The Power of Unique and Aspiring Voices

In Season 5 of The Power of Singing Podcast, Joseph Gárate leads The Santosha Voice Group in an exploration of the songs and artists that influenced them as young musicians and helped guide them toward the creative lives they lead today. The music people connect with at a formative age can shape everything from their artistic sensibilities to their professional pursuits. Has a song, album, or artist ever had that kind of impact on your life? The Santosha Voice Group invites listeners to reflect on the music that continues to inspire their creativity, inform their artistry, and resonate throughout their lives.

In the second episode of Season 5 of The Power of Singing Podcast, soprano Heather Fetrow reflects on how a challenging work by Poulenc helped her find her footing in the rich, demanding, and ultimately sublime world of classical music. She also shares why Norina's aria from Don Pasquale feels like it was written just for her.

Thank you for listening!

Joseph Gárate, host and producer

Original music by Joseph Gárate

Heather Fetrow, Lead

Susan Mohini Kane & Rich McKinney, participants

Santosha Voice Group

Poulenc "Sanctus" from Mass in G Major - RIS Kammercorps  conducted by Marcus Creed 1996 Harmonia Mundi

"Norina's Aria" from Don Pasquale (Heather Fetrow, soprano, Tom Sheehan, piano)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Sorry if it seems like I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

It's because I don't know it's It's so hard what we do singing sometimes. We have to keep aspiring to it, um, even when we think it's a little bit beyond us. And I'm still really humbled by what music asks of me and what I'm able to bring to it sometimes, like that piece. You know, I I just felt this is asking so much of a young voice, but then to be able to be a part of it was wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Hello, and welcome to season five of the Power of Singing podcast. I'm Joseph Godate, and I'm going to be joined again for this season by Rich McKinney, Susan Mohini Kane, and Heather Fetro. We are collectively the Santosha Voice Group. Our group is interested in exploring the innumerable ways that singing can teach us, heal us, unite us, and enrich our lives as we navigate the world. In this season of the podcast, I'm asking the panel and the listener to take a trip down memory lane, to mind their memories, their consciousness, their dreams, to ask themselves questions about the music that has meant the most to them in their young lives before they, before we all became professional musicians. In this episode, we'll be hearing from the wonderful soprano Heather Fetro, who I only just met in the last couple of years, my friend and mentor Susan King, who you will also hear a bit from in today's episode. I came to know Heather as the always very thoughtful, insightful, and of course kind colleague of Susan's who I've come to actually know through our various sessions. Full disclosure, Heather lives on the East Coast, and I'm here in Southern California. So while we've never actually met IRL, I'm very proud to know her as a colleague and as a friend. While Heather's beautiful singing has been heard all over the world, she is a multidisciplinary artist who has produced for the stage and for film and who conducts regularly for film Penelope, which highlights the music of the composer Cecilia Livingston as part of her ever-growing body of work which celebrates the contributions of women to the world of classical music. It was a great privilege to hear Heather talk a bit about some of the music that has shaped her as a young artist. Here's Heather.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

