Interview with Rory McLeod

Check out Rory's Kickstarter Campaign for Pocket Concerts here.

I first met Rory when I was born.  I wasn't sure what to think of him at first...

Me and Rory, circa 1986

...but over time we grew to be friends as well as siblings.  I'll make no bones of it – I think Rory is awesome, both as an older brother and as a mentor.  Over the last few years our friendship has strengthened over common ground as we've both pursued freelance music careers.  He often provides me with invaluable advice and perspective on my chosen line of work.  A few months ago, as we walked through Toronto's High Park, Rory talked to me about his career path, and his new chamber music series, Pocket Concerts...

Rory McLeod (photo by Bo Huang)

We grew together up in a musical family, but you didn't immediately pursue a musical career.  How did you eventually come to be a professional musician?

When I was 17 and applying for university, like most 17-year-olds, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  And I hadn't really taken music all that seriously up to that point, so I honestly didn't think of it as a career option.  I applied for bachelor of arts programmes and some arts and science mixed programmes, because I wanted to keep as many doors open as possible, because I had so many different interests.  And then when I was living in Montreal I was paying for my own violin lessons and I just – as I got more and more serious about practising and worked harder at it, over time I realised it was the most interesting and fulfilling and challenging thing in my life, and that was what made it so attractive to me.  So that's when I decided to study music and try to make a career out of it.

You were originally a violinist.  What made you switch to playing the viola?

Alex, our older brother, was a violist.  So I always knew that it was possible to switch from violin to viola.  And I'd always been a bit curious about it, but I didn't really try it until I was 19 and my violin teacher went away for the summer.  I wanted to take some lessons because I had more time than when I was in class, so I called up a viola teacher and borrowed a viola from the shop I was working in, and I really fell in love with the sound.  Then I started playing some chamber music on viola, and I really enjoyed playing the role of violist – the middle voice.  I had always played second violin, so the role of playing viola came naturally to me.

Rory playing his viola (photo by Vuk Pantovic)

When I was living in Montreal, there was this strange and very upsetting event when my violin was stolen from a car.  I thought it was safe and that nobody would see it covered up by a blanket in the back seat, but it got stolen.  And at first I was really upset, of course.  But then eventually the insurance money came through, and I had been playing enough viola at that point that I started to consider maybe I should replace my violin with a viola.  And I started trying out violins and violas, and I discovered that I liked the sound of every viola I tried better than every violin I tried.  So I figured that was probably a sign.

After finishing your musical studies, you got a job with Symphony Nova Scotia.  You left the job after two seasons and came back to Toronto to freelance.  What motivated your decision to leave the orchestra job?

Well there was a combination of factors that led to that decision.  One is that Toronto is home for me.  My girlfriend lives here, and we were doing long-distance for two years, and I was starting to get tired of only seeing Emily once a month.  Also, Halifax is really far away from a lot of other places, and it starts to feel isolated after a while.  The musical community is full of wonderful people there, and the Symphony is a very good orchestra, and I really enjoyed my job.  But the job alone was not enough to keep me there.  So I decided to try my luck in Toronto and keep stretching myself artistically, and have a bit more of a varied career combining chamber music and teaching and orchestra.

And how are you finding it now, working as a freelancer?

Overall it's great.  For the most part I've been pretty steadily employed since I came back.  I've been really lucky with the combination of coming back at a time when work was available, and knowing the right people who could get me that work.  And I'd done well in a couple of auditions – that helped me to secure some orchestra sub work.  The first year I came back I knew by the beginning of the season I would have enough work to survive on, so that was quite a relief.  I had thought it would be much harder than it was, to be honest.  And then over the course of that first year, I started to realise that just subbing in orchestras was not enough for me.  I wanted something that I could connect with more.  I’d always loved playing chamber music and wanted to play more chamber music, and I wanted to find a way to make that happen.  That was when I came up with Pocket Concerts, a home concert series.  I also started teaching during my second year in Toronto, and so now the combination of teaching and running the chamber series and orchestra sub work provides a really good balance of different kinds of work… and it pays the bills!

