By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The 21st annual Marjorie Conrad Art Song competition was an occasion for joy.
BGSU Professor of Voice Christopher Scholl reiterated that point at the beginning of the finals Saturday night and just before the winners were announced.
The joy was shared by the all the performers, not just the winners, and the faculty who teach those performers, and by Scholl who has coordinated event since the late Dr. Conrad donated BGSU the money to present it, and by the music lovers there just to hear great singing and piano playing.
Dr. Conrad knew about that joy of music – so much so that late in life she returned to studying voice. Her gift insures that the Conrad Art Song Competition will continue in perpetuity, Scholl said.
That joy was heightened this year as the competition returned as an in-person event after being canceled by the pandemic in spring, 2020 and held virtually last year.
It was a joy to be face-to face again, Scholl said.
The competition drew a field of five undergraduate singer-and-pianist duos, and 11 in the graduate division. (The division is determined by the academic standing of the vocalist.) Both members of a duo share equally in the prize money — $1,500 for first place, $1,000 for second, and $750 for third.
Soprano Brooke Harvey, a third year voice major, who with pianist Jordan Karrigan, a second year graduate student, were awarded first place in the undergraduate division. She reflected on their musical chemistry. “We have a lot of fun together, we mess up together, laughed every time,” she said. “When we really focus we have incredible runs. It’s just a joy to make music together.”
“We’re very open with each other,” Karrigan said, “Here’s what’s going wrong. Here’s what’s going well. Here’s what we should fix.”
Soprano Carolyn Anderson and pianist Steven Naylor won the graduate division.
Naylor, a fifth-year senior who plans to studied collaborative piano in graduate school, said working collaboratively with singers and instrumentalists “is one of the musical experiences that I’m most fulfilled by. I really enjoy getting to work with singers and instrumentalists and to make music together. …It just brings music to a higher level. I get more out of it as a performer sharing it with somebody and relying on them.”
Other winners were:
Undergraduate Division: Andrew Puschel, tenor, Hannah Zaborski, piano, second place, and Maureen Berney, soprano, and Ashley Lewis, piano, third.
Graduate Division: Keri Lee Pierson, soprano, and Francisca de Castanheiro de Freitas, piano, second, and Nicholas Kottman, tenor, and Chan, piano, third.
The two first place duos will perform in the Great Gallery at the Toledo Museum of Art Sunday April 10 at 3 p.m.
Anderson said her early love of musicals set her on this career path. As a 5-year-old she always sing the tunes from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.”
Her mother was a saxophonist and played in the pit orchestras for shows. Young Carolyn would accompany her to all the dress rehearsals.
“No question singing had to be in my life,” she said. When she was 14, she decided to pursue classical voice. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, she had the opportunity to visit BGSU often as she was deciding where to go for graduate school.
She got to know the faculty well and ended up studying with Myra Merritt and Jane Schoonmaker Rodgers.
She was also drawn to BGSU because of her interest in studying contemporary music.
Harvey, who studies with Scholl, also came to BGSU because of the faculty. “I had a mock lesson with the voice faculty, and I said these are the people I want to work with for the next four years. I felt so welcomed and I left feeling like a better singer than when I came in.”
“She was the shyest person in the world when she walked in this building and look what’s she’s blossomed into,” Scholl said. “It’s amazing.”
Harvey’s musical path started in church children’s choir, and led to performing in musicals and plays. “It was something I really loved doing to help me express my emotions and feelings.”
Her musical partner Karrigan, a student of Robert Satterlee, said of his musical beginnings: “We had a piano in my house growing up, and I started tinkering around and started lessons and kept going and here I am.”
But up to now he hadn’t had the chance to do competitions as part of a musical collaboration.
Each of the duos were required to select pieces including at least one song in French, German and Italian, and songs representing the classical, Romantic and 20th century periods, and one by a living composer.
Naylor, a student of Laura Melton, said he and Anderson’s program, which had music by Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, Strauss, Poulenc and Augusta Read Thomas, was determined by pieces on the audition lists for the schools he is applying to. They all fit nicely into the required repertory for the Conrad.
“Steven is not just a great pianist, he’s also such a fabulous singer,” Anderson said. “So he’s naturally very in tune with singers. You couldn’t ask for a better collaborative pianist.”
The Conrad was held just a week after the staging of the opera “Orpheus in the Underworld.” Anderson played Venus in the comic opera. In all, 11 singers who competed in the Conrad were in the “Orpheus” cast including prize winners Andrew Puschel and Nicholas Kottman.
Doing both did pose a challenge “because they are two huge projects” that demand “so much dedication.”
But it was worth it, Anderson said. “Both are fulfilling experiences.”
