KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Kansas City audiences may not be aware that members of the KCS Chorus receive no compensation for performing... and they rarely, if ever, get reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses. At the end of the year, they may even have to dig into their own pockets to keep things going.

Why do it? For the love of the music.

David Peironnet: You're preparing for a concert featuring Jennifer Higdon's new work, The Singing Rooms. What is it like being in the vanguard?   

Tanya: It's a bit scary, but I try to use that adrenaline that comes from setting a standard in performing an unknown piece as a chance to put my own vocal interpretive stamp on it.  It makes me think more, be sensitive to the text, listen to direction with willingness to do.

Teresa:  I love to support new composers especially when they have creative ideas using large venues.  I particularly like the use of her [Higdon's] dissonance in the musical imagery describing the rooms. Both the music and words are off just enough that it is fun to sing, not like some contemporary music that it is not enjoyable.  The Singing Rooms have grown on me more with every rehearsal. That is when you know you have a time sustainable piece of music. 

DP: When you perform a well known piece such as Handel's The Messiah, there are hundreds of recordings you can listen to, and draw ideas from. What is it like to prepare a piece of music that you've never heard before, for which there are no recordings, and that few people, if anyone, has ever heard in Kansas City before?

Tanya: I like to do new musical pieces.  I grow as a musician and get to enhance sight reading skills, which is great for any musician. It also keeps me from relying on someone else to do all of the rhythmic interpretation work for me.  On the negative side, it's scary, because you know that you have no real reference point for whether you are "doing it right."  It's nice to have a recording, if only to hear the orchestration, which is lush and gorgeous throughout this piece, that sometimes helps me find my sweet spot dynamically.  There is also the added kiss of hearing how the music is  so finely married to the words.  Overall, it is a chance to let skeptical Kansas Citians know that the Symphony and its Chorus are more than up to our future task of performing cutting-edge works in the new Kauffman Center with a high degree of musical intelligence.

Teresa:  Since I am an instrumentalist with a music performance degree, I am versed in reading many pieces I have never heard. I go to the foundations of music and trust that putting the puzzle together slowly and in the right way, you will be rewarded with good music in the end.  I also look for the harmonic gems and grab them from the beginning.  My enjoyment starts in those moments and builds from there. 

DP: Jeanne Minahan wrote The Singing Rooms with very lyrical phrasing.  Has that helped you in your rehearsals?

Tanya: Yes, she did.  Isn't that awesome?  It is a blessing and a curse.   Lyrical is a relative term.  I would say true to the lyric is what she demands for us to be   Not always silky smooth, no stagnant long-held notes.  It causes us to find the interpretive stylist, the singing actress, the vocal artist within.  This is only possible with  firm, consistent direction  provided by Charles Bruffy (editor's note: Bruffy is the conductor of the Kansas City Symphony Chorus), who is as sensitive an interpreter as one could ask for, and me being equally vocally, textually and emotionally honest.. If the majority of us will follow, the result will be amazing

DP: What is your favorite part? Is your favorite part one that you are singing, or one where you listen to others in the chorus perform and you are a listener?  If your favorite is a piece you sing, what do you want to bring to us in the audience that you have learned to appreciate and enjoy?

Teresa:  My favorite is not one part but the colors the music produces under the words.  The verbal imagery is powerful. The music creates an interesting mood to make words more powerful and moving. 

Tanya:  My favorite part is... "wild one, your magnetic love..."   and ending with ..."you are the name, the name of all names...." The words are awesome and very meaningful to me, and the emotional build-up...wow.  My second favorite is "If I told you my dream..."  It is so transparent and truthful in its vulnerability and willingness to share something potentially humiliating with someone, to take that risk, maybe be laughed at, or, worse, rejected.  I can relate to that, because I am a HUGE risk taker, and understand the underlying need to be heard at all costs.  My favorite part is one where the entire chorus sings.  Wait.  There is this one part where the men do this beautiful part, by themselves, at the beginning.  I enjoy hearing them forge their sound and create something beautifully masculine, yet tender and delicate, showing that a man is multi-layered in his strength, not a cookie cutter prototype (that is to say: all macho or all "soft").

In my favorite piece, I want to bring fearless beauty and powerful vulnerability, and transport in the doing the desire to let those two traits shine through whatever their gift, talent or skill is.

DP: If you had a short message you would like to send to the composer, the poet and to the audience, what would it be?

Tanya: To Jeanne Minahan, poet of The Singing Rooms: Thank you for writing such achingly honest  words, so stripped of emptiness, ready to be filled with life.  To Jennifer Higdon, composer of The Singing Rooms?  You are a gift.  Thank you for being sensitive to Jeanne's heart, by so gently veiling it with your incredible music, creating a diamond appreciated only under careful scrutiny.

Teresa:  To both the composer and author: I feel it and have grown to really like it.  It has been surprisingly rewarding to learn. 

DP: And now, to those of us in the audience?

Teresa:  Keep an open mind, you will find a gem. 

Tanya:  Let go of your expectations, and remember how it feels to be truthful with yourself as you listen.  You may see more of yourself then you want to.  You may see parts of yourself that you have not seen in years.  Revel in the mirror that is The Singing Rooms.

 PREVIEW:
The Kansas City Symphony
with Jennifer Koh, violin
Bolero!
Friday, May 21 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, May 22 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, May 23 at 2 p.m.
Lyric Theatre
11th and Central Streets, Downtown Kansas City, MO
For tickets call 816-471-0400 or online at www.kcsymphony.org

By David Peironnet

Special to KCM

David Peironnet has been a concert-goer for more years than he would care to admit, and can clearly recall hearing the Kansas City Philharmonic under the baton of Hans Schweiger. This comes from someone who admits to be only 24 years old though acknowleges that his undergraduate degree was not in math but rather political science -- a group of people who are notoriously able to see only those facts they want to see in statistical data.

David has churned out the newsletter for the Friends of the Symphony - Kansas City for six or seven years. He doesn't recall and really doesn't care how many years it has been because the only thing that's important is the next deadline -- and the one after that.

This is one of a series of interviews he runs periodically usually consisting of five open-ended questions which reveal answers which can give information to the person walking into a concert hall for the first time, or like himself have been enjoying concerts for many years.

David and Kathy Peironnet frequently work at the Friends of the Symphony gift shop which is located in the lobby of the Lyric Theatre. The next time you come to a concert, stop by and say, "hello." Ask for a copy of the current FoS newsletter. If a copy isn't available, just ask and one will be mailed to you.