Manhattan School of Music Summer Voice Festival Part One: Journey to Surrender
Erin Elizabeth Muir: the Summer Voice Festival
Part One:
A Journey to Surrender
Well, this has certainly been quite the journey already and
today is only the first day of the program itself! My program started, of
course, back on Easter, when I learned I was accepted to the program and
decided to do a kickstarter to fund the tuition for the program. In the last
month since then, I have been so honored by all the people- some that didn’t
know me at all, and others who were long lost friends, and yet other friends
near and far and close and closer and even REAL CLOSE, and family… by al these
people pitching in to help me get here, to help me pay the tuition, housing
transportation costs…. By the wonderful folks just sending words of
encouragement…. By the four amazing men who are baby-sitting my dog (each
separately. He doesn’t require THAT much attention. I may. ;-) but he can do
one on one.)
Anyway, thanks again, everyone, for that support…
And now here I sit in my little sublet apartment in Harlem,
writing this blog just to try and cover the first few days of my experience! I
live near the Cotton Club, which is fun for me, being a jazz buff. I’m one
subway stop north of the school itself, and I believe this neighborhood is in
that estuary of gentrification meeting artists meeting old school Harlem
inhabitants. Everywhere there are people hanging out on their front stoops,
there’s Afro-Cuban drumming and pigeons cooing, children laughing and food…
everywhere food. Last night I broke my no dairy rule (I try to not eat it too
much if I’m singing because it makes me all phlegmy) and ate a Cuban from Flor
de Broadway, with lots of garlic and pickles. YUM YUM…. And topped it off with
coconut juice and some sweet plaintains.
My only regret about being here, of course, is that my dog
isn’t here with me, but there will be days that I will be gone for 12 hours and
I just couldn’t bear the thought of poor little Henry being stuck in a strange
new city without getting out to take care of his needs! So last Tuesday I
brought him over to my friend Woodruff’s, his first baby-sitter. Woodruff was
very patient with me as I cried but pretended I wasn’t. As I was choking up
showing him Henry’s food and toys, he said, wanna hang out for a minute and
settle Henry in? Whew. I got a last little time with my little Muppet and then
said good bye for 6 weeks. I was sad, but Henry looked at me like, “Yeah, Mom,
I get it. You’re gonna be gone til July. Geez. Let me go play with the boys
now.” At least, that was my anthropomorphized version of his underbite-grin.
Later, W sent me a pic of Henry napping on his lap. I knew then, it would be
alright with my little bundle of puppy love.
An on to New York City! I arrived Thursday morning. I took
the red-eye flight from the city I love, my city of Angels, and got in to
LaGuardia around 9 am. The flights (I somehow gave myself a stop in Chicago)
were uneventful and fitful for sleep. I had booked a car to take me into the
city because, according to the website, it was only $9 more than the shuttle. I
was a bit surprised when the total was $38 more than the shuttle but since the
driver was 30 minutes late picking me up, drove like a mad man to my place,
sort of hit on me and then offered to show me around, I figured, I would just
pay and skedaddle! Oh, hey, Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t read that last
part. ;-p
I’m staying in a sweet 2B sublet very near the river (just
half a block away!) with another lovely opera singer, a soprano, singing in a
production of Don Pasquale. Once I got into the place, and unpacked, I was off
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see one of my best girlfriends from LA!
Wait, what!? Yes! It seems that a number of my friends were all converging upon
this big Apple all at once. Alison and I had lunch with her friend that works
for the museum and took in the Prada special exhibit. Amazing and, well,
quirky! I mean, I know a lot of people tell me IIIIii’m quirky, but, um, I’ll
take a slight backseat to a few of Ms. Prada’s creations. From there I ran to a
voice coaching with my LA Coach Bill. Wait. What!? YES! Another Angeleno
descending upon the streets of New Amsterdam. To be fair, he actually works
bicoastally. Still, there we were. Breathless, I made it through the Card aria
for an audition coming up, and am better the woman for the coaching.
And then, my energy went WHooooooot. Crash. I needed a
break. Luckily, my darling friend Debbie, whom I met in Los Angeles (wait,
what?) but who lives here now these past many years took me to the Ayurvedic
Café for dinner. This is a lovely café which, every day, prepares dishes to
incorporate all 7 flavors required in Ayurvedic cooking. At the end, we visited
the shrine devoted to Quan Yin, goddess of compassion, and each took a
“fortune.”
Mine read:
“Trust that everything you strive for will be taken care of
in the absence of your fighting and your worrying.”
Ah.
Ah.
Ah.
That is something this gal definitely needed to hear.
I breathed in deeply, and thought about that night, several
years ago, beneath the stars in Rishikesh, the lilting mother Ganga river
singing to me, and me to it. I dropped into that joy, and love of singing, and
feeling of freedom that comes from the surrender of just letting go.
