What Would Mozart Do?

Today I am talking to translator and baritone George Roberts who is currently doing a postgraduate degree in voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In our chat George talks about the rhythm and melody inherent in the written word, the fascinating journey of translating a text from German or Italian to English, and how his work in the publishing industry and his love of singing influence each other daily.

George Robarts is a baritone and prizewinning translator based in London, where he is a postgraduate at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, studying singing with Robert Dean. He is a regular song recitalist, with recent highlights including Butterworth's Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad, Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel. George graduated with first-class honours in German and Italian from New College, Oxford, in 2017, where his lead roles in student operas included Mozart’s Figaro, Purcell’s Aeneas and Monteverdi’s Orfeo. After graduating, George worked for three years as an editor at a commercial publishing house, while also working as a freelance translator. His first book translation, The Wisdom of Old Dogs by Elli H. Radinger, was published by Mirror Books in 2019 and has sold over 10,000 copies. In 2020, he won third prize in the International Humanities Non-Fiction Translation Competition, awarded by the German Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association in association with Frankfurt Book Fair New York. 

https://uk.bookshop.org/books/the-wisdom-of-old-dogs-lessons-in-life-love-and-friendship/9781912624904 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wisdom-Old-Dogs-Lessons-friendship/dp/1912624907/ 

Twitter: @GeorgeRobarts

Today I am talking to Donna Kim who has had a varied career ranging from a music teacher to an orchestra manager, from a high end wedding planner to a grief recovery specialist. In our chat Donna talks about the different kinds of grief one can experience and she highlights the skill of being a good listener to have been at the core of all her career ventures.

Donna Kim, Owner of The Perfect Details, has made a career of bringing her creative and artistic influences to bear across pursuits as varied as musical performance and education, wedding and event planning, graphic design and bespoke food and drink offerings. A double major in Business and Music at Hofstra University, she began her career in orchestral management and private piano instruction and has been a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus for over 25 years. She built an award-winning reputation as a wedding and event planner for many years having designed and executed signature weddings at grand venues such as Castle Hill on the Crane Estate, the Chanler at Cliff Walk, Belle Mer - A Longwood Venue and numerous private residences which have been featured in national and regional publications like the Knot, Brides, and Flutter. in addition to business achievements she has worked with some of the top vendors in the wedding industry including photographers, videographers, floral designers, DJ’s, musicians, makeup and hair artists and cake designers. 

Donna balances her many talents with a keen sense of organization. She prides herself on her intuition, her honesty and on listening to what is not being said. 

Donna's website: https://www.theperfectdetails.com/
Donna's baking Instagram: @ThePerfectDetails_

Today I am talking to musicologist and podcaster Annablle Lee. Annabelle’s research focuses on the way social media has influenced the classical music scene and our talk today explores how recent developments in technology has influence the various facets of the classical music industry.

Dr. Annabelle Lee graduated from Royal Holloway, University of London with a PhD in Musicology, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her thesis investigated the effects of social media marketing on the music business, with a focus on the classical music sector. Prior to her doctoral studies, she graduated from Durham University with a first class honours degree in Music, and completed the MSt Music (Musicology) from Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. 

For over two years, she worked as a marketing coordinator and manager in London and Gloucester, specialising in social media strategy. She also worked as a freelance flautist and Visiting Tutor in Music at Royal Holloway University. 

Annabelle has published a number of articles based on her PhD research in publications such as Early Music Performer, Musicology Research, Classical Music Magazine and Burstimo, one of the country’s most exciting pop music marketing agencies. Currently, she creates and hosts Talking Classical, a new classical music podcast focused on interviews with leading industry professionals, performers and musicologists (soundcloud.com/talkingclassicalpodcast). With over 10,000 hits across streaming platforms, the podcast reaches listeners in 50 countries and has featured collaborations with the Royal Opera House, Wigmore Hall and WildKat PR. 

SoundCloud: @talkingclassicalpodcast

Facebook: @talkingclassicalpodcast

Twitter: @tc_podcasts

To read more about Annabelle's research, follow this link: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/representingclassicalmusic/2019/08/12/are-social-networks-developing-new-audiences-for-classical-music-or-reinforcing-elitism

Today I am talking to cellist Alana Chown. She has supplemented her career as professional cellist and music teacher by training as a speech pathologist. In our chat we talk about the similarities between the need for paying attention to detail both in music and speech pathology. Alana speaks enthusiastically about the joy of connecting with the world through music and speech,  also highlights the importance to create a livelihood that would sustain you in the emergencies that life can bring across your path.

