Who said I had to choose between the two? No one in particular… just the programs to which I’m looking to apply. To be more specific, the ol’ grad school application list got shredded when I considered what non-performance-based classes were offered at each institution. Get this: At every single conservatory to which I was going to apply–Juilliard, Manhattan, New England Conservatory, and the list goes on–a singer cannot register for language classes beyond first year. Another way to look at it? Singers should not actually know what they’re doing.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a perfect, academically overachieving singer in the usual respect. In fact, there are many occasions when I would qualify as a bad or lazy singer. I haven’t done word for word translations and  I haven’t cared enough about what the text said to even google a poetic translation. See? Bad singer. Tsk, tsk, tsk!

Then again, I’m not in such bad company for doing so. Schoenberg didn’t either. Bad schoenberg!

Ich war vor ein paar Jahren tief beschämt, als ich entdeckte, daß ich bei einigen mir wohlbekannten Schubert-Liedern gar keine Ahnung davon hatte, was in dem zugrunde liegenden Gedicht eigentlich vorgehe. Als ich aber dann die Gedichte gelesen hatte, stellte sich für mich heraus, daß ich dadurch für das Verständnis dieser Lieder gar nichts gewonnen hatte, da ich nicht im geringsten durch sie genötigt war, meine Auffassung des musikalischen Vortrags zu ändern. Im Gegenteil: es zeigte sich mir, daß ich, ohne das Gedicht zu kennen, den Inhalt, den wirklichen Inhalt, sogar vielleicht tiefer erfaßt hatte, als wenn ich an der Oberfläche der eigentlichen Wortgedanken haften geblieben wäre. Noch entscheidender als dieses Erlebnis war mir die Tatsache, daß ich viele meiner Lieder, berauscht von dem Anfangsklang der ersten Textworte, ohne mich auch nur im geringsten um den weiteren Verlauf der poetischen Vorgänge zu kümmern, ja ohne diese im Taumel des Komponierens auch nur im geringsten zu erfassen, zu Ende geschrieben und erst nach Tagen darauf kam, nachzusehen, was denn eigentlich der poetische Inhalt meines Liedes sei. Wobei sich dann zu meinem größten Erstaunen herausstellte, daß ich niemals dem Dichter voller gerecht worden bin, als wenn ich, geführt von der ersten unmittelbaren Berührung mit dem Anfangsklang, alles erriet, was diesem Anfangsklang eben offenbar mit Notwendigkeit folgen mußte.

Preach it.

Conclusion: It is entirely possible to understand the text through the musical expression of it, maybe even better. Who knows. If Schoenberg was doing it… well, then, I’m a lemming.

Given at Convocation for the  opening of the Fall semester at New England Conservatory on September 3,2009 in Jordan Hall. My cohort in crime was my ever-lovely, provocative, hairy, and insightful best friend, Brandon Cordeiro. Incidently, he’s looking for a husband and soul-mate. Know anyone? We gots to hook a brother up!! 

Without further ado… 

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Ceceilia: Well, where did we leave off last time?? Oh, right, WELCOME TO COLLEGE! You made it. You’re here. You’ve been oriented to this huge campus, an overwhelming class size, and that behemoth of a football stadium looming a mile away from your dorm. All of you, new and returning, know the buildings, your agenda is in your hand and you’ve staked out the practice rooms with air-conditioning. Now that you know this campus inside and out, ask yourself… does this campus know me? Do I know me? What does that even mean?

Ceceilia: For those of you who may not know us, I’m Ceceilia.

Brandon: And I’m Brandon.

Ceceilia: We’re both Resident Assistants in The Dorm ™

Brandon: We both love to laugh and have killer, completely inappropriate senses of humor.

Ceceilia: We’re also extremely modest.

Brandon: I grew up in liberal, ultra-gay, Portuguese Provincetown, Mass.

Ceceilia: I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana going to Wal-Mart with the Amish.

Brandon: I do voice over work, sing in operas, study voice, and practice underwater basket weaving… but have no idea what I want to do for my career.

Ceceilia: I know I want to be a singer, but that hasn’t stopped me from things like doing activist work or a finance internship.

Brandon: So do you think they know us now?

Ceceilia: Hahah. Hardly. It takes more than just reciting facts to get to know people.

Brandon: When you join a new community, it can often seem like a labor-intensive process in order to integrate.

Ceceilia: In our life experience and in our experience building community as Resident Assistants, we’ve learned a few truths about community that we’d like to share with you today. So ask yourself…

Brandon: First, do I know me???

