Boston Singers' Resource News Bulletin, April 9, 2003

This week features the talented Karen Gahagan - pianist, accompanist, music director, librarian, BSR founding member and audition coordinator, basketball fan (yes, she is very disappointed that the Indiana University Hoosiers did not make it to the NCAA Final Four...), and great friend to many. A music director at four local colleges as well with several regional theater groups, Karen shares her accompanying and music directing experiences with us and has some advice for music theater students.

Karen Gahagan is a Massachusetts North Shore native - born in Peabody and currently residing in Marblehead. It should be said up front that she is a proud charter member of Boston Singers Resource!

She is a busy free-lance musician in the Boston area, with a wide-range of current activities that include teaching at all levels (private piano through college classroom), music directing (The Huntington Theatre, Salem State College, Summer Theatre at Salem, Reagle Players, Emerson College, New England Light Opera, The New Opera and Musical Theatre Initiative (NOMTI), Turtle Lane Playhouse, Boston Conservatory of Music, and Suffolk University as well as in various churches), and, in her "free" time, accompanying various organizations and individuals. Recent credits include serving as pianist for the New England Light Opera's production of THE MERRY WIDOW, music directing SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at Suffolk University, and playing keyboard for a visiting New York company production of WORLD GOES ROUND, a Kander and Ebb review. Karen is very proud to have been vocal director for Reagle Players' production of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, which won the Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award last year and which will be reprised this summer. And, not to be forgotten, she once again donned her production hat as 'Audition Coordinator' for the recent BSR auditions!

Currently, Ms. Gahagan is the Music Director for a production of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK by Marc Blitzstein at Salem State College opening on April 10 (details below.) She is also on the theater faculty at Emerson College and serves as the Music Director at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Marblehead.

When not involved in her theatrical pursuits, Karen enjoys returning to her classical roots as a vocal and instrumental accompanist. She has played orchestra piano with Cape Ann Symphony, Symphony by the Sea, the Hillyer Festival Orchestra and the New England Philharmonic, including a performance of PETROUCHKA with the latter group. Karen had the thrill of a lifetime last summer, performing as a piano soloist with the Hillyer Festival Orchestra on the Esplanade as part of WCRB's summer concert series.

Ms. Gahagan attended Indiana University School of Music where her piano teachers included Karen Shaw and Edward Auer. In 1989, she returned east and earned a Masters of Library and Information Science degree at Simmons College, with every intent of becoming a music librarian.

LS: First of all, let me say publicly what a fabulous and talented friend you have been to many and especially to me throughout the years. We are all so lucky to have you accompany and lead us - always willingly and always with a smile ('sure, I'll sight read forty minutes of Hoiby with you on my dinner break just for fun, no problem...' she says to me.)

KG: Thanks for those kind words.

LS: You are so welcome! Let's start by telling everyone about our performance at the Esplanade last summer with the Hillyer Festival Orchestra... You and I were BOTH soloists this time! I thought I would be very nervous and anxious, but the night was so perfect and WCRB kept everything so calm, I was actually very relaxed. How was it for you? What did you play?

KG: It was AWESOME! And amazingly relaxed. The performance was an interesting combination of knowing every single thing you did while being out of your body at the same time. I hadn't done any performing like that in about twenty years - and only had about three actual working weeks in which to prepare my material due to when the opportunity presented itself and the rest of my summer commitments. That would seem to be the recipe for a little tension but it really wasn't.

In many ways the most striking moment happened before the concert while I was working at the piano. The sound technician had all the mikes in place and suggested that he was going to get some solo levels for me before everyone else arrived. He literally went out front and flipped the switch and there I was all by myself on the stage filling the Esplanade and Storrow Drive with music!

The piece I selected was "Eclogue" by Gerald Finzi. It was recommended to my by another colleague as something I should check out when this opportunity came on screen. It was originally intended as the slow movement of a Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra. The outer two movements were never completed and Finzi decided to let the slow movement appear on its own. It's not done very often and is quite beautiful.

LS: Yes, it is a very beautiful piece, and you played so it so wonderfully! Now, you said you hadn't done any solo concert work in awhile. Was accompanying always your first choice over solo piano?

KG: I don't know that it was a conscious first choice. All pianists start out as solo pianists and you learn that repertoire and do the solo piano kinds of things- recitals and concertos. It's just a fact of the instrument. But I was always clear that I had no desire to be a concert soloist even when I went off to music school.

My first accompanying experiences were during high school. The drama club was entering a production of Spoon River Anthology -into the Massachusetts State Drama Festival. I was a freshman and the drama director approached me about playing some music they had added to the production. I came into rehearsal and sight read the music - which was a much bigger deal to them than it was to me. As far as I was concerned it was the same as reading a book. And, in what can only be ascribed to youthful stupidity, I made not one written note on the page about added repeats, other changes in the form of the music or anything else that might prove helpful in the heat of the performance! Fortunately, it turned out just fine, and in that moment I figured out that this "accompanying thing" was lots of fun and a unique pianistic challenge.