Alana Chown (cello): B.M (Ithaca College) and M.M (University of Michigan). Alana was previously a faculty member of the String Academy of Wisconsin at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. At the String Academy, she provided high-quality individual and group cello instruction, acted as a guest lecturer in cello pedagogy, directed the summer chamber music festival, and coordinated the Urban Students in the Arts Outreach Cello Program.  As a freelance performer and teacher, Alana was the principal cellist of the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra, an Artist-in-Residence at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, taught for multiple summers at Ithaca College's Summer Music Academy and maintained a thriving private teaching studio.  Currently, Alana is performing as a substitute with Symphony New Hampshire and is a faculty member at the Concord Community Music School. In collaboration with pianist Elena Abend, Alana recorded and released her solo debut album Paper Moon in 2015 which can be found on Spotify and iTunes.

In conjunction with cello playing, Alana graduated from Marquette University in 2016 with a M.S. in Speech-Language Pathology.  She currently works with preschool aged children in the Windham School District serving a diverse group of students in both individual and group settings.

Hear Alana play the cello here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmXWTjYz2r8

Today I am talking to mezzo-soprano Kathryn Hannah who first studied fine arts and then went on to having a multi-faceted career as a singer, a fragrance expert and is now a leading merchant in oriental rugs. In our chat Kathryn draws on her professional experiences as she highlights various transferable skills that her work has taught her. For Kathryn, perhaps the most important skill she has learned is the ability to connect with people through storytelling.

Kathryn originally has an art  background with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art before working in music. She is here to talk about her career journey and how she entered into the fascinating world of oriental rugs after becoming an accredited Fragrance Expert for a global company over two years ago. In her work heritage and storytelling abound while her technical knowledge keeps aflame, and link, her artistic interests across the board in many fields.  

Equally passionate about excellent customer experiences, Kathryn has a strong affinity with retail and worked part time for several years in a sheet music department and piano shop whilst studying singing privately.  In her career as a freelance mezzo-soprano she worked with many regional and national companies as chorister, soloist as well as covering roles.  Kathryn relishes the varied groups of people in the music world she met and the varied situations and places she has performed and rehearsed! She exercises appreciation in expanding skills and abilities into other fields (as well as learning new ones) either concurrently or linearly in order to allow her to develop by transitioning  to exciting new career pathways.  Whatever career journey happens in life, she believes in humility and that respect and empathy towards others in every workplace is vital.

Today I am talking to soprano Roisín Walsh who is both a professional singer as well as an agent nurse. Roisín discusses how she unwittingly transfers shared skills between her work as a nurse and as a singer, she highlights the flexibility of freelance contracts which have a similar traits in both fields, and reminisces about the importance of her family’s support of her career.

Roisín is an Irish soprano who began her training with Olive Cowpar in Limerick, Ireland before studying at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and subsequently at the National Opera Studio, London. She has worked with companies such as Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera and the Grange Festival to name but a few. 

Roisín has covered the roles of Micaela Carmen, Tina Flight, Tatyana Eugene Onegin and most recently Helena Midsummer Night’s Dream with Scottish Opera.    

Most recently, Roisín played First Bridesmaid and covered the role of Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro with the Grange Festival including a masterclass series with Ann Murray DBE. She then performed the role of First Lady The Magic Flute with Waterperry Opera Festival. Following on from that, Roisín joined Glydebourne Tour where she played the role of the page/la Duchessa Rigoletto and covered the role of the Siren Rinaldo.  

Roisin is very keen to explore contemporary music and recently performed a new commission by Irish composer Fiona Linnane “Songs of the Meterologist” as part of a site specific production “Abandoned” at the Old Sailors Home, Limerick. Subsequently, Opera Workshop has commisioned these songs to be recorded and filmed in a very unique virtual project to be released at the end of 2020. Roisín has also collaborated with Opera Workshop on a very special project entitled No. 2 Pery Square. This should have been performed to a live audience in early 2020 but was reimagined creatively for the new world of performance we are in today and was released as part of Culture Night 2020.

