I made it to Torino and am hard at work with eight singers and enjoying the company of three auditing onlookers whom I hope will receive something useful from our work.
The final concert is coming tomorrow, Saturday 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm, and I think I should explain to everyone what I think it’s all about. My name isn’t Alfi, but I do have an answer.
When the youngsters, I’m trying to help, face the public we have invited to come to the Circolo della Stampa di Torino to hear our little concert, they will fulfill the spirit and substance of what it’s all about: No matter how hard we may work together during this Master Class, in the end, it is what happens in the performance that counts.
I am here to do everything I can to help these young people make that performance as close to perfection as possible. What do I intend to see happen? Well, let me try to explain myself by listing my employers. I know I am not an authorized employee of anyone on my list, but I feel the same responsibility as if I had contracts with all three.
- The Singers:
Everyone seeking to be a singer by profession is eligible for employer status. For example, this website is for you, if you are trying to find your way to that small spotlight center stage where you will have to stand and deliver. My being in Torino is part of my effort to walk the walk. After all, this website sure is a lot of talking the talk.
- The Great Creator
My most important employer is the most creative person I know: My God. Now, I know me saying I believe in God and His creative power may seem to many of you to be an aside. It is, however, central to everything. Singers have voices because God forms them while the singer is in the womb, not because of a chance digestive event during the singer’s gestation. Not for any other reason than God’s gift. So I am happy to say that I am working for God to see that as many as possible of his gifts of voice to singers receive loving care, and that He may enjoy the product of those gifts as my singing students engage in their creative work. By the way, I also believe that we are creative creatures because God is creative.
- The Audience
Unlike the theaters of the world, I do not forget that “elemental employer”, the audience. I believe that without other peoples’ ears there is no performance. It is always just a rehearsal, or worse; a hobby. I am working for the people still warming the seats. Singers are remarkably hard to convince of the peculiar relationship an artist has with his fellow human beings. Anyone wishing to be a professional using his or her voice for a creative purpose has to understand that the voice is for communicating and as such a communication must take place, and it must be with an audience. Eventually, we’ve got to sell a sufficient number of tickets for participating in that communication to justify the professional level fees for services that theatres are finding harder and harder to pay these days. I stand as ambassador from the ticket buying public, and do my best to direct each gifted singer toward an interesting and satisfying conversation with my employer who continues to buy tickets and hopes to be entertained.
The theater directors of the world seem to forget the audience, and I believe the crisis in the performing arts has its majority explanation in that forgetfulness. It is perhaps the largest problem for a singer as well. Forget your audience, and it will forget you….
Oh! Let’s not forget all those audience regulars who have decided to stop buying tickets. I have no idea how to get them back into the seats, but I know why many of them decided to stop keeping those seats warm.
Singers who only fear their audience are shoulder to shoulder with the theatres of our day, and together they are the ones who can bring about the future feared by everyone who loves the performing arts.
We sing for an audience because that’s what professionals do. You can’t leave God out of the equation. He can certainly listen in while we’re at it, and, by the way, He can even hear and enjoy the voice of someone who only possesses enough courage to break out in song in the shower. That individual would not be my ideal student no matter how beautiful the voice. I don’t argue with God, but a great voice is often just not enough to make it in the professions.