Ceceilia: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?  Have I actually named the facts of who I am? If I scream them louder will people get to know me faster? What if I write it on my whiteboard in the hallway? What if I wear it on a T-Shirt? Will people “get me” then?

Brandon: Second, what does all this even mean????  

Ceceilia: When I came to college, I realized that I had to decide not only how to describe myself, but how I felt about myself. I asked … Why do I choose specific words? Do I consider why others may choose different words? Do I choose this for a factual reason or have life experiences led me to this decision of how to name myself?

Brandon: See, it’s a two part process. First, we have to name ourselves, and second, we have to own up in word and deed to what a “name” means to us.

Ceceilia: And the easiest way to do that is to bring your personality to each and every moment. For example… I have only one name that I go by—Ceceilia—whereas, Brandon…  

Brandon: …has somewhere around 20 different characters that are a part of me. Each of them is a real person. They each have names—Valerie, Shaniqua, Betsy Sue, Florencia Caparelli, Rufus…

Ceceilia: And when you ask them simple questions like where they’re from, they bring their personalities and perspectives to each moment. They are not ashamed of letting their communities know who they are.

Ceceilia: So, what’s your name and where are you from?

Brandon: Hi der, I’m Betsy Sue. Born and raised in Minnesota and a proud, proud, homeland lover. There’s nothing like my kids, my Wal-Mart and muh husband Karl. God bless. It’s simply who I am. That’s where I come from, that’s what I do. Why not have PRIDE in it, right? But Karl says… Having pride is something very important. I feel very fortunate to be in a loving relationship that allows me to be so free. This says something very important about community to me: When we name something, even our limitations, like muh husband Karl, gawd love him, but I do have to say, he likes to keep a tight rein on his woman, oh…Huh, Jesus mary and Karl! I can sense what you’re thinking. You think I’m an underpaid, under-appreciated housewife. Actually, I’m all of those things… and then some. See, when we name something—however we choose to name it–suddenly it exists. And you can’t have PRIDE in something that you don’t acknowledge.

Ceceilia: While Brandon quite literally “names” the different parts of his personality, Betsy Sue demonstrates an important point for all of us. She, of course, named the facts of her life—housewife, Minnesota, middle-class, Christian—but she “named” more than just the facts by how she said them: She’s enthusiastic about her family and her way of life. She even embraces the limitations and stereotypes that go along with being a housewife. She is naming herself and opening up about what it means to her.

Brandon: It takes guts to have pride in every single aspect of who we are, especially when real-ness isn’t socially desirable. Nevertheless, your community—this NEC campus—can’t truly know you unless they know how you feel, for better or worse, about yourself.

Ceceilia: When Brandon first arrived at NEC, I didn’t understand what people were saying about his characters. It didn’t make sense… until I experienced his personality, err… all 20 or so of them.  

Brandon: But that’s me. You’re probably wondering if I have multiple personality disorder. No, no, no, I don’t. Well, actually, CONFESSION! I DO have multiple personalities. But it’s not about a disorder. It’s about embracing every part of who I am.

Ceceilia: Some of you in this community, like Betsy Sue, love your underpaid and underappreciated lives.

Ceceilia: Some of you are the apple of society’s eye.

Brandon: Some of you at NEC are understood and some of us… well, aren’t.

Brandon: Some of you are pigeonholed in the world of “disorders” or as “weird” or as (gasp!) AWKWARD.

Ceceilia: Some of you feel pressure from other’s narrow definitions of “talent”.

Brandon: Sometimes it can be really easy to be REAL and sometimes it can be totally uncomfortable.

Ceceilia: It may even change from situation to situation. But that’s ok, because the final part of this puzzle called community doesn’t end with you.

Brandon: You see, when we’re real ourselves, we make it easier for others to be real as well. And each of you in the audience today can affect our shared NEC community for good by simply being who you are.

Ceceilia: Over the years, many unique people have contributed their authentic selves to the community at this school.. My mind goes to alumna Coretta Scott King in particular.

Brandon: Cause, she kept it REAL.

Ceceilia: She was an awesome lady. She did things that only she could do, and today we are freer to be ourselves because of her commitment to community. How awesome is it to think that each of us could live a life just as great?

Brandon: Right now you are all at the start of a new year, and when you leave this hall—schedule in hand, classrooms to find, practice rooms to inhabit, halls in which to perform–you will begin to fill these spaces with community.

