Friday night was the senior voice recital of one of my students, Bryan Chung, and it was one of those occasions which a voice teacher never forgets. Some triumphs seem sort of pre-destined / never-in-doubt / according-to-the- script. This was just the opposite: a triumph which was hard fought and very much in doubt right up to the last minute. But all of that made the triumph just that much sweeter.
I should say first that when Bryan was a freshman, he already had a handsome baritone voice but really struggled to be expressive. (He would be the first to admit it.) As he sang he gave no hint of enjoying himself, let alone of having any deep connection to the music or the words. He was a shy, quiet person at least around me, so I wondered what personal connection, if any, we would ever manage to establish . . . which made me even more skeptical that I would be able to have much impact on him or help him become an appreciably better singer.
I cannot point to any particular moment, but at some point all of this began to change. Bryan began to get serious about his singing- which, paradoxically, allowed him to have so much more fun singing. It may have sprung out of his increasing involvement with musical theater – or maybe just a part of maturing. . . or some combination of these and other factors . . . but whatever it was, Bryan became increasingly dedicated and it paid off handsomely. What was especially impressive if not downright amazing was how expressive he became- a truly eloquent singer with a very compelling stage presence. And in “Pirates of Penzance” this past January, Bryan showed that he had the makings of a fine actor by portraying the role of the Modern Major General like an old pro.
Bryan’s junior voice recital, which actually occurred at the very beginning of this year, went well – but there were certainly issues that remained in his singing like being in tune, being attentive to details, etc. (And he hadn’t really found himself expressively yet.) So Bryan was told at that point in no uncertain terms that as a Vocal Performance major, he needed to sing his senior recital at an even higher standard. And from that point on, Bryan seems to have applied himself like he never had before. I think part of what helped is that he was really excited about the theme of his senior recital, which was that of Children – and more specifically, the experience of losing a child to an untimely death. The centerpiece was the “Songs for Dead Children” by Gustav Mahler, an incredibly poignant song cycle which Bryan studied in music history and with which he fell in love. I was able to find some other things which lined up pretty well with that topic- (like Schubert’s magnificent song “The Erl King”) and it was Bryan’s own idea to fold in Kurt Bestor’s powerful choral piece “Prayer of the Children.” (He wrote it in the wake of a terrible tragedy involving the destruction of a Red Cross hospital and the deaths of all the children there.)
All of that might seem like the makings of a dreary evening, but in fact it all worked out beautifully. There was the unrelenting sorrow of the first half which gave way to at least the glimmer of hope after that, culminating in the recital’s unexpected finale: Somewhere over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World, accompanied on the ukelele by Bryan’s good friend A.J. Hanson. This was very much Bryan’s idea and it turned out to be a good one. That song provided everyone there with this sense that, for all the senseless sorrow that this world gives us, there is this hope we have of a better world, a better life, for our children.
What was scary is that Bryan’s recital came right on the heels of the spring musical, which had taken so much of Bryan’s time – and then he got sick, which kept him from being able to sing his best. It got to the point where I was suggesting to Bryan that he back off of his performance major and just sing his senior recital as a core major, thereby eliminating all the pressure of having to meet a certain exacting standard which I seriously thought was just out of reach, given the circumstances in which we found ourselves. But Bryan had come this far and wanted to go for it- and so that’s what he did, and he ended up singing the best performance of his young life. And what was truly incredible is how emotional and expressive Bryan was. The grief was heart-wrenching – the anger was downright frightening – and the prayers were eloquent and heartfelt. Bryan expressively threw himself into these pieces with a thrilling sort of abandon, and it was incredible how this helped him sing so much better than if he had stood up there and sang stiffly and self-consciously. Folding in the whole expressive element made all of the difference.
Anyway, he earned himself a very heartfelt standing ovation from the audience and accolades all around. One of my favorite moments afterwards came when my voice colleague Amy Haines came up to me with what looked like tears in her eyes. . . saying “I am so proud of him – and if I’m this proud of him, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now! ! !”
I am proud of him – and happy for him – but also uncertain as to how much of this was my own doing as his voice teacher. I think a lot of things came together for Bryan, and I honestly don’t know if I played a central role in all that or not. And I know Bryan well enough by now to know that he’ll never tell me. Maybe he doesn’t know. What is certain is that voice teachers enjoy taking credit for their singers’ glories and tend to pass the buck when it comes to their failures. The truth is murkier than that- We have something to do with it but by no means do we have everything to do with whether or not a given singer succeeds or not. We do the best we can and the rest is up to them. It’s as simple as that.
pictured: Bryan Chung and A.J. Hanson performing “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World,” the last piece on the recital.