Alice’s Adventures in an Arts Career

As I promised, here are the details about the Music for a Cure concert coming up on March 7th.

Music for a Cure is an annual charity concert.  Now in their 5th year, they have raised over $16,000  with concerts now in London, Barrie and Ottawa . Funds have benefited the Royal Victoria Hospital/ Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre in Barrie and  the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.  This year’s concert will be going towards the Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario.

Date: Saturday, March 7^th, 2009.

Time: 2:00 pm- 5:00 pm

Location: Colborne St. United Church

Address: 711 Colborne St.

TICKETS: are  $10/Students and $15/Adults and are available by calling (519) 902-5159 or emailing music4acure@gmail.com

Tickets will also be available at the door.

As I said before, Vox Humana will be performing a set at this concert and we’re looking forward to it as a good chance to prepare for our upcoming spring concert in April and as an opportunity to increase our visibility within the London choral and music scene.

So come, enjoy some great music and contribute to a worthwhile cause.

I’ve made my share of mistakes on the theatrical stage.  Usually, I can cover them up well enough and everyone just has a good laugh backstage after.   But there was one mistake I made that could not be covered up not matter what I did.

It’s an understatement to say that I was a busy person in Q1 Hamlet.  Adding stand-in Gertred to my list of jobs was a significant undertaking.  I learned all the lines, all the blocking, did all the work, but with only one tenth of the physical rehearsal time.  I suppose it was to be expected that come November 1st I would make a slight slip here and there… but this, I’m not sure I could have foreseen this.

Because my rehearsal time had been so fragmented, my concept of the second act was  disjointed and I was never quite sure of the exact scene order .  But I had done one full run-through and done everything right, so I thought I would be able to manage for the performance.  Oh dear, was I wrong.

You see, on the night of the performance, I somehow got it into my head that Ofelia’s funeral scene came before the scene where the Queen announces her death.  So there I was, down stage left in the wings, waiting for what I think is the funeral scene… when suddenly I hear:

“Look, see where the Queen comes!”

I look on stage in horror, and there is Laertes pointing up stage RIGHT… where I am supposed to be, but clearly am not. Well, what could I do?  I had to go on stage and deliver my tragic news of the fair Ofelia.  And so I entered from the left, with Laertes and the King still peering off stage right  for a Queen that wasn’t there.  There was no hiding it.  There was no faking it.  And of course my mark was on the other side of the stage, forcing me to make the long walk of shame across the front while my poor bewildered castmates starred at me.

The most annoying part was that during rehearsal I had always used the time before that scene to prepare myself for the emotion, get the tears flowing, etc.  But instead, I had to hurl myself on stage with an inner monologue that was less ” Oh what tragedy!’ and more “damn, damn, damn, damn!”

I suppose there are worse things that can happen on stage.  Just ask Janet Jackson.  But it certainly was one of the more interesting moments I have had on stage.

So in the next couple weeks, I have several small gigs lined up.

First off, my school choir Les Choristes has a concert next week downtown at St. Paul’s Cathedral.  This means I’m trucking it downtown a couple times a week for rehearsals.  This is the down side of off-campus concerts.  They tend to take up more time simply because of the logistics involved.  But oh well, it has to be done.  Besides, we’re singing Poulenc, and Aaron ( Vox Humana’s pianist) is playing St. Paul’s awesome organ for us.

Speaking of Vox Humana, we have a short concert coming up on March 7th.  We have a  set in the Music for a Cure concert.  We’ll be performing some of our new stuff including  the “Kyrie” from Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis and a few pieces from last term.  I’ll post more about this later and give out more details.

Lastly, the Q1 Hamlet band is getting back together to record a few selections from Ben Sajo’s score for the campus radio New Music Competition. The program Skatches in C will be hosting the event and airing the submissions on March 12.  We’re hoping to get the recording done on the 10th or 11th.  We might even be able to win us some pocket change.  So wish us luck!

I came to be involved with Jonathan Blankenstein’s Facebook: The Musical through Q1 Hamlet.  My percussionist, Jacky,who was also playing kit in Jon’s pit band, asked if I would be interested in conducting for his show.  Two e-mails and one meeting later and I was Facebook’s new band director.

The show was a wildly fun pop-musical following the trials and tribulations of four university students as they navigate their way through their first year.  Though the style was high energy pop, it was by no means simple.  The score was probably one of the most complex and difficult scores I have worked with to date.  But it was also so much fun.  Once everything was pieced together it was all I could do to stop myself from dancing up at the front. 

The band consisted of two pianos, two violins, trumpet, sax, guitar, base and drum kit, plus four singers.  The musicians were simply some of the best people you could ever ask to work with.  Rehearsal time was short (we pulled it all together in roughly 3 weeks), the music was difficult, and co-ordinating schedules wasn’t always the easiest. Yet every time we rehearsed I was excited and energized, even after three hour sessions in cramped basements or student housing living rooms.  The combination of the people, the music and the talent was intoxicating.  It was a shame we only had one performance.  I left that show wanting more. 

