Boston Singers' Resource News Bulletin, March 26 , 2003

This week we feature the lovely Ms. Naomi
Gurt Lind, soprano, and champion of new music. Ms. Lind is
appearing in New Repertory Theatre's upcoming production of
SWEENEY TODD later this month. She shares with
us her experience and advice for singing new music as well as
singing and acting effectively on stage.

Portions of the following article were taken from the Naomi Gurt Lind website: http://naomigurtlind.net. Her website also includes a repertoire list, sound clips, and a free demo CD offer.

"Naomi Gurt Lind is a versatile performer of uncommon intelligence and adventurousness who enjoys a varied career in the realms of classical music, theatre, and new music." http://naomigurtlind.net

A champion of new music, her vocal repertoire stretches from Bach to Babbitt and beyond. Paul Griffiths of the New York Times wrote of a recent appearance: "Ms. [Gurt] Lind responded beautifully to the exquisite vocal writing and conveyed a sense of both works as the reports of shocked, stunned survivors, capable of sudden flares." She has likewise been well-received in comedic roles and was hailed in The [London] Independent for "a great comic performance as Miss Wordsworth, all teeth and spectacles."

Several composers have written expressly for her, and her work in the new music field has included commissioning and premiering numerous pieces. She has worked with composers such as Milton Babbitt, Yehudi Wyner, Michael Gandolfi, Jo Kondo, Lori Laitman, and Howard Frazin. In addition, she has been coached by such new music luminaries as Paul Zukofsky, Marc Ponthus, and Martin Goldray. Equally at home in the traditional repertoire, Ms. Lind has sung the roles of Despina in COSI FAN TUTTE, Papagena in THE MAGIC FLUTE, and Lucy in THE TELEPHONE in addition to oratorio solos in works by Bach, Mozart, Rutter, Vivaldi, and Haydn.

Ms. Gurt Lind has appeared at Merkin Hall, the Aspen Music Festival,and in the Aldeburgh October Britten Festival. A resident of Boston and New York, she has had solo appearances with several prominent Boston ensembles, including the Cantata Singers, Auros, Chorus pro Musica, Masterworks Chorale, and Fine Arts Chorale. In New York, she has appeared with Festival Chamber Music Society, Musical Observations, and as a guest artist on a 20th century concert at the Third Street Music Settlement.

In the non-classical realm, Ms Gurt Lind sang at the White House and was recently featured on the Balls Experimental Cabaret at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis. In 2002, she was a member of the Composer-Librettist Studio at New Dramatists in New York, where she participated in the creation and premieres of several new works of music theatre. Also an ardent baseball fan, she performed at Reggie Jackson's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame and recently sang the National Anthem for the Cleveland Indians at Jacob's Field.

A burgeoning actor, Naomi Gurt Lind has done several plays, as well as staged readings of new works. She has worked with writers Joseph Goodrich, Melissa James Gibson and Pulitzer Prize nominee Keith Glover, among others.

A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ms. Lind was educated at University of Michigan and The Cleveland Institute of Music . She received additional training at The Britten-Pears School, Aspen, Celebration Barn, Nautilus Music Theatre Institute(with Wesley Balk), Southwick Studios, and The Seagle Colony.

This past season, she appeared with Boston Lyric Opera in their production of CARMEN ON THE COMMON, in A CHRISTMAS CAROL at LynnArts, Industrial Theatre's New Works Festival, and she will be featured in the upcoming New Repertory Theatre's production of SWEENEY TODD this April.

BSR: Lovely website! Do you do it yourself?

NGL: I hired someone to create the design and format, but I now update it myself. One thing that's very important to me is to keep growing and changing as an artist, so I wanted a site that could move flexibly into whatever direction I decided to move. So far so good!

BSR: Great picture of you and Bill Clinton! Where was that taken?

NGL: When I was in graduate school at University of Michigan, I hooked up with the Dodworth Saxhorn Band, a Detroit-based group that did old time brass band music on original instruments. It was a match made in heaven, because they were looking for someone to sing baseball songs and I am a baseball nut! They hired me to do several appearances at brass band festivals all over the place; we also got to play Reggie Jackson's induction at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. This was around the time that Ken Burns was working on his Baseball documentary, and the band laid down some tracks for that piece. Then we all got invited to play the White House in honor of
the premiere of Ken Burns's documentary. By that time I was in conservatory in Cleveland, so the guys drove the bus down to Cleveland to pick me up by the side of the road and we drove all night to D.C. I realized halfway there that I'd forgotten my baseball glove so we went trolling garage sales in the D.C. suburbs to find me one. It was a great adventure!