Tell us about Pocket Concerts.  How did the idea first come up?

Well it started really by doing a couple of house concerts through people that I knew.  I had done a couple of concerts up in Owen Sound through a personal connection, and I went up there with my brother's quartet – the Ton Beau Quartet – and performed a concert there.  And Alex (our brother) and I got talking about how it would be great to make more house concerts happen.  Because we loved playing them so much and we could tell that the audiences loved it as well.

There's sort of a funny story around the beginnings of Pocket Concerts as well.  I was undergoing a steroid treatment for my inflammatory kidney condition.  I was on Prednisone – a high dose of Prednisone – for six months.  One of the side effects of Prednisone is that you become incredibly energetic.  And so I was an insomniac for five months.  Not only was I waking up in the middle of the night, but I was waking up with this feeling that I gotta do something, I need to make something happen.  So I just started sending out emails and brainstorming like crazy.  And I had a lot of face-to-face meetings with people who I thought would be interested in the idea and could help me develop it.  And I spent a lot of sleepless nights sending emails to artists to see if they would be interested in performing, and trying to make connections with potential hosts.

It's been a year now since you started Pocket Concerts, and it's already turned out to be quite a success.  What do you think the appeal is of this concert format?

I think there's a combination of factors that are appealing to people.  The first is that this is really how chamber music was meant to be heard.  Most of these pieces that we play were written to be played among friends in a small room – hence the name "chamber music".  So we're really bringing chamber music back to its roots.  And there's something really authentic about that.  But there are a few other factors as well.  I think there's a movement nowadays back towards live music and live performance, because people have realised that sitting at home and watching videos on YouTube just doesn't give you the same feeling.  But also the involvement of our hosts – by basically asking them to donate their homes and food and wine and chairs for our concert, we're involving them on a much deeper level than we normally do in the classical music world.  It takes away that artificial separation between performers and audience and the people providing the venues.  What we've discovered is that we're building up a community as we go, and those connections last.  People who've hosted become devoted fans of the series.

The audience applauds a Pocket Concert featuring Rory, Rebecca MacLeod (no relation),
and Rory's girlfriend Emily Rho - photo by Vuk Pantovic

How do you see Pocket Concerts fitting into the musical scene in Toronto and in Canada?

I think it has the potential to really change the way that people relate to classical music.  I think people, when they experience chamber music in that intense environment, they feel a deeper connection not just to the music but to the performers and to each other.  And by strengthening that sense of connection, I think we make it possible for people to find a new passion for classical music.  So I see us as part of the overall landscape of the classical music scene in Toronto.  You know, the symphony is there and the opera is there and the ballet is there and we've got many great early music groups and other chamber music series going on – but we're offering something a little bit more personal, and something that might be more appealing to young people who haven't heard a lot of classical music.

What are your future hopes and ambitions for Pocket Concerts?

We have several ideas in the works at the moment.  We'd really like to expand our private concert series, so we're working on a targeted marketing campaign to try to get the word out to our potential customers.  But we're also talking about outreach programmes, one of which is to offer little mini lessons online, called Pocket Lessons.  Three-minute lessons done by our performers, just giving tips on how to practise, how to work on certain technical aspects of their instruments.  And we would offer that as a resource and also as a way for people to find out that we're around.  We're also talking about starting an office concert series.  We'll probably call it something like Pocket Concerts: Music at Work (our tagline now is Music at Home, so it's sort of adaptable).  We want to offer either early morning or noon hour concerts to people in their offices who just want to fit something in to their day.  So we're really trying to incorporate music into people's daily lives.

What one piece of advice would you give to a young freelancing musician?

Say yes.  Say yes to every opportunity that comes your way, and try everything until you find what really resonates with you.  Don't be afraid to take a risk and do something you've never done before.  Because that's how you learn and grow as a person.  And if you have an idea, do it!  If you think something could be great, don’t just sit there and say "wouldn’t it be nice"... Every musician I know has an extensive personal network that can help them if they actually tap into it.  One of the things I've realised while doing Pocket Concerts is that people really want to help you.  If you're passionate about something, it's really easy to get people on board.