I’m here, I thought
to myself, As I always have been. Everything else after “here” is
just joy.
Friday morning I awoke to pigeons cooing. I smiled and
thought of Bert, of Bert and Ernie fame. I went for a long jog along the river…
here’s how perfect the weather was for a run: I actually extended it by 20
minutes. Trust me. That ain’t how this chickee usually rolls. … but it was
lovely, lovely, lovely. I ran a bunch of errands, met the fellow who is
subletting MY place in LA in June and gave him the keys, and then went to meet
with my vocal teacher from Manhattan School of Music for the first time.
Now, originally, when she and I had been emailing about
setting up a first meeting, she said that the lesson Friday evening would be at
her home studio, just 4 stops from where I live. No problem! Friday evening,
around 6:40, I got off the train and wandered up toward her home. Suddenly, I
wondered if I had it correct, because her personal assistant had e-mailed all
of us assigned to her studio about times for Friday and Sunday… I rechecked the
email and to my dismay, my confirmation email (from Wednesday) said “up at the
school.” Uh, oh! I called my teacher, Joan, on her mobile phone. No answer… of
course, as she was busy teaching! So I left a message: “Hello, Joan! This is
Erin Elizabeth Muir, your mezzo 7 pm student. I’m near your home but I’m just
rereading this email and I see that it says the lessons are up at the school! I
am so sorry to call and leave this message but in case I am late, I am just
erring on the side of the school. I’ll be right there!” I ran to the train (with
my purse and my backpack, in my flipflops and short/long skirt fluttering away,
hoping not to sweat… er, um…. Glisten…. Too much for my sheer aquamarine
chiffon blouse over my nude tank top!), hopped on, hopped off two stops later,
and then rechecked my email… wait… wait… a more recent email… Friday night’s
lessons are at Joan’s home studio and Sunday’s lessons are at the school….
Argh! I ran back to the train, got on, got off two stops later, ran around the
corner and into the building and took the elevator up and arrived at?
7:02.
HA!
I walked in and waited for her to finish with the student
before me.
Then I met Joan, and her pianist, Coco. I explained a bit
about myself, and we got right to work. Immediately she identified my biggest
obstacles with singing at this time: a misappropriation of breathing and my
tongue having a mind of its own. (Don’t even get me staaaaarted on that one.)
And ultimately, honestly, truly… after she asked me about my philosophy of
breathing and I launched into a long poetic treatise on the stars and the
heavens and the earth and the … “wait!” She said. “That’s your problem. You’re
making it too complicated. It’s not complicated. It’s easy. And it’s going to
be difficult for you to retrain yourself to let it be easy.” And then we got to
the real work:
Undoing Erin’s hyper-analytical, obsessively
pseudo-pscientific practice when it comes to life. I mean. Singing.
;-)
She showed me a few things within that lesson that were
already so much easier than what I have been doing… things that were building
upon the wonderful work I’ve been doing with Calvin…. Things that explained
things that he has probably TRIED to get through my thick skull!... and she’s
right, it may be hard for me to surrender into it, and yet, then again… it was
such a relief and… joy. It was a joy to be singing so easily, so freely. I left
her lesson so excited about what I will learn these next 6 weeks… not just for
singing but for life…. And I thought again about my fortune from the Ayurvedic
Café:
“Trust that everything you strive for will be taken care of
in the absence of your fighting and your worrying.”
Maybe I am here to learn better singing, and meet a great
manager or even a cute guy. And maybe I’m here because, maybe, just maybe, I
need more faith in the moment itself. Less fighting. More trusting. Less
worrying. More fun.
So last night, I returned home with my Flor de Broadway
sandwich and my roomie was about to watch a favorite movie I haven’t seen
since, probably, 2000:
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg…
(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.)
A wonderful film in which difficult and beautiful life
occurs and no one is demonized or made innocent nor evil, but simply each
person is alive, striving for joy (and all sung in Michel LeGrand’s amazing,
beautiful composing!)
To be honest, my workaholic habit would always have been to
go into my room and “work on something.” But I’m here (on earth) to grow, to be
alive, to be in joy. So I let myself simply soak in this beautiful film, no
umbrellas. Let the rain fall on me! I shall drink it in.
I’m off to warm up now, for my audition for the productions
occurring during this Voice Festival are in only a few short hours. I am so
honored and happy to be alive. I pray for joy for every living being, for I
believe, that is our birthright.
Until next time-
So much love…
Enjoy:
“To die for love? What could be more glorious!”
- Pride
and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
“The French were made to die for love! They delight in
fighting duels!”
-Marilyn
Monroe, Gentleman Prefer Blondes
“Toujours, la mort.”
-Carmen,
Card Aria.
“People only die of love in films!”
-Madame
Emery, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