Ceceilia: Therefore, we challenge you to ask yourselves, “Who am I? What does that even mean? Does this campus know me?”

Brandon: This is your opportunity.

B&C: And we can’t wait to meet you.

Written for a performance by New England Conservatory’s Undergraduate Opera Studio on March 3 & 4, 2009, 8pm, Brown Hall.

Full Disclosure: I sang Fire/Nightingale.

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L’Enfant et les Sortileges by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) and libretto written by poet Colette premiered in 1926 at the Monte Carlo Opera under the baton of Victor de Sabata with choreography from a very young Balanchine.  Ravel began composing the opera soon after he received the libretto from Colette in 1918. The public favorably received the opera, and it was soon being performed to packed houses in Paris, London and much of Europe. However, the opera did not receive its American debut until 1981 at the Metropolitan Opera. L’Enfant et les Sortileges counts itself among Ravel’s post-war works that emphasize bolder harmonic formulation, exoticism of the natural world, and fantasy.

At first glance, the opera divides into two scenes, one in the child’s room with furniture and the second in the garden outside the house with forest creatures, but Ravel’s musical structure does not rest on theatrical conventions. The piece opens with what appears to be directionless undulations outlining a pentatonic scale in 4ths and 5ths, and Ravel gives the passage structure by reiterating portions at the entrance of the child and at the mother’s entrance. Similarly, Ravel reiterates moments of tonality throughout the opera in order to show changes in the child’s character from rage to compassion and remorse. The child’s monologue in E flat major following his encounter with the princess—in sharp contrast with strong preceding passages of bitonality and modalism—begins to show a tender interiority in the child as he laments that he cannot defend the princess against the forces of darkness. Moreover, as the child cries “Mama!” before the final ensemble on a descending 4^th, the animals crudely imitate this interval, first introduced in the undulating, opening prelude and strategically strewn throughout the opera. Finally, the child and the animals find common ground in a stable, hymn-like, G major fugue.

As the opera progresses, the text becomes more and more onomatopoeic with utterances such as “Meow!” from the cats and “Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki” from the frogs. Ravel also abandons text entirely at points in order to insert dances, such as those of the cinders interpolated into the Fire Aria. One would surmise that Ravel wanted to give his audience a break from the potentially alienating language of L’Enfant et les Sortileges—such as that exemplified by the grossly imitated Chinese-language of the teacup and teapot—but he did no such thing. Instead, Ravel uses these breaks to refocus attention on aural allusions to other “musical beasts”. The Frog Dance particularly has references to his works La Valse and Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

Whereas Ravel’s harmonic language and formal structures may have been bold, his adept handling of these devices shows awareness of compositional practice and tradition. For example, the sofa and the armchair dance to a stunted, French, minuet pattern from; birdsong—foreshadowing Messiaen—punctuates the garden scenes; and the child’s monologue “You, the heart of the rose” following his encounter with the princess evokes Massenet’s “Adieu, notre petite table” from Manon. These examples also demonstrate Ravel’s stylistic tendency to breathe child-like energy into more esoteric “classical” compositions. At no time does the musical content of the opera intimate that the child’s character acquires more sophistication than his natural, fantastic surroundings. Ravel tended to not only utilize but also parody contemporary French trends, such as exoticism. In the duet between teapot and teacup, Ravel mocked France’s trendy obsession with the far east following the 1889 Paris Exhibition by parodying a so-called Chinese melody with a vaudevillian melody rooted in familiar words and harmonic clichés.

Similarly, Ravel’s handling of lush instrumentation in L’Enfant et les Sortileges avoids gratuitous instrumentation, even in its fully orchestrated form. At times Ravel pours forth sound from the orchestra, such as the transition from the house to the garden scene, and at other instances relies on simple two part writing—such as between princess and the flute—showing his dedication to creating color through purposeful orchestral gestures.

Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges exemplifies the fantasy of childhood with a rich and engaging musical composition, and while one can easily enjoy the opera for both aesthetics, I encourage you to get in touch with your own inner child full of rebellion, rage, empathy, compassion and wonder. What does the music bring out in you?

I’ve decided to keep up this blog, turning it into a space to document my volunteering, school, professional, etc. activities. There might even be a twinge of over-confessional blogging mixed in, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum… emphasis on “try”.

And looking for jobs in Holland.

Courtesy of my dear friend Emily, here is a translation of the article about me that appeared in La Tribune de Geneve on August 5, 2008. A few clarifications (e.g. implications, misquotations) are listed below the article. Enjoy!