Thanks for chatting, Rory!

Interview with Barbara Hannigan

I'll never forget the first time I saw Barbara Hannigan perform.  It was two years ago in Gothenburg, Sweden.  She started off with some Rossini and Mozart, singing and conducting simultaneously with flawless elegance.  Then in the second half of the programme she came trotting out in head-to-toe black leather, and gave the most wacky and electrifying performance of Ligeti's Mysteries of the Macabre you could imagine.  It didn't take long after that for Barbara to become my major girl crush on the classical music scene.  I mean, she's just so effortlessly cool!  Whether she's performing Lulu in pointe shoes, conducting Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande, or premiering a composer's new work, she always kicks ass and looks good doing it.  So of course I was pretty excited to participate in her masterclasses at the Lucerne Festival.  Barbara is an incredibly open and generous teacher.  She gives us advice on everything from technique and professional etiquette to choosing the right skin products and overcoming jetlag.  In the hours between the dress rehearsal and the final concert, we share a cup of tea at Barbara's Lucerne apartment.  As I sip my Throat Soother (with honey, of course) Barbara talks to me about the masterclasses, her trailblazing career, and what it takes to be a star soprano.

Barbara Hannigan (Photo credit: Elmer de Haas)

You moved to Europe in your early twenties.  What was it like adjusting from your life in Canada?

It was very difficult actually.  I had left home, which was Nova Scotia, when I was 17, and then when I was 23 I moved to England…  I studied there for one year.  I was extremely lonely.  It was a very big city.  Even though everyone was English-speaking I have to say the culture shock was pretty intense.  I felt that there was quite a strong prejudice at the school I was at, from the vocal department, against contemporary music.  I had a lot of trouble getting any teachers to even hear me.  They wouldn't let me audition.  So that was even more isolating.  After a very lonely and frustrating year in England, I moved to Holland… and then I went to the Hague Conservatory.  I did a one-year opera programme, but then I kind of kept my foot in Holland because I was working there.  I kept one foot in Canada and one foot in Holland, and it pretty well stayed that way until I made the complete move to Holland, which would have been 2001.

Did you always know that you wanted to stay in Europe?

No, I didn't know that at first, and like I say the loneliness was really hard for me to deal with.  Just the bureaucracy of a country with which you're not familiar – I mean being an immigrant or a resident, it's really hard.  All the day-to-day things that seem so easy in your home country: banking, hospitals, you know simple things, are just – it seems impossible in the new country.  Doctors, everything.  It's really really hard to negotiate for yourself and it takes a lot of time and energy.  I think it was in 2001, when I went to Holland looking for a short-term place… In September of that year I ended up basically being handed a wonderful apartment in Amsterdam.  Which was owned by Reinbert de Leeuw, the conductor and mentor of mine, who's a very important figure in my life.  I was able to live there at a rent that I could afford and choose myself, for a good 5 years.  I just decided to stay after that.  That was it.

What draws you to contemporary music?

I think I've always liked it since I was a child.  I think part of the reason maybe that I enjoy it was that I felt like I was walking in snow that nobody else had walked in yet.  I was making my own path and my own footprints, and I didn't have to follow the length of someone else's steps.

Making new footprints

There was no kind of tradition… When I was younger I was intimidated by the "tradition": this is how you sing this song.  Which seemed to me to have nothing to do often with what was on the page.  Whereas in contemporary music, you sang what was on the page.  So I could identify with it and I knew I could do that.  Now I realise that that's actually what one should apply to all music.  But at the time I felt free in contemporary music, I felt like I could expand and that I was ok and I could be myself.

I think another thing that drew me to contemporary music is that, you know, I moved to Toronto when I was 17.  I went to university for my bachelor when I was 18 – that's very young.  My voice was clear and I had a strong musical sense – not sophisticated, but I had good pitch and good rhythm.  My voice needed to catch up, and so while it was catching up I was the darling of the contemporary music people because my voice was very pure and clean.  I didn't have any bad habits and I didn't scoop and I didn't have a big vibrato, so it was kind of what a lot of composers really enjoyed working with.  And of course I was game for anything.  I was really open-minded. 