My high school job was as a ballet accompanist for Paula Shiff at the Marblehead School of Ballet/North Shore Civic Ballet Company. (Much more fun than Burger King.) That was a wonderful experience because it made me so aware of musical time and phrasing in a literal physical sense - also breathing and a super-sensitivity to tempos. One metronome click the wrong way can make life pretty miserable for a dancer doing jumps! I would play classes and had to keep the music fresh, so that meant it was a sight reading party all of the time and I got to play lots of ballet scores in rep. classes and for the company. The latter performed regularly and I was the live music. I even provided the underscoring for a film that the company made while I was there. It was fairly rudimentary on the technical side, but it was great fun to look at the visuals and determine what made sense where and to construct a musical shape.

I guess the final accompanying "hook" occurred at IU. I tried to get some work in the dance dept. but they were pretty much set with pianists and I soon realized that, in a school that size, everyone who wasn't a pianist needed one! And a lot of pianists didn't want to be bothered accompanying. The result was that I accompanied every standard orchestral instrument - including the tuba - in a recital setting. I enjoyed it all - the ever-changing repertoire, the collaboration with the other performers, and the opportunity to work with so many different teachers beyond my own. I don't think all pianists realize how much there is to learn in this activity even if it's not something you plan to spend your life doing.- It really informs your musicianship.

LS: Great point - thank you for reminding us, yet again, to always keep our eyes and ears opened to other learning opportunities.

LS: When did you get into music directing?

KG: That was a complete accident of fate. The very first step was with a group called the North Shore Light Opera Company. They performed at the old Governor Dummer Auditorium and did Gilbert and Sullivan. My younger sister went to the audition and I played for her. The music director and director cast her and hired me as assistant music director and pianist for "THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE." I wasn't quite sure about the duties of the former but got a terrific education that summer.

Then, I almost made my conducting debut very unexpectedly at one of the performances. The music director came from Boston to Byfield and had gotten caught in traffic, or there was a car issue, or something. Anyway, at about 5 minutes to curtain he wasn't there and everyone just kind of turned to me and said "you'll do fine"!! I stood there
and couldn't even remember how the overture began! The conductor came in the door at about two minutes to curtain - apologized profusely - and then said he should have just hung back and let me have a shot at it!

A few years later, a friend of mine asked me to cover the last portion of a rehearsal period with the Marblehead Little Theatre as the rehearsal pianist and assistant music director. It was a production of GYPSY and the group liked me well enough that when their musical came around the next fall, they hired me as the music director. It was THE WIZARD OF OZ, complete with about 60 munchkins, live animals, and an orchestra of 10 players! I directed from the piano and the first rehearsal with the musicians was disastrous because I hadn't choreographed how my two hands and head were going to communicate what was needed. I can chuckle now, but that was a humbling evening!

LS: The WIZARD OF OZ with 60 munchkins - what an introduction to music directing!? I'm amazed you came back to it after that!

LS: So, since then, you've music directed and taught many young people in community theaters, high schools, churches, and four colleges (Emerson, Suffolk, Boston Conservatory, and Salem State College.) Any advice for the music theater student and young performer?

KG: Learn proper vocal technique, learn something about the fundamentals (minimally) of music so you can do a basic analysis of what's on the page, read widely and make good language part of your being, and listen to a wide-range of musical styles and genres. There is a screaming need everywhere for more audition training for these students: guidance in picking appropriate repertoire, cutting the music, acting the song - all of it. You and I have spoken about this at length.

And I guess a final pet peeve: why don't they have tape recorders? Some students have enough piano skill to pick out their pitches so that gets them started. But almost none can play their accompaniments so they don't hear it nearly enough - or, back to the analysis point, they don't always study it as closely as they might. And it particularly astonishes me when a student who has NO piano skills at all comes into a work session with no means to record the material.

LS:: Please tell us about CRADLE WILL ROCK at Salem State College - an interesting and rarely done theater choice. How are the rehearsals going?

KG: We are at that pre-opening point that it feels like we have rehearsed forever - which is almost the truth! It's been an interesting and unique process to bring this piece to the stage. It's certainly not a traditional "book" musical. In fact, the title page is marked "a play in music". "End of the opera" is the marking after the last scene in all of the orchestra parts. So, take your pick!

The piece does have a few "book" scenes but virtually all of the other dialogue is underscored. And all of the underscored dialogue is written out in specified rhythms. The trick has been to find the places where the dialogue needs to be presented exactly as notated - most are obvious but there are a few spots that are less obvious. In the remaining underscored places, the dialogue needs to sound like natural speech but fill "time" appropriately and end where it needs to in relation to the underscoring. Those sections feel a bit like accompanying a silent movie.

In some ways, the singing is really a secondary element although there is a good amount of that, too. The flavor of the piece is very much Kurt Weill and popular musical styles of its period, the 1930's. Blitzstein also tosses in a couple of interesting classical styles and forms. There is a chorale followed by a somewhat demented chorale variation of which I am quite fond. The end of the show is really an ensemble finale in the best operatic tradition.