And around the age of 19, I got a wonderful opportunity to be in the Westminster Choir, which was the select ensemble at my college. And the Westminster choir did amazing repertoire that I had only dreamed about singing before. And actually, the very first semester I was in the Westminster choir, we got the opportunity to sing Poolank's Mass and G major, which I had no idea at the time, like how high up ranking this one was. This was sort of like being in the Olympics, like as a singer, versus like I was very much in the JV level kind of at that moment. So it was a huge leap for me. And I felt it. I felt it that first semester. I felt that my voice just honestly couldn't sing it a lot of the time. It could sing some of it, but um there were only five first sopranos in our section. And this piece sits way in the stratosphere. And so he brought in our director who was very wise, brought in an extra soprano for it who had been in the choir semester before. And I remember thinking, oh, did I not hack it? Like, you know, and we need to bring in this extra person. And it really, it really humbled me. And I think back, you know, it's it's a really interesting experience for a young musician to just kind of come up against something that's like, oh, this is like maybe too hard at this stage of my development. However, I fell in love with the piece, um, maybe because it was so hard and maybe because it was teaching my voice something. I mean, who knows? It was too long ago, but but I absolutely loved um this particular movement I'm gonna share with you today. And it's um the Sanctus. And I just wanted to read to you a little bit about the piece too. This is from um the recording we're gonna listen to is by the R I A S Camera Corps, which is out of Berlin. Their conductor is Marcus Creed, and it's one of the recordings that I really love. Um, and just a little bit about Poulinck's writing. It says in 1936, attempting to overcome his reputation for musical flippancy, Poulinck began studying Monteverdi's motets with Nadia Boulanger. Around the same time, a close friend of his who was a composer and a critic was killed in an auto accident. This triggered a personal crisis that led Poulinck back to the Catholicism of his youth. And the confluence of spiritual and musical interests led directly to this a cappella mass for soprano, solo, and choir. So this is another reason it was so challenging, right? Completely a cappella music, um, eight-part DC, all of the all of the things that uh we work so hard to train ourselves for when we're singers. Um, but my my favorite thing about the piece as we play it and listen to it is that if you listen carefully, you can hear overtones throughout the piece. And that again was absolutely a revelation to me. And it's still a revelation to me. Like, how do human voices create other sounds, you know, that they're not trying to make? And so there's something very metaph like metaphysical and interesting about that. And again, aspirational because I see Poulank's music as very aspirational. He was trying to do something in this case that um that you know critics thought maybe he couldn't do, you know, be serious, write serious church music, you know. Um, and so I think this is an interesting, um, just an interesting piece overall for his output to listen to. So please enjoy the Sampatous from the Poulink Mass Inji. It's a great piece of music, isn't it? Yeah. So um, I don't know if you could hear the overtones or not, but they're could you, yeah, there are two or three places. And again, like, did Poolink know that would happen, right? And I'm sure that he did, but I don't know how you know that as a composer either. So it's again this piece that keeps coming back to me as like a teaching piece, you know, like I could learn more from um from how, yeah, how how that work was put together. Um, and the the thing I actually did want to learn more about it in grad school, this piece came back to me um because we got to write a paper essentially about a major 20th century choral work. And I picked this piece because I remembered it from my sophomore year, and I thought, oh, I can like discover all the secrets of it. And I did not discover any of the secrets of it. Looking back at that paper, I got an A minus on it, B plus, something like that. Like very nice, passable grade. But um, but I think it's because I just wasn't there yet as a musician. I didn't really understand what to look for. I could analyze chords all I wanted to, but I didn't um I just didn't get the the overtone thing. I mean, I could have talked about that, you know, endlessly and talked about that compositionally, you know, and how one wants to do that. Um, but anyways, I I just think the, and you just heard it too, the transition in the music to the Hosanna from the Sanctus part is so fulfilling spiritually. And I think that um more than anything else, that that piece continues to resonate because there was something so spiritually um freeing and grounding at the same time, right? Like the danciness of the sanctus kind of took you to heaven and then the hosanna brought brought me back to earth. And I loved that, I loved that you could um experience that through music. And I still I still gravitate towards French music, actually, too, for some reason. And I'm still really humbled by what music asks of me and what I'm able to bring to it sometimes, like that piece. You know, I I just felt this is asking so much of a young voice, but then to be able to be a part of it was wonderful. Susan, you wanted to say something.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, I just want to interject. I know it's not my tree to talk, but talk, talk, talk. It became really clear when you were talking about the overtones and the a cappella music. I I had a chance to hear a boys choir once, and the overtones in that boys choir live performance with it were just so spiritual and mystical. And you're talking about that in this piece as well. Like you were really, really inspired by the boys choir, and then you're inspired by this a cappella choir. I wonder if you're really just tuned into like these the vibrations of the overtones, and they really make a huge difference in you, even subconsciously.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, it's a really interesting question, right? Especially the soprano, you know, that really high stuff, right? Kind of gravitating towards that. That's a great question, Susan. I'll keep pondering that one, actually. I don't know, but I do definitely like the idea of um creating, you know, something that that is made of other things, you know, um, that is a result of other other things, you know, going on harmonically and structurally as a musician. So to be continued for sure in my journey. And so I want I want to share next was just a little um a little aria that I've been singing for about 25 years now. And I was just kind of taking this as a um as a funny point, but also like just again showing how um it's so hard what we do singing sometimes. We have to keep aspiring to it, um, even when we think it's a little bit beyond us. And um, like Poulank did, you know, when he wanted to show people he could do something, you know, I feel that way sometimes with my singing. And this aria, whenever I've sung it, has always opened doors for me. Um, when I got to sing with the Washington National Opera Chorus, it was because of this aria in my audition. Um, some of the auditions I'm doing coming up in Europe are because of this aria, having recorded it. And um, and I don't know why, but people just like me singing it, you know. So I will keep singing it and I will keep perfecting it. Um, so this is just one iteration of it, and it's Norina's aria from Don Pasquale. And um, she really is talking about herself a lot in this aria and kind of building up her confidence. So um she has a certain gleam in her eye, things that she knows, things that she can offer to the world. And so it's a beautiful girls just want to have fun moment too. Um, so let us out of our cages, please. So here comes Norvina's aria.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Is this is this you performing it?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

This is me, yeah. This is me.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

So most yeah. Conosco anche l'ifetto, di menzoniera lacrima, tu ne sole su ancora, conosco i delle modi dell'amorose frodi, i vecchi artifacili per orescare il cuore. Giù un breve sorrisento, conosco il piano ripetto, conosco, conosco, d'un subito l'amore, sono che ho la virtua magica per espirò, s'il te respiro, bitzona so front of you, so pronta vivo, rinore mi piace, mi piace scherzar, mi piace scherzar, se moto il volume error so il seigneur.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Gorgeous, amazing, yeah. Thank you so much. It's um just a pleasure. It's a pleasure to sing that Ari every time. It just feels so good. Um, I just want to close by um asking you all a question related to your futures. Um, we've been talking a lot about the past, and it made me think about the future too. Um, because you know, as we sort of have our our little movement through our careers, right? There's movement there, right? Some things stay the same, some things shift. Um, so what music do you think a future version of you would like to write or sing?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