Again, the level of success and enjoyment in a show comes down to the people involved.  Each member of this show was so good natured, talented and easy going.  We rehearsed long hours,  the music was hard andwe had only one run through. There were so many places where things could have gone completly wrong, where emotions could have boiled over, where the whole thing could have fallen apart, but it didn’t. This was because of the integrity of the group. This show was not work; it was play.  So thank you to Jon and everyone in Facebook: The Musical.  I wish you all luck on your respective up coming peformances.

Well, I’ve been away for a week now.  I spent Reading Week at home in Toronto curled up on the  couch.  It was lovely and oh so lazy.  But now I’m back and you can expect regular posts again. Actaully, this post was inspired from conversations while at home.

I have a really close relationship with my mom.    She has had a profound impact on my development as an educator and a musician.  She has passed on years of teaching insight to me and we regularly have long conversations on topics of pedagogy.

When I am home, my mom and I walk regularly in the evenings.  We usually take about an hour and a half each night.  This week, while we were out, we had conversation about teaching and music that really got me thinking (as our conversations generally do).

We were talking about some of ideas I have been exploring in my Philosophy of Music Education course.  For some time now, I have been trying to define where I place my musical educational values.   What do I believe is important in a music education class?

One of the issues I have been grappling with, is how much weight should be placed on technical performance skill in a typical High School music class.  If I were to create a program that produces intelligent musicians, what would I want my students to learn from my class?  What would I want them to be able to do?  You see, I am not at all convinced that one’s ability to perform well is necessarily the hallmark of a good music education.  Technical proficiency on an instrument or voice, either in an ensemble or solo setting, does not necessarily reflect a mind that can think critically and engage with music.  I fear that all too often programs that emphasize technical excellence also inadvertently create students who can do no more musically than what they are told to.  If a class is able to play a symphony with skill but can not understand or think about that music, can they be considered musicians, or simply good mimics?

In an ideal world, I would envision a program that produces students who were both technically skilled and intellectually independent and engaged.  I would want students to read, write, think, discuss, critique, interpret, innovate and play music well. 

However, we do not live in a perfect world and so my dilemma is this.  How does one balance the physical and the intellectual aspects of music and which takes priority?  Should we fail students who can engage and speak thoughtfully and originally about music but still squeak on the clarinet? And conversely, should a virtuosos player who can not form an original and informed opinion about music be graded less?

I wonder, for the average student who is not going to pursue music as a career, what aspects of music will serve them best in our society?  What will foster well rounded, insightful, independent, passionate and open minded citizens?

This is something I have yet to find a definitive answer for, and I suppose these questions are not quite so pressing in my life, since I do not plan to attend teachers college… at least not now  And yet, they are important questions for me as they help define my understanding of music. 

I am also curious what some of you might think about this issue?  What do you think is most important in a musician or a music class?

I once lost a student.  I’m still not exactly sure how it happened.

I was teaching a music class to grade 5.  It was my third class with them and the honeymoon period of a new, young fun teacher was over and the class was now testing their boundaries with me.  Boy, where they testing.  Anyway, on this particular day, a student teacher from the UofT faculty of education was observing my class.  This in of itself was really strange.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a student teacher was watching me teach.  I haven’t even gone to teachers college yet.  But oh well.

Anyway, so the class was testing me and things were rough, but I was managing fine.  I had to send one student out into the hall.  I asked the student teacher if she could sit with him until I asked them to return.  Okay, fine, that is done a lot by other teachers.  I went back to teaching my lesson.  It was then that one kid pulled off a Houdini.

I began conducting the piece we were working on.  I swearing I was looking straight at the class.   I was watching each and every one of them.  But apparently, one boy is just magic, because when I stopped, one girl put her hand up and asked

“Miss Hietala, where did (John) go?”

I looked in horror to his usual place.  He was gone.  I looked around the room.  Nope, John was missing.  In a panic, I rushed to the door.  There, outside the classroom, sitting on the floor beside the student teacher was a rather sullen looking John.  He’d somehow escaped my class only to be snared by the student teacher, who simply assumed I’d sent her one more student to watch.   What a bit of luck! I just looked at him and said “Well done John,  but I think you can just sit there for a little longer.”

I really don’t know how this kid did it.  To get out the door, he would have had to cross the room in front of me.  He must have crawled on the floor, or maybe he just walked out and I was just completely blind.  I don’t know.

In the moment it was scary and shook me for a moment.  It took me a few minutes to regain my composure. But in hindsight, it’s hilarious.

When Tim, Aaron and myself set out to start Vox Humana Chamber Singers, we had grand visions of excellence in  mind. We were about to create a shining example of advanced art. We were determined to perform repertoire of a high artistic and technical caliber and envisioned a choir of the greatest quality. Based on these standards, we wanted to audition the best trained, most technically proficient  choral musicians.

However, when we finished auditions, we surveyed our list of brand new choir members and realized that the 4th year vocalists and master music students had not turned out. Instead, we had members from a broad range of academic and musical backgrounds. Many had sung in choirs, but most were not classically trained singers.  Some had sung in choirs, but had little experience with foreign languages or classical choral repertoire.  Some where voice majors, some were piano majors and some where science majors. Some had never really sung at all.