How do you approach learning a new score?

I avoid singing it for as long as possible, depending on how much time I have.  This is because I am a good sight reader, but I don't feel that sight reading – like literally reading at sight – is good for the voice.  I feel that one should familiarise oneself with the score, with the lay of the score, with the landscape of the score, before you sing it.  So you know where the uphills are, you know where the downhills are, you know where you're coasting, you know where you're going through passaggio.  You have an idea of what are going to be the most virtuosic passages, and those are to be practised extremely slowly.  There is a method about it, and that's probably why I get frustrated if, on occasion, I get the score late, because I feel like my method has been interrupted and I can no longer work at the pace that I feel serves the music best. 

Barbara performing in Alban Berg's Lulu.

Are there any particular performers that really inspire you?

I have a lot of respect for lots of different singers, and for many different reasons.  Like I love the way Bartoli sings – I'm pretty well sold on everything she does because she has so much joy and pleasure in singing.  But I also like someone that's more muted in a way, like Anne Sofie von Otter.  I do appreciate her a lot.  Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is a singer whose voice I really love.  Renée Fleming is someone for whom I have a lot of respect and in some repertoire I just adore her voice.  Then also someone like Fritz Wunderlich, like the older singers, I also appreciate for various reasons.

But it's not really singers from whom I draw my inspiration as a performer.  In fact I don't use them as examples for me when I'm making sound.  I will think of the way Glenn Gould articulates a certain phrase… I think about the martial arts actor/comedian Jackie Chan.  His transitions, his sense of rhythm, is pretty amazing, and I'd also imagine him when I'm singing.  Danny Kaye.  Julie Andrews, I think, is a pretty phenomenal performer and I admire her greatly, and I do often write "Julie Andrews" in the score.  There’s a Sound of Music moment, really, in most contemporary music I sing.  I'm sure she would just laugh her head off if she ever found out!

The hills are alive... with the sound of contemporary music!

Then film characters or a scene with a particular actor, how to play something.  Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds – the Quentin Tarantino film for which he won the Oscar.  I mean he was playing the bad guy so well and with such pleasure and articulation and timing.  He was a pretty big influence for me.  So in my singing I’m not influenced by singing.  But I appreciate singers.  Very much.

How does it feel to go from the role of performer to the role of teacher?

I kind of feel like both are just leadership positions, so there isn't really a big change…  I find the teaching tiring because I get involved emotionally.  It's very hard not to notice the hopes and dreams of people.  You also see people's particular sensitivities.  Or you want someone to open something up and you can't get them to do it, and you're trying to help, and it can be hard.  So I find that tiring.  Of course, six hours a day of being in front of other people is a lot.  Somehow in an opera when I'm just singing it's easier – although even a six-hour opera day is really hard, I find six hours a day of masterclasses is even harder.

Barbara teaching in Lucerne.

We've been starting every day this week with a yoga class.  How do you find that health and fitness serve your singing?

In a really big way it serves my singing, partly because it gets me in good physical shape so that nothing can phase me.  Even if I'm doing a dance show.  I'm in strong cardio shape.  I always go running...  I really try to be physically strong.  Just so that there isn't anything that can phase me in an opera staging.  But also the other reason is that it's good for your mind.  It's good for you mentally to be physically strong.  First of all the yoga or the running, it really has a meditative quality so that it clears the mind.  Then it also gets rid of a lot of toxins or negative feelings in your body, so that you can be more positive towards your work.  I think generally physical fitness gives us positive endorphins, and therefore we're better disposed to serving the music.

You’ve often talked to us about discipline.  Why is this such an important part of your life?

