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Sarah Tannehill had just returned to Kansas City in 2006. Life had dealt her a series of bad cards and she was emotionally exhausted, mentally stressed and physically drained. But Fate had yet another card up its sleeve. The Lyric Opera was performing Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet and their Ophelia took ill, losing her voice completely. Five hours after getting the call to sing the role, Sarah Tannehill was successfully sight-reading a faded copy of the score, with full orchestra from the pit while the sick singer walked through her staging. “It was a cathartic experience,” says Tannehill who considers it one of her greatest accomplishments. Her knack for quick study put her on the map as a top-notch talent and a dependable singer.

Ms. Tannehill has been described as “one of the hardest working sopranos in town.” She recently premiered a piece by Robert Pherigo with the Lyric Arts Trio. She will be performing with newEar on February 19^th and the Northland Symphony on February 27^th. She is a featured soloist with the Kansas City Chorale on March 6^th and will be the soprano soloist for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Liberty Symphony on March 7^th. She also recently finished recording an album with the Chorale of works by contemporary composer René Clausen scheduled for release late next year.

Sarah Tannehill is pretty laid back about her busy schedule, “My performing schedule has been demanding since I was probably twelve years old, singing for every wedding in my church, accompanying myself, singing most Sunday mornings. In high school, I played violin in a string quartet and we gigged everywhere, all the time. Now, I teach five days a week, split between a home studio and William Jewell College. I have an average of 3–5 rehearsals a week (depending on the time of year), and I'm guessing around 50 performances in an average year.”

Growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri with caring music teachers, Tannehill developed a strong musical foundation. She began her piano study at age five with Mrs. Cross who gave her an extensive background in music theory. She went on the play the violin in high school and to Missouri State University in Springfield on scholarship as a violin performance major with hope of becoming an orchestra conductor. After hearing her sing, her teacher suggested she change majors to voice performance. Sarah confessed she secretly wanted to become a professional singer so she completed her studies under Pearl Yeadon and went on the graduate school at UMKC where she studied voice under Inci Bashar.

Sarah Tannehill is something of a modern music maven. Forrest Pierce has composed pieces with her voice in mind, most recently a song cycle called Need-Fire. She also premiered another Pierce work called Twelve Kisses that she performed with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra. When asked what it is about new music that draws her to it she had this to say. “I like the challenge. Sometimes it’s the sheer challenge of making it pretty, when it isn't always. I hope I can make music, even avant-garde music, accessible to everyone. I love the vocal challenge as well. It is very hard to ‘find’ random notes out of nowhere but it's really good for my aural skills.”

On February 19^th Sarah Tannehill will be performing Vocalissimus by Sebastian Currier in the newEar concert at All Souls Unitarian Church. The piece is a mammoth setting of a single line of text across 18 individual songs that aurally describe different states of mind.

“I would like to challenge audience members to think of atonal/new music like going to the Guggenheim in New York. If you have not been to the Guggenheim, you at least know about its amazing structure, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I really enjoyed the space. It was...alive. The colors, the shapes, the thick texture of the paint stokes, even the frames. New and ground-breaking ideas were everywhere. Whether I ‘got’ the artists' ideas or not, I was witnessing original ideas. I don't have original ideas! So I really admire people who think outside the box on that level. But if I had never seen anything even remotely pretty that day, the building itself was worth the money. So, when you go to a new music concert, start opening your mind by focusing on the outstanding musicians, the beautiful instruments, the various ways the music makes you feel. The pieces aren't supposed to make you feel love and warmth all the time, like Chopin. They're written to evoke new ideas in your brain and heart.” 

When I asked her what her proudest accomplishment today was, she hesitated. Years ago she would have said sight-reading Hamlet but today she was proud of something else. “My biggest accomplishment to date is quite possibly the recording the Kansas City Chorale made just a few weeks ago. We were there for four long days, frozen solid in Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church downtown. The heat made a noise with a pitch in it, so we had to turn it off. We would stand without moving a muscle, to avoid creaking sounds, slowly and quietly turning the pages of our music, begging our voices to hold up and be as perfect as possible for as many takes as were needed. No vibrato, no funky entrances, no glitches, no mistakes. Ever. Or it had to be sung all over again. We were all exhausted and exhilarated by the fourth day, crying and hugging each other. I left that recording feeling lost in the world of music for four days. I felt this sense of achievement that made it very hard for me to simply go back to the real world and do the mundane, everyday chores. It was very difficult to snap out of it. I am so proud of my fellow choristers, and especially my fellow sopranos, who braved those high A's with such precision over and over again!” Could another Grammy be on the horizon for the Kansas City Chorale?
 
With her attention to musical detail, her almost mathematical vocal precision, her light and bright vocal timbre with money notes off of the staff, and her easygoing, jovial personality Sarah Tannehill will certainly remain a singer in demand.

For more information about Sarah Tannehill and for her busy schedule visit: http://sarahtannehill.com/live/

(Top Photo by Jennifer Feldman)

By Megan Browne Helm

Classical, Vocal and Theatre Contributor

Megan Browne Helm grew up singing, dancing and acting.  Inspired by Emma Kirkby as a high school student in St. Louis she went on to study voice and sing with the Collegium Musicum at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio where she also had a radio show of contemporary classical music on WOBC.  At the University of Kansas she had the pleasure of working with former Kings’ Singer, Simon Carrington in his Collegium Musicum and Oread consort. Years later, she was a choral fellow at the Yale School of Music’s  Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She is currently singing with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus under the direction of Charles Bruffy. 

 As a freelance music and culture writer her work can be found on KCMetropolis.org, presentmagazine.com, the Lawrence Journal World, Shawnee Magazine, Leawood Lifestyle Magazine and KC Parent.  She was one of 26 journalists in the country chosen as a NEA Institute Fellow for Classical Music and Opera at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

Her current interest is how classical music remains relevant through active collaborations with artists in different fields, including science.  She also sees a connection between classical music, travel and food as a way to engage all of the senses in a 360 degree cultural experience.  She blogs at raworganum.wordpress.com.

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