We were confronted with the question of whether our plans were still realistic or not?  We had been so excited to work on our advanced repertoire, which included Bach, Poulenc, Stravinsky, Brahms and Part. We wondered, would it still be possible to achieve our artistic goals and build the type of choir we originally envisioned, or would we be forced to compromise?

I will cut your fears short here…we compromised nothing. We never changed our repertoire or expected any less in quality. However, the result was a choir that was far more educational and stimulating than I think a choir of entirely “trained, professional, advanced” singers would have been. With Vox Humana, I have experienced what it means to have high expectations and a steeper road to climb to achieve them. I don’t think any member would argue that our first term was challenging. There were many rehearsals where I was sure we had bitten off far more than we could chew.   And yet, our debut performance was nothing short of amazing. Much of this is due, I think, to Tim and his refusal to compromise and give up.  He refused to remove exceedingly difficult pieces that seemed beyond our grasp, like the Arvo Part, opting instead to leave easier pieces aside to free more time.

We approached this choir with the firm belief that we could achieve greatness regardless of our initial “level”. We felt it was possible to achieve high results if that was what we wanted.  And I believe we have proven this to be true. One does not need uniformity of skill and talent to produce fine art. One does not need a group that is the same, with the same voice and experience.  One only needs participants who are eager and willing. Certainly it is a far more difficult road to haul, but equally greater are the rewards. The accomplishment is greater. This is Vox. What we have is a willingness to learn, a desire to teach, a common belief that we are capable and a drive to achieve the most that we can.

From our first rehearsal until where we stand now, our journey has been remarkable. I have nothing but pride for what we, as a whole choir, have accomplished and I look forward with anticipation to our continued growth.

I was always involved in theater all through school.  Every single year since grade 1, my class would perform in at least one class play.  As the years passed our productions would become progressively more sophisticated, culminating in our senior year performance of An Acre of Time by Canadian  playwright Jason Sherman, an adaptation of the book by Phil Jenkins.  I loved theater.  The stage was one of the few places where, ironically, my introverted self  felt comfortable to explore and express myself (apart from music of course).

However, as soon as I entered university, I stopped acting.  I let my self-doubt and fear convince me that I was not good enough to work at the same level of the artists I was seeing around me.  I thought I was not worthy and decided to avoid the innevitable rejection all together.

I let this go on for nearly 3 years, until I decided enough was enough and took a risk.  I did the Hamlet audition.  As I have already explained, I did not get a part, but that audition opened the opportunity for me to participate in the summer production of A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream where I ended up getting the role of Puck.

Doing the Dream was a dream.  I was nothing short of elated to be back on a theatrical stage (well, it was more of a theatrical lawn).  It was my first time doing Shakespeare, aside from worked shopped scenes in High School.  Of course time has filtered out the frustrations and left only the good memories, but even so, it was one of the most pleasurable theatrical experiences I had ever had.   I was allowed wonderful freedom to interpret the role as I saw it, resulting in a decidedly darker incarnation of the mischievous sprite. I also earned my first review, which was a lovely added bonus.

This role was the spark I needed to reignite my confidence.  I would not have traded that summer for anything.

Teaching kids is hilarious work.  Ask any teacher, and they will tell you stories.  Most side splitting, embarrasssing, or memorable tales  do not happen in the  context of a neatly laid out lesson plan, but rather in the  briefs moments said plan veers off the tracks.

One day, I was substituting in a grade 7 music class… I know, I’m either brave or completely insane.  The class itself went fine, and I suffered only a few well practised, adolencent eye rolls.  When the class ended, I decided to stay in the classroom until their homeroom teacher returned to supervise lunch.  Would you leave a classroom full of 13 year olds alone?  While I was quietly waiting and watching them eat lunch, a student entered the room.  What happened next would still baffle me today, if it could not otherwise be explained by the simple fact that he was 13.   He entered the room, saw a pile of books on his desk (which happened to be right in front of me).  The books apparently were not his.  With one swipe he knocked them on the floor at my feet with a loud crash.  I was stunned silent, but for only a moment before I said calmly, but firmly:

“Please pick those books up.”

Him: “No”

Me: “Pick those books up, please”

Him: “But they aren’t my books.”

Me: “I don’t care who’s they are, pick them up.”

Him:  “But they aren’t mine”

Me: “I don’t care, pick them up”

Him: “Why?”

Me: “Because we don’t knock books on the floor.  Pick them up”

Him: “But (Mark) always knocks my stuff off his desk.” 

Me: “I don’t care. Pick them up”

Him: “But I don’t want to”

Me : “I con’t care. Pick them up”

Him: “But they aren’t my books!”

Me: “I don’t care. Pick them up.”

You all realize of course, this was not about the books… it had nothing to do with the books.  We argued for a good three minutes with me repeating the same thing over and over. 

And the end result?  He picked up the books.

(Granted, I suffered yet another eye rolling… damn those things smart)