Instagram: @ladyrowalsh
Twitter: @ladyrowalsh
http://operaworkshop.ie/news/

Today I am talking to Marrianne Town Smith, a dramatic soprano who found her voice much later than what is the usual trajectory for classical singers. Having had a highly successful career, Marrianne’s life in marketing was halted due to changes in her personal circumstances. And then she found singing. In our conversation Marrianne tells about her experiences of stepping into the daunting realm of a music conservatoire in her early forties, she explains of what makes communication a primary skill both in business and in music, and highlights the importance of living life to the full.

Marrianne Town Smith started to sing in 2007 as a hobby and distraction from a fast-paced Marketing Management role. Since then she has been on an adventure into opera and classical music, doing as much to learn and grow with a full time job as was possible.  In 2015, she successfully auditioned for a Postgraduate Vocal Studies programme at Trinity Laban and graduated with distinction in 2017.  She has performed many roles in operas and staged scenes at Blackheath Halls Community Opera, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music, AIMS international Singing School and City Lit Opera, as well as regularly performing recitals in venues around London and the south east.  She has sung in masterclasses with Susan Bullock, David Gowland and Christa Ludwig.  In 2018 she sang her first opera role with Opera in the Meantime, singing the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel.  In 2019 she covered the roles of Maddalena in Andrea Chenier, and Madeleine Lidoine in Les Dialogues des Carmélites with Midsummer Opera.  She performed her first role with orchestra singing Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in Sicily at the Mediterannean Opera Studio and Festival in July 2019.  In December last year she sang both the Witch and debuted the role of Getrude with Opera in the Meantime’s revival production of Hänsel und Gretel.  2020 started with two Requiems and the opportunity to add oratorio roles to her resume, with Verdi’s Requiem and the Brahms's Requiem, both conducted by Peter Fender.  And then sadly Covid-19 took over and all other plans for this year have been postponed.  However, she remains optimistic—she has been working away in her garden “She Shack” learning new roles and repertoire.  She is also having online coaching with amazing International singers and stage directors as well as continuing to work with her wonderful teacher Raymond Connell.  

Website: www.marrianne.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marriannetownsmithsoprano

Today I am talking to Dana Lynne Varga. Dana is on the faculty of the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition Dana is a career coach, founder and artistic director of the Boston-based opera company, MassOpera, as well as the founder and CEO of the Empowered Musician, a company which does just that—empowering musicians through guidance both  artistically as well as in business and career development. In our chat Dana speaks frankly about the problems in academia and the music industry as well as the possibilities of negotiating a correlating career with a career in music.

Dr. Dana Lynne Varga is the Founder and CEO of The Empowered Musician, Founder and Co-Artistic Director of MassOpera, and an accomplished classical singer, voice teacher and career coach.

In addition to maintaining a full private voice studio for over 15 years, highlights of Dana’s teaching career have included seven years on the voice and opera faculty at the BU Tanglewood Institute, two years on the full-time voice faculty at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and two years on the voice faculty at the New England Conservatory Prep school. She is currently on the voice faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dana regularly performs a wide variety of repertoire on opera and concert stages. Recently she made her Carnegie Hall debut as the soprano soloist in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Mid-America Productions. Dana’s 2019 appearance as Pallas Athene in Gluck’s rarely heard Paride ed Elena with Odyssey Opera garnered critical acclaim. 

Other recent notable engagements include Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with The Cantata Singers, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Wellesley Symphony and Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor with Coro Allegro. Favorite operatic roles performed include Musetta in La bohème, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Anna Maurrant in Street Scene, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Micaëla in Carmen, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, and the title role in Alcina.

Dana won the Second Place American Prize for Art Song and Oratorio in 2019 and was the  Winner of the professional division of the national Classical Singer Competition in 2016. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in Vocal Performance from Boston University, the Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Websites and Social Media:

www.theempoweredmusician.com

www.danavarga.com

www.massopera.org

Instagram: @danalynnevarga and @theempoweredmusician

Today I am talking to Maite Aguirre, a Spanish pianist, conductor and music teacher who has made a shift into the world of law. Maite is now halfway through her studies, and she shares what music has meant to her, how her work as a musician has influenced her decision to make a career change and what her future looks like as a lawyer.

After a career in the music industry spanning over a decade, Maite is now a Future Trainee Solicitor at the international law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP). She currently combines her Graduate Diploma in Law studies, with her work as piano teacher at St Paul’s Cathedral School as well as completing her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Sir Barry Ife at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. 