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The Tourists of the Hostel:

A Trip in Europe, Over the Course of Vocalises

Written by Henri Della Cassa for La Tribune de Geneve

Published August 5, 2008

Translated by Emily Markoe

Photo Caption 1: Ceceilia Allwein. The young American goes wherever the music is good.

Photo Caption 2: “I’ve found the people of Geneva very open.”

Article:

More and more young tourists prefer the banks of Lake Geneva to fine-sanded beaches. Who are they?

Coming straight from Massachusetts, Ceceilia Allwein lives for music. This smiling American, easy-going, is passing through Geneva with the only goal of listening to the notes playing right now in Calvin’s city*.

Open air festivals, chamber music concerts, the native of Indiana goes wherever the music is good. Two days, Ceceilia plans to spend only two days in our city, and then leaves in the direction of German-speaking Switzerland. Her journey in Geneva is the realization of a very precise desire: “I wanted to visit a part of a German-speaking country where French was spoken.” With Geneva, this is all found.

Ceceilia lives in Munich and benefits from a scholarship of an American foundation. This foundation gives the opportunity for young Americans to travel abroad in order to work in long-term internships.

“It’s the first time that I have left the United States,” she said this morning, at a table at the youth hostel City Hostel Geneva.

A vocal performance student at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, the young woman, 22, specializes in opera. On the Old Continent, her goal is simply “to hear music” and to immerse herself in a Germanic culture. A sort of return to her sources, as Ceceilia counts among the German descendants who fled the country in the 1920s, just before its most somber period.

During her lighted visit by the lake, the singer was not disappointed. A stroll along Lake Geneva, visits to the museums in the Old City, a guided tour of the Palace of Nations, not forgetting, obviously, the nighttime classical music concerts in the courtyard of City Hall. But Ceceilia takes even more pleasure in chatting with the inhabitants of the area where she set down her luggage. “I found the people of Geneva very open,” she says warmly. “I ate yesterday in a restaurant on the Rue des Pâquis, and I made the acquaintance of some very nice people from Kosovo.”

At the end of her short trip to Geneva, Ceceilia will continue on with a few days in Zurich. She may then be able to exchange memories with her good friend of Swiss origin…who currently studies in Boston. Then she returns to Bayern**. As soon as she returns, the student hopes to move on to the Netherlands, between Gouda and Utrecht; a region to which she has already traveled several times during her year in Munich.

For all this, despite the affection that the soloist, as much a musician in her own time, holds for this part of Europe, her future will be, according to her, in the United States.

* “Cité de Calvin”—I think this might be a local euphemism for Geneva.

** Literally translated: “Before returning to Bayern.” I think my construction this more sense in English.

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To clarify…

• My Grandmother’s family came to the US (actually, Saskatchewan, then the US) in the 1920s. It’s obviously not talking about me, as the English would seem to suggest. It’s implied that it’s not me in the French idiom.
• The journalist misquotes me in the last line…. I don’t see my future in the US. I see it in Europe, but it’s just the omission of a single negative.

These are my volunteering, community service, and campus involvement goals for the Fall, 2008 semester:

• Develop, get approved and begin to implement a plan for a peer counseling program at NEC
• Help lead the Queer Performing Arts Alliance through its transition into the Performing Artists’ Alliance (more to come on this exciting development!)
• Volunteer for EMA Fund
• Participate in the Point Foundation’s Annual Boston Fundraiser

I am back in Boston…. and have been since the 15th. It’s time for fall Residence Life training, so I’ve been a bit MIA. However, there have been updates:

The photos are now organized into albums and collections according to countries, subject matter, cities/regions and attractions.

Also, since being in the US I’ve met folk from all over due to the fact that I travelled this summer. Factoid: Luxembourgish is an entirely separate language. Another interesting realization was that American ex-pats have just as much exotic appeal as true foreigners, even when they return to the US, even when we only speak Amerian English. Hmmm….

Here’s the link to the article in La Tribune de Geneve. A friend is doing a translation into English for me, and I’ll put that up when it’s done.

The article is really well done, although he misquoted me on the last sentence by leaving out my negative. I actually don’t see myself staying in the US in the future… if only just for a while.  

The web page also doesn’t list the name of the reporter. For the record, his name is Henri Della Casa.

Enjoy!

Click on the link to my Flickr album in the sidebar. Right now they’re not organized into albums, annoted, rotated, edited, etc., but they will be shortly. (Famous last words, eh?)

Back in the states in 3… 2… 1…