BSR: What a great story. BSR: I find it very interesting that you define yourself as a "muse" and an "artistic midwife." I don't think I have ever seen those terms in someone's musical bio. (I love it, though.) What exactly do you mean?

NGL: Well, I work a lot with composers, and I see my role as supporting them to find the best in themselves. I would hope that I provide inspiration as a muse might do. And sometimes I provide the impetus by which a work comes to performance, whether it's a commission or just breathing down the composer's neck to meet a deadline! That's the midwife part. I don't actually create the music but I help it into creation.

BSR: How did you first get involved with new music?

NGL: I grew up in a musical family, and I had heard all kinds of (classical) music as a child, including the occasional new work. New music was always sort of on the periphery of my awareness, but my first real digging-in was at the Britten-Pears School in 1997. I was selected to participate in a ten-day seminar on contemporary chamber music and had the chance to go straight to the heart of some of the toughest 20th century repertoire: Webern, Carter, Berio -- plus stuff that the composer members of the course were working on. It was incredible! I was in way over my head but despite feeling constantly overwhelmed, I found that there was some skill there that I hadn't realized I'd had. Now that I've invested in that skill and developed my confidence, I love doing new works. BSR: What skills do you think singers need to work on to sing new music?

NGL: I work very hard on my musicianship. I have developed really accurate pitch and interval memory and have made friends with the metronome. Luckily my husband enjoys playing geeky metronome games! And then, when I'm really ambitious, I'll do some work with "Elementary Training for Musicians," by Paul Hindemith. Possibly the most humbling book ever written!

BSR: Why do you love performing new works?

NGL: The thing I love most about it is the adventure, the feeling that I can really put my interpretive stamp on something and won't be looked on negatively for going outside the tradition -- instead I'm creating the tradition! Also, when I'm working with composers, I really enjoy the collaborative energy that develops/

BSR: I agree. I have had the opportunity to perform some new works, myself, and I really enjoy the artistic freedom you have when there are no pre-conceived notions about how the music should sound from recordings or past performances.


BSR: You have had so many wonderful performing experiences all over the US and in London. How did you make those connections? Through mutual contacts? Through your festival experiences? Auditions?

NGL: All of the above, except the festivals, I'd say! The thing I've noticed is that the great gigs are sometimes traceable back to less exalted gigs. For example, on the basis of seeing my work in a class at Longy, Eric Sawyer invited me to do a guest appearance (freebie) on a 20th century concert he was putting together. I used the tape of that performance to get the Babbitt concert I did in New York. That concert was very favorably reviewed in the Times, and on the strength of that review and a chance meeting (and almost two years of massaging the contact) I got the gig at Merkin Hall. When I registered for the class at Longy, I couldn't possibly have guessed that it would be part of a trail that would land me a Merkin Hall debut. There's no way to know where the road is leading you; the most you can do is take the next step.

BSR: "You just never know where a contact may lead you:" A lesson we hear over and over. Thank you for, again, exemplifying this for us.

BSR: Where did you perform "Miss Wordsworth" in ALBERT HERRING?

NGL: Actually it was in Aldeburgh, Britten and Pears' adopted hometown on the east coast of England. That production of Albert Herring took place at the Aldeburgh October Britten Festival, which was then under the auspices of the Britten-Pears School. Performances were held in the Jubilee Hall. It was a really special experience to do that piece in that place; many in the audience had been friends with "Ben and Peter" and Nancy Evans, the original Nancy, was at the cast party. We heard so many wonderful reminiscences of the original production!

BSR: How is it that you are a resident of both Boston and NYC?

NGL: I've been commuting back and forth, depending on where the work is. I studied with Irene Gubrud for four years, and during that time I was down there quite a lot. I'd book auditions around my lesson days, as well as try to see whatever live performances I could. Last season I had a lot of work in New York; I spent most of last spring down there. This season I don't have anything in New York; everything's in Boston. It's really random, but I just try to roll with whatever's present.

BSR: I see you performed in the infamous CARMEN ON THE COMMON "for the masses." I came on Friday night - what a madhouse! Couldn't even find a parking space until half way through Act I. I was so excited for all of you up there, though. Did everyone (on stage) make it on time?