I'm 79 years old, I've done all of that.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Oh no, Rich, there's there's more time. I'm counting on 89, 99 for you. So 10, 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

But I'll um I'll learn you when I learn those songs. But I would in general, and I was in general, I didn't major in piano. But when I lost my boy Jade in Orange in Vietnam, I had to change my plan. So I played the piano better, and I don't anymore. And jumped in my head, and I'm rolled in my head, but I'm not sure that way when other people can do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Well, one thing that I know about Rich is that um he was asked to do a whole evening of Beatles songs, and that was one of the things he wanted to do, and that was not that long ago. And also, you know, anytime he hears about new music, he writes down the the title and he looks it up and he learns it. And so I feel like this curiosity never quite ends with you, Rich. You know, you just continue to learn and offer your version of whatever it is you learn.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

I once was told that if you ever stopped walking, you would never walk again.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And I think that's true when you give it up, you really give it up. And I think music is the same way. And we didn't demand that it be involved in your life and especially in our lives, because that's where we where we've ended up.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

It's beautiful. Yeah. Once I started learning music uh formally, once I started taking voice lessons and being in choirs and and and doing music in school essentially, and then once I ha had this career in music, I was so concerned with the product, so concerned with uh you know how it all came out, you know, how it all sounded at the end of the day. And I'm still plagued by that. I'm still really concerned with that, even even though I I I try to have more fun and I try to enjoy the process more. And I think that what I strive to do uh as I you know get older and and more and more in the future is just have more fun. I mean part of the part of the reason why I don't uh why I don't make as much music as I'd like to make is because I'm I'm it's it's difficult for me. I mean even this exercise of like sitting down to make my little Beatles demo, you know, a few days ago was like I tr I try I forced myself to do it in one half hour session. I forced myself as opposed to you know normally I would labor over it for weeks and weeks and weeks and it would never get done, it would still just not be done. But I really made myself accept the you know quote imperfections and try to enjoy the process. And I was only minimally successful at that. But I hope that I can have fun the way I did when I was 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, you know, before I started studying. I hope that that continues for me.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

I hope so too, Joseph. That sounds like a really good goal.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

I agree. I agree. And um and you will get it because you want it, because you're aiming for it. So you will, absolutely. You can depend on that because you're gonna go after it and you'll get it. It's funny because my my thing was similar, you know, um, not being put in a box uh that for future, you know. I I have kind of a pop music side of me, slash music theater side, and then there's this whole opera side of me, classical music side of me. And I've all I have been working hard to be, you know, very good in each genre. You know, try to be very good and and we're and worry about the product of it. But what I what my goal would be now, and I think it's especially after all the hardships that we go through in life, I find that you just don't have time anymore for anything that's not real and not true and not worthy. And I feel like what I'm I think my best is still yet to come because I'm looking for freedom now. I'm looking for freedom in my expression of singing, in my expression of writing my song. Not trying to hit a structure or a um uh even a quality level anymore, but rather a a true, something true and and free, and and to be able to share it generously, knowing that once it's done, it's done, you know. It's it's it exists in time. And um and that should, I mean, I I want that to make me feel freer and not so hard on myself about it all, you know, trying to make it really good or trying to live up to some sort of a standard that doesn't really exist. It's just in my mind. So, and for me, I think that's gonna be a combo of there's not gonna be any kind of music. It's gonna be just something, sounds from my from me, from my authentic heart, hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah, that's an awesome answer too. I mean, I wish you could have seen this is a podcast, so you won't, but Susan was like saying every word of the aria, Norina's aria. I was pretty much. I wish you could have seen it. It was so great. Um, because yeah, you have all of those, um, like you were saying, these particular ways and styles, right? That you've kind of trained yourself in. But like the ultimate goal is right to free all of that up. Yeah, and just let the training, let it fly on the training that you've been doing for so long. For myself too, I'd love to write more choral music. I haven't ever delved into that, but doing this episode made me think, oh yeah, that would be a fun thing to do.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

This episode was produced by yours truly, Joseph Garde, and features original music by me as well. We also heard recordings of The Mask in G major by, of course, Poulank by the RIS CameraCore, conducted by Marcus Creed from 1996 on Armonia Mundi. We also heard Norina's Aria from Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donazzetti, that is, with Heather herself. Heather Fettro as the beautiful soprano and Thomas Chihan was the collaborative artist. Please consider going to Santoshavoicegroup.com where you can find out more about us as artists and panelists and about what we want to do. And you can sign up for the bi-weekly singing sessions that I offer with Money King. Oh yeah, and if you have a second, please do all those things that you hear everyone ask you to do at the end of every podcast. You know, rate, review, subscribe, all of that. This really helps us get the word out, and it really helps us as the Santosia Voice Group encourage more people to sing and raise their voices. Once again, this is Joseph Garate, and for myself and the rest of the Santosha Voice Group, I'd like to say that we appreciate you and thank you for listening. Until next time, see you later.