Reinvention

As I look back over my 80 1/2 years, I seem to be always reinventing myself. I've decided that's the way to stay young.

To many people today I am known as a voice teacher. A new student is sometimes surprised that I can sit down at the piano and play whatever song they bring to sing for me.

I started life in Battle Creek, Michigan as a pianist at age 9. It was the depression, so I couldn't start lessons until we could spend the dollar a week. I worked hard at my craft and began performing concerts throughout my high school years. I often accompanied singers in their recitals.

Then I went to Michigan State College for two years and became an organ major. I still played the piano, of course, and I accompanied for one of the voice faculty who was preparing a concert. A member of the piano faculty played the concert; and not terribly well!

I had begun studying voice in high school with Maylon Searns, a Scandinavian tenor who would have me stand on his stomach to show me how strong those muscles should be to sing. I'm not kidding! It's a wonder I didn't kill him. I was good sized even then

I continued studying voice at Michigan State with Harriet Hiller Birchall. I was never asked to stand on her stomach. She was a good teacher. I majored in organ under Helen Roberts Sholl, a great teacher.

I came to New York City in 1950 to continue my undergraduate work at Columbia University. I studied organ with Claire Coci and Vernon de Tar. I studied voice with Mrs. Neidlinger, a good teacher if a bit crazy. But then, aren't we all? I also studied harpsichord with the great Gustav Leonhardt. In a moment of madness, I studied harp with Nancy Shank and actually played a few times in public. I had no shame, apparently.

A bit later I started accompanying lessons for
Anna Hamlin, a very good teacher, with whom I also studied. She was the head of the voice department at Smith and came to New York every weekend to teach mostly former Smithies, most notably, Judith Raskin. Judy was a lovely soprano and died much too young. She would sometimes coach with me after her lessons with Anna.

I had a series of church jobs, but the best and most rewarding was as Searle Wright's Assistant Organist and Choirmaster at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia. I did that until about 1958. At this point I began coaching and teaching singing to some of the members of the St. Paul's choir. I also worked with a very fine mezzo-soprano, Pamela Munson, who wound up at the Met.

I went on to get my Master of Sacred Music Degree at The School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary, right across Broadway from Columbia. I came under the spell of many musicians and great theologians who were teaching there.

I continued in church music in Red Bank, NJ for twenty-one years, teaching piano, voice, and organ. Students in all of these fields often went on to music schools and careers in music. I was a general factotum, also directing plays, hanging art shows, and doing organ recitals. Twice I performed the complete organ works of Bach; once in Red Bank in sixteen concerts, and a year later at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia, in fourteen concerts in fifteen weeks.I also conducted the St. John Passion of Bach in Red Bank and played a total of sixty organ concerts that year.At the same time I directed and produced Tennesse William's The Glass Menagerie. Whew! It was quite a year.

Through all of this I continued to teach voice. In 1979 I left Red Bank and taught voice at Harvard University for ten years. I left Harvard in 1990 and kept teaching voice in New Jersey (flying down once a month for forty-four students) and at Harvard for twenty-eight students. I opened a New York City studio on West 90th Street off Broadway where I taught another twelve or so singers.

At this time I did some vocal work with the amazing and fascinating Olga Averino. I didn't always agree with her technically, but she was an inspiration to me as a friend and mentor.

In 2005 my life partner, John Ferris became very ill with Parkinson's disease and I had to close both the New Jersey and New York studios. I did a little teaching at my home, Rood Hill Farm, in Sandisfield, MA. After John's death in 2008, Jane Bryden, a long-time student and friend who was on the voice faculty at Smith College, asked me to teach there; which I did until this fall. I now teach exclusively at my home in Sandisfield.

In the meantime, six of my students have sung at the Met and other major opera houses throughout the world, most notably, the late, very dear, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

So reinvention is my game, voice teacher is my name- for the moment. So far it has worked just fine. Try it!