NGL: Yes, I was in the chorus. Yes, everyone made it on time both nights.It was so much fun to do Carmen on the Common; I loved being part of a major cultural event in the town, one that reached well beyond the usual opera audience! Oh, and the trick to being punctual for the call time: take the T!!! I was never so happy NOT to have my car with me!

BSR: Are you a full-time musician - actress?

NGL: In terms of my identity, yes. In terms of dollars and cents, no.

BSR: So, what do you do for dollars and cents, then?

NGL: It's hopelessly retro, but I'm fortunate to have a husband who makes a steady living and who believes in my artistic goals.

BSR: Good for you! This world needs artists and it needs artist-supporters. How wonderful to have one of each under the same roof!

BSR: The audition call for SWEENEY TODD was HUGE - one of the biggest I have ever seen in the Boston area. Congratulations on being in this excellent ensemble! How are rehearsals going?

NGL: Thanks! I was amazed by both the numbers and quality of people I overheard at the auditions; I'm very lucky to be part of this cast. We'll start rehearsals April 1 and open April 23. Seven shows a week through late May, with a possible extension to June 1. The major roles are being taken by Leigh Barrett (Beggar Woman), Nancy Carroll (Mrs. Lovett), Paul Farwell (Judge Turpin), Liane Grasso* (Johanna), Evan Harrington (Pirelli), Todd Alan Johnson (Sweeney), Austin Lesch (Toby), Brent Reno (Antony), and Robert Zolli (Beadle Bamford). You can visit http://www.newrep.org to get the specifics about tickets and showtimes.

BSR: As a singer/actress, myself, it was interesting to watch the performances at the BSR auditions. In addition to the fabulous singing that went on, a lot of the acting was very good - dispelling the myth that "opera singers can't act." Why is it, though, that a few singers still have trouble acting convincingly on stage? Any advice?

NGL: There are so many possible reasons for this phenomenon, and it depends on the individual of course. I would say that learning to sing is so difficult that people sometimes obsess on voice technique in the mistaken belief that it's a separate entity from expressive singing. There's also the issue of singing in a foreign language, which can make us focus so much on superficial things like diction and literal meaning that we forget to look for subtext and behavior. One other trap that we singers tend to fall into is mapping the acting onto the musical phrases and losing track of the fact that life happens in moments, not four-bar phrases. When a character pauses between phrases, there's a reason: searching for the right words, overcome with emotion, distracted by internal conflict, thinking of how to influence the other character(s). I always had a certain amount of stage sense, but took me many years of training before I realized that the singing and acting are not separate: they come from the same source, and the more you deal with that source (including getting out of your own way emotionally) the richer your performances will be.

As for advice, I think it's essential to learn your songs and arias as monologues. Speak them aloud out of rhythm, as if the words were the only tool you had to express what needs expressing. Of course the best actors go beyond expressing emotion to actually doing something, having an effect on the other characters. So, as Fiordiligi in "Come scoglio", it's not enough to show the men your outrage; you have to get them to leave your house immediately! (And you're doing *that* to protect yourself from your own vulnerability to temptation!)

BSR: Absolutely, "doing something" or "taking action" is the key to bringing your character alive not "being" or "showing." It's all about "action" not "reaction."

NGL: What's so difficult in audition situations, though, is that we have to manufacture all that stuff for ourselves; there's nobody to play off of.


BSR: How was the BSR audition for you? What did you sing?

NGL: It was fun! I sang "Blumengruss" by Hugo Wolf, and Eurydice's Aria of Regret from the Offenbach Orpheus. It was tough to choose repertoire because I do so many things and the time was so short. I hope I showed the auditors my intelligence and enthusiasm, as well as my vocal abilities, and that they will find a way to use me in a project that involves interesting music and interesting people.

BSR: Do you have any "dream projects?"

NGL: Oh, yes! I'm aching to do "PIERROT LUNAIRE" at some point. I also love singing the MOZART REQUIEM and haven't had the chance for a few years now. I've always loved musical theatre and the American Songbook -- would love to do CAROUSEL and WEST SIDE STORY and many other classic musicals, as well as doing more with new music theatre. I like to think, too, that some of my dream projects are not yet written but that when they are, I might have a chance to participate in them. And finally: I dream of reviving screwball comedy!

BSR: Well, we wish you the best, Naomi. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us

For more information about Naomi Gurt Lind or to contact her, please visit her website at: http://naomigurtlind.net