"Cradle's" history is interesting in that it is the only Broadway show ever shut down by the federal government. The piece came to the attention of the Federal Theatre Project which was part of the larger Works Progress Administration (WPA) - one of FDR's New Deal programs. John Houseman was, in effect, the producer and Orson Welles was the director. Work began on mounting a full production of the piece.

But, timing is everything. The WPA was undergoing severe budget cuts, there was labor unrest and violence in Chicago and fears of Communits subversion permeated Washington. So the government canceled the production.
The creative team and the cast were not to be deterred and simply found another venue and moved their production to it. The composer played the piano and there were no sets or costumes. Apparently, word got out about the premiere and it was packed despite the government's best efforts to keep this out of the public eye.


LS: Before you go, I think you must tell all of our BSR friends about your "other life" as a researcher. Fascinating, really. You've a degree in Music Library science but never used it. So, 'madame librarian,' what happened?

KG: Yes, I did use the library degree but not as originally intended. I've always liked finding out things and am intrigued by the ways information gets gathered, used, and distributed in different contexts.

While I was at Indiana University I worked at the Archives of Traditional Music which is one of the largest sound archives in the world. Among it's holdings are some of Bela Bartok's original recordings of East European folk songs. Very cool!

Later, while in library school in Boston, I worked in a consulting firm on an oil company anti-trust case, in a community college library as the night supervisor, and as a personal research assistant in the areas of graphics and film for one of my Simmons professors. Each one was very distinct and made me realize how many different sorts of avenues were available in this field.

When I was just about finished at Simmons, the then Associate Dean approached me and wanted to know if I had a job lined up. I indicated "no" and he told me to come to his office with my resume the next day. He had three interviews lined up for me! One of them was with my future employer, The Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS).

In short order I was employed as the Director of Information Services there. IBHS is a national non-profit insurance information organization. Their particular area of interest is looking at how loss of life, loss of property and loss of community infrastructure can be lessened in the event of natural disasters. I ended up spending twelve years there and departed as an Assistant Vice President.

** Note to the membership - Karen will be helping us put together a BSR lending library of copyright-free vocal music, choral music, and orchestra parts. If you, or anyone you know, has music to lend and wish to be included in this project, please contact BSR at: library@bostonsingersresource.com

LS: How did you use your library skills at IBHS?

KG: My primary assignment was to develop and oversee an actual physical library of printed material, audio-visual material, and photographs. We were a membership organization and we worked with lots of other organizations from state to the federal government, academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and the like. My unit's job was to respond to any and all questions just as the reference desk at any library would. The days were quite diverse because so many different disciplines tie into this issue. I would skip from geology, to finance, to meteorology, to structural engineering in a matter of an hour!

Then there is the "other duties as assigned line" in all job descriptions. That included: writing and editing various corporate public information and instructional products; overseeing their graphic design; overseeing the design and implementation of the corporate web site and producing the corporation's annual meeting. I also contributed research support and some of the text for a multi-volume study "An Assessment on Natural Hazards" published by the National Academy Press.

LS: Ok, so the burning IBHS question - what do we need to know about natural disasters in the New England area?
Well, there are the obvious ones - hurricanes, nor'easters, and severe winter storms. Those have a certain seasonal quality - although given the way our seasons appear to be working that may not matter!

The one we don't think about around here, and should, is earthquake. There is a fault line that runs through Cape Ann that was quite active in the early 18th century or thereabouts. It hasn't had any major incident since then but it is absolutely a viable fault. And Boston, being built on so much landfill, would not be a pretty sight. There is a phenomenon in earthquakes called liquefaction which,simply put, means the softer the soil the more quickly it "melts" or liquefies. Basically, the Back Bay would sink.

LS: How did you make the switch from IBHS research assistant to full-time musician?

KG: During my twelve years at IBHS, I still kept up a reasonably full performing life in the evenings and so I was able to make the switch to full-time musician easily when they moved to Tampa, Florida.

LS: And lucky for us, you did! Finally, what is up next for you? Are there any projects or repertoire, that you hope to do someday?

KG: This summer I'll be working on an original production at Suffolk University, teaching in an arts camp, accompanying a vocal workshop and returning to the Reagle Players for SINGING IN THE RAIN. And then there is our recital in upstate New York, of course.

There is so much wonderful repertoire to explore that it's almost overwhelming at times to even contemplate such a list. But....I do hope that "A Little Night Music" comes my way at some point - and preferably with an orchestra - not one or two instruments. And playing some chamber music is on my list of things I very much want to do. It's something I enjoy and just haven't had time or opportunity in recent years. The Poulenc Sextet is on the docket - and I even know who the wind players would be - but getting everyone together at the same place and at the same time is tough.

I also want to continue doing new works. My experiences with our many mutual colleagues at NOMTI have always been gratifying. There is something uniquely challenging and even miraculous about being part of a new works process. More often than not, you are present when something is being heard in the world for the first time. That's just amazing when you stop to think about it.

BSR: Well, here's to you, my friend and colleague! May we enjoy many more successful years together in music! May others continue to enjoy you and your talents!

For more information about Karen Gahagan or CRADLE WILL ROCK:
kagahagan@hotmail.com 781-631-1804