My Favorite Music
As a bit of background, my life has always centered on music. I don’t remember ever having piano lessons, but I have always played the piano. My biggest joy, though, has been singing. I began taking signing lessons at the age of 13 from James Shearer who was like a surrogate grandfather to me. By the age of 16 I knew that I wanted to be an opera singer. Singing was all I wanted to do. In college I majored in music and a year after graduation I was hired by the San Francisco Opera Co. to sing in their chorus. Those were some of the happiest years of my life, although I never did enjoy auditions. Getting paid to do what I loved the most, and singing with the world’s best opera singers of the day was a thrill of a lifetime for me. I sang everywhere I could. Then in 1976 I moved to Oregon and taught music both at the local community college and in my home studio. I had always known I would teach music and follow in the footsteps of my teachers. I continued performing both in the local community theatres and in the schools in Coos County. Now that I am retired I no longer perform, but I enjoy playing and singing daily. Music still transports my soul and I hope to never stop singing.
Thanks to my “genius” husband, Mark, I now have a unique MusicMaster system to access most of my repertoire digitally at the piano, with a special pedal to turn pages automatically. I bless him every day for this marvelous invention. Mark wrote the software and built the computer, monitor, speakers, microphones, etc. I scan my music and am continually adding new songs to the database of over 1300 songs. Here are a couple photos of the system.
[Click on photos to enlarge]
French Art Songs
Besides opera, I love to sing French Art Songs. In college I minored in French and have always loved the language, music and paintings of the French Impressionists. This past year I expanded my repertoire to include a couple dozen new Faure songs. Here are a few examples of some of my favorites.
Italian Art Song
No day is complete for me without singing of a few Italian songs. There’s something about the language when sung which feels to me like a “vocal massage” for the voice. I always warm up with a few of my favorites each day.
German Art Songs
A few German favorites as well, although my voice never felt suited to the German lieder.
English Art Songs
Although I have sung a lot of contemporary English songs, I have always preferred the Baroque repertoire of Handel and Purcell. Here are a couple of my favorites.