Initially trained as a pianist in Barcelona under Vladislav Bronevetzky and Alan Branch, Maite moved to London to complete her Master’s in piano accompaniment at the Guildhall, where she also undertook a postgraduate course in opera studies. Subsequently, Maite became a Lucille Graham Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music working as repetiteur and conductor in the School’s opera department. Other operatic experience includes a collaboration with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Grange Park Opera. 

As a pianist, Maite toured all over Spain, in France, Germany, Italy and Norway, and played in some of the most prestigious London venues including King’s Place, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin’s in the Fields and the Barbican Hall; also recording both for TV and radio: BBC3, RNE (Spanish National Radio) and Spanish TV channels TV3 and BTV; performing in UK festivals such as City of London, Ludlow Festival, Bramley Music Festival, Landsdowne-Blüthner.  

Maite was awarded many prizes during her career, including the Tracey Chadwell Memorial Prize to the best piano accompanist adjudicated by Roger Vignoles, and a second prize at the Concerto Competition in Budapest in 2016. She was also a Georg Solti Academia scholar, and features conducting in the BBC documentary Solti, Maestro or Mephisto. 

She was the Director of the Music Academy Cañada Blanch in the Spanish School in London for six years and remains the conductor of the BCLP Choir. Praised by The Guardian for her quasi orchestral colour in her playing, her first solo Album with music from Enrique Granados received unanimous praise from the media, highlighting her carefully thought textures and well balanced cantabile; impeccable pedalization, use of staccato, characteristic of the Spanish pianistic School as well as her faithfulness to the composer’s characteristic sound and her colour and rubato, in the fingertips themselves. 

Shortly after the release of her second album in 2019, Une sorirée dans Grenade, Maite decided to pursue a career in law, and is the recipient of two scholarships on academic merit at BPP Law School (Career Commitment Scholarship and Dean of the Law). Keen on outreach projects and engagement, Maite has been invited as a panellist in several university events and law fairs and is a mentor at BCLP’s Career Kick Start Alumni programme. 

Instagram: @maite_piano

 Today I am talking to Gráinne Gillis. She is a versatile performer with a portfolio career which includes working as an actress, singer, voice over artist. In addition to her varied work across various artistic and creative fields, Gráinne has taken her skills outside the artistic arena into fields such as hospitality, marketing, education and consultancy. With her philosophies such as “be the best at what you do, whatever it is you do” and “instead of asking what the art world can give to you, ask whatever it is that  you can give to the art world” Gráinne exudes a powerful presence in a world in need of individuals who listen and lead.

Hailed by the Observer as a voice with 'rich, dramatic potential', Gráinne Gillis is an Irish-American opera singer, actress and voiceover artist She read Music at University College Cork and graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. In 2018/19 she sang Flora in the Olivier award-winning King’s Head Theatre’s production of La Traviata, and opened  the London Song Festival.  Other highlights include  her one-woman show Mezzo Sings The Bard, Hélène in Faust et Hélène, the Old Woman in Candide and La Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod 2018. In 2019/20 she sang Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica, Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana and Aksinya in Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk. She also made her Irish debut as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance at Cork Opera House, and Vampyrmeister/Suse in Der Vampyr for Gothic Opera (nominated for an Offie) .  Covid cancellations in 2020 included a national tour of Ireland with Sea Trilogy as well as 1st Magd in Elektra. 

She has long had an interest in new ways of bringing opera to audiences and collaborated with director Julia Mintzer and The Pleiades Project in NYC on their series ‘24’ (now on InVision).  During the pandemic, Gráinne has been involved in online projects No Room No Room No Room for Opera Harmony which was aired on Operavision. Gráinne appeared in Edward Lambert’s short opera Last Party on Earth on film and at Tête-à-Tête 2020, as well as Bread and Circuses, a new opera by American composer Liam Wade, at Tête-à-Tête 2020 and the Playground Theatre. Future projects include developing more shows, plus a revival of Mezzo Sings The Bard. She is thankful to be supported this season by Help Musicians UK.  

As well as her opera and voiceover work, Gráinne’s passions are yoga, Shakespeare and politics, and she has written for the Huff Post UK, the Irish Times, and for RTÉ Lyric FM. For more information, visit www.grainnegillis.com. 

Instagram: @grainnegillis
Twitter: @GrainneGillis