Well because I want to have a long and enjoyable career, and I find that the way to enjoy your work is to be prepared and to be disciplined about it.  Performance anxiety, for example, is greatly alleviated by preparation.  Preparation can't happen if you have a chaotic life.  You may think I have a chaotic life because I spend all these months on the road, but I'm regulating my schedule as much as I can.  My daily schedule, my travel schedule, what I eat, where I eat, with whom I eat.  You know, who gets my energy, who doesn't.  I spend a lot of time alone.  As much as I can.  I like to be alone, and I just feel like the discipline is related to keeping me as calm as possible so that I can handle the stress.  Because the stress of having a career at the pace which mine seems to be moving right now is very high.  I don't think there's a lot of people that could handle that.

Singer, conductor, superwoman.

You've carved out a very unconventional career path.  How did you deal with it when people were trying to steer you in another direction?  How did you handle the naysayers?

Well, luckily my teachers were quite supportive of my path, whatever it was.  That was really important.  They believed in me.  I was always lucky.  I had one teacher who wanted me to sing the bel canto [repertoire], and yet when he came and heard me sing a really contemporary music concert once he was kind of flabbergasted because he realised that this was like home for me.  And over the years he's become incredibly supportive.

As far as having agents, I mean I had an agent early on who basically wanted me to sing – I think his dream for me was to be like Edita Gruberova…  He thought of all contemporary music as "squeaky gate" music, that's what he called it.  So he just lumped it all into one category.  He really went out of his way to make sure that I didn't sing this music anymore.  At a certain point I just – I left him because I felt… I was unhappy and he was probably frustrated, and so I left and I went for a long period without any management…  So it was a struggle, and I mean I'm really happy that I remained true to my repertoire.  I really sing the music that I like to sing and I do not sing music I don't like.  That includes saying no to a lot of contemporary music that I don't want to sing, or a composer with whom I don't feel an affinity.  It was kind of a hard path, and it was only four years ago that I joined my manager, with whom I have a very positive and supportive relationship.  It took a long time to get to that stage, I mean I'd already been performing professionally for 20 years – since I was 19.  And I was 39 when I moved to a really big manager.  So that's kind of something, you know?

Thanks for chatting, Barbara!

Interview with Neil Semer

I first met Neil in September 2013, soon after I had moved to Cologne.  I told my friend I was looking for a voice teacher, and he said "well, why don't you try having lessons with my teacher?"  I came to watch his lesson, and then had one of my own.  Before I knew it I was hooked.  Neil was the teacher for me!  Since then I've had several lessons with Neil, both in Cologne and in Toronto.  As I've written about before, I also attended his masterclasses in Paris.  We've had our ups and downs (there was a brief traumatic period where he thought I was a soprano - I'd rather not talk about it), but throughout all of it Neil has been a wise and inspiring figure in my life.  He is always teaching me something new about my voice and myself.  So it was a pleasure to sit down to a pre-lesson breakfast with him at Maifield Restaurant in Ehrenfeld and pick his brains about life, singing, and the pursuit of a fulfilling career.

 

Neil Semer

Can you tell us a bit about your background?  How did you get into teaching?

I began performing, and I always just liked to play piano for people.  When I was singing with other singers on the stage I would very often just offer help, if anyone wanted to work on anything during the break or after the rehearsal.  I would just start working with people, and that was something I always did.  I never thought of it as teaching at the time, but I loved singing, and working on singing and working with singers.  So it just started there.

Can you describe your job a bit for us?  What does a typical year look like for you?

My main studio is in New York, but I teach every several weeks in Toronto and I go to Europe four times a year where I teach generally in Copenhagen, Dresden, Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, Biel, Paris, and London.  I do that four times a year.  One time a year I have my annual Neil Semer Vocal Institute in Germany which I've been doing now for 18 years.  Those are two two-week courses in different corners of Germany.  And I go to see people's performances whenever possible, and I have a family.  So it's busy.  It's a busy year.

What is your favourite aspect of your job?  For example, do you enjoy giving private lessons or masterclasses more? Why?

I love them both.  I guess I would have to say that giving masterclasses is really pleasurable, it's kind of like my current version of performing.  It has that kind of special kick of a performance on some level.  But I also love the intimate one-on-one, working heart-to-heart with an artist.  So I love them both.

 

Me and Neil at his Paris masterclasses.

What is the hardest aspect of your job?

