins.
December brought another delightful surprise as a guest artist at The Juilliard School in Greg Sandow’s class, ‘Speaking of Music’, where we bounced around ideas about bios for classical musicians in the 21st century and thoughts on describing music from many genres.
In the latter part of the year, I began a new collaboration with choreographer, dancer, and dance scholar Meg Brooker on her Dance of Freedom Project that highlights the suffragettes of the early 20th century, and honours the broader and essential movement for equal rights in our own time. Expect to see more of Meg’s project in the coming months.
Winter Solstice and Christmastide brought the holiday card release of Ned Rorem’s setting of the Robert Frost’s poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’. Pianist Maimy Fong and I created the recording remotely and Todd Hulslander again mastered the track.
In my homebody pandemic mode, I’ve been cooking up a (healthy & low-gluten) storm. Amongst my favourites are slow roasted tomatoes (that go into ALL THE THINGS!) and fridge pickles. Wanna make something of it? In movement news: I’ve always been a fitness person, but now I’m also my fitness guru alter-ego who works out 7 to 8 hours a week, thankyouverymuch.
And last but not least, I finished the ‘write up’ of my doctorate, ‘Vocality as / in Composition: solo and collaborative creation of new postopera works’. My submittal will be in early 2021 and my viva (defense) will be in the spring. My thesis is a portfolio of new works and the writing-about-them is influenced by philosophy heavyweights like Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Julia Kristeva, and Adriana Cavarero. Asleep yet? Bath Spa University (UK) will be my alma where I am expertly guided by my two stellar supervisors: composer James Saunders, and performance studies and vocal pedagogue Pamela Karantonis (Goldsmiths University of London). Woot! I was spending a lot of time in the UK before the GERMS came and ruined everything.
In awful news, Houston lost a wonderful bright spirit, MaryBeth Smith who, over many years, was a dear friend to me, confidant, inspiration, and mentor. Bon voyage, bon vivant! ‘“A skeleton walks into a bar and says, “Bartender, gimme a beer and a mop!”’ I miss you, MaryBeth.
