Shiksa prosaic

I've been here for a week now and I'm starting to feel the Tanglewood effect. It's hard to describe - people who have been here before talk about this loving environment of real musicianship coupled with a genuine desire to teach and mentor to developing musicians, the cooperation across the genres, the sense of community and the incredible experiences that we as fellows get to experience. My first official coaching is in a little over an hour so I've had quite a bit of time to myself. I've been running (2.2 miles with my roommate the violinist) and developing my ears and tongue for Russian vowels (jaw loose, pretend to say [I] but pucker the lower lip ever so slightly - do this forty times in front of the mirror, you're almost there) and translating my French - all of the things that we never seem to have time to do in the opera schedule. Most of my prep work is done on airplanes and trains but I've actually had time to practice my language sitting next to a native speaker and watch Clue in the lounge with the other fellows and take naps and go for runs and sit in a masterclass for two hours while Phyllis Curtin, one of the last remaining grand dames of singing from the 20th century, hands out her sage advice on the business and mechanisms of singing. And I'm sitting last night, watching the Mark Morris Dance Group do their dress rehearsal for the Brahms/Schubert/Barber program, listening to my amazing colleagues sing the Liebeslieder waltzes and watching these unbelievable dancers, turning around every now and then to glance out the back of Seiji Ozawa Hall because they've opened the retractable wall and the sun is setting, and I'm struck by how wonderful this is. We've been given this tremendous gift - two months in the Berkshires with the music director from the Metropolitan Opera and some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st century - John Harbison, Dawn Upshaw, Lucy Shelton, Mark Morris, Elliott Carter (regardless of what one thinks of his music) - and we don't have to pay for it. I was on the phone with my father the other day and he was having trouble wrapping his brain around exactly what it is that we do here. This is, by no means, unusual for my father - he frequently does not understand what it is that I do. But I found myself at a loss for words to describe the scale of what goes on here and how it really doesn't matter that we don't get paid because the kind of artistry to which we are exposed is steeped in a lineage of artistry so great that I feel humbled just to say I'm a part of it. Phyllis Curtin - who was telling stories just this morning about covering Leontyne Price at the Met in the premiere of Barber's Antony & Cleopatra and how her costume was so expensive because she and Leontyne weren't even close to the same size and couldn't share. And this weekend, I get to put on my pretty dress and heels and walk into the chamber music hall so I can sing for whom? James Levine. I'm sorry, what is it that he does again? Oh that's right, he conducts the Boston Symphony. And the Met Opera. And anything else that tickles his fancy. Right. That guy.

Pardon the gush. But on Saturday night, after I'm done singing for James Levine, I'm going to throw my dress into my backpack and slap on some jeans because Garrison Keillor is doing A Prairie Home Companion just across the campus. And that in itself is an amazing thing about Tanglewood. How am I spending 4th of July? Watching James Taylor from the lawn. And the week after that? Singing Messiaen in Seiji Ozawa Hall. It's everything that a musician could ask for. If only there were another women's bathroom on the 4th floor of the dorm. But one can't have everything.

Big shout out to my friend Jamie who is driving from St. Louis to Aspen - she knows this magic of which I speak, as well as the pain of sharing the 4th floor hall bathroom. Shower shoes. That's all I'm gonna say.