Dealing with people's delusions.  This is to a large degree an ego-driven profession, and if a person's ego needs are not in alignment with their gifts, that is difficult.  I'm by nature a very honest person, and I really try to facilitate change and growth and really create what is possible.  But if a person is fixated on what is impossible, it is very hard to work with.

One of the unique things about your teaching is that you take a more holistic approach.  You talk to your students about their spiritual and emotional development as well as their vocal development.  Why do you feel this is so important?

Well, we're not purely physical beings.  It is foolish to think that the voice can be mastered only by looking at it mechanically.  And our spiritual and emotional issues get played out in our singing, whether we wish them to be or not.  So I address them as part of understanding vocal mechanics.  Simply because… blocked emotions create blocked breath.  The desire to be seen a particular way will exhibit itself in certain body postures that may not serve your singing.  Fears about certain things will stop you from doing some of the necessary actions to master the passaggio.  I work very clearly about vocal mechanics and I always start with that – giving a clear idea of how alignment, space, breathing, diction, resonance, passaggio events work – I deal with them very specifically and very physically, at first, to master those skills.  But once the physical skill is mastered, the ability to coordinate it and make music from it – it involves the heart.

You have the unique position of teaching regularly in both Europe and North America.  Do you notice any significant differences in the way the industry works in these two continents?

Yeah, there are specific things, sure.  America has larger theatres, so often one needs larger voices.  In Europe, the size of a small lyric house sometimes allows for a more refined music-making.  Although obviously finesse is valued in both places, the canvas on which it's drawn is a little different, because of the size of the theatres.  There are many more theatres in German-speaking countries, so that makes for more opportunity, although there are also many more singers competing for jobs over here because everyone comes here.

Culture is more of a priority in Europe, honestly, and so there's just a different feeling to the work here.  That's hard to describe, the difference in feeling, but it does feel different…

Things are actually more age-conscious in Europe, which I think Americans don't often realise.  It's not against the law to ask a person's age here, which it would be in America.  And people do get fixated on numbers here, to a degree that as an American I find astounding.  How does the person look, in terms of visuals, is all that's important – does the person look right for the role?  Whereas here actually the number itself seems to carry more weight at times than what they're actually seeing in front of their eyes, or hearing in their ears, which I find very unfortunate.

Which of the great singers do you really admire?

My ears were formed very young by people like Ezio Pinza, Cesare Siepi, Renata Tebaldi, Callas, Björling, Pavarotti, Domingo, Bastianini, Batistini, Titta Ruffo, Rosa Ponselle, Giuseppe DeLuca.. These really great singers from the past – I just used to devour their records, and really study them.  And so that really informed – does inform – the way I look at singing and the aesthetic from which I teach.  Today some great singers that I really admire include Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Florez, René Pape, the young Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli...  These are some of the people I think have something truly special at this time.

In your opinion, what does it take to be a successful singer?

Well, the obvious thing is an instrument, and a musical sensibility/sensitivity, a gift for language, a gift for musicianship… But it is also essential to want it desperately.  Lamperti said "don’t sing unless you'd die if you didn't", and I find that to be very good advice.  If you can imagine yourself doing anything else for a living, one should.  It's only for those people who can’t imagine doing anything else.  Like myself, I had to do this.  It truly felt like death to even consider not doing it.  And I think that's a good reason to be in this profession.

Francesco Lamperti, 1811 - 1892
Expert Italian singing teacher and author of The Art of Singing

What do you think is the biggest challenge that young singers face?

How to find your window of opportunity.  The place where you'll find opportunity, the time you'll find opportunity...  The ability to be lovingly, but brutally, self-critical.  I once heard Pavarotti say "I'm my own fiercest critic but I never forget that I'm Pavarotti."  And I thought that was a really excellent kind of balance, that he respects who he is and what his gifts are but is also extremely honest with himself, even when the news is not positive.

Wise words from the great Pavarotti.

What is the one piece of advice you would most like to give to the singers who are reading this?

Follow your passion.  Whether that be to this profession or away from it.

Thanks for chatting, Neil!

To learn more about Neil Semer, check out his website here.