Voice classes I offer through various schools and organizations
Concert on a Saturday at noon–short, fun and free. Like no other, unless you attend another of my elder group concerts…we like the variety and we have a good time. Artwork by Lizi Brown with help from Estelle Disch, singer/artists in our group.
This is your chance! Daytime classes start Wednesday in the South End and Friday in Jamaica Plain. Both accessible by bus, parking is pretty darn good, and the teacher is really fun. Ostensibly for folks 55+, we do not card at the door.
The Platinum Singers meet Wednesdays 2-3:30 starting September 17 at the Harriet Tubman House, corner of Mass and Columbus Avenues in the South End. Nearly free: $15/12 classes, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. Contact hviarruel@uses.org to register. www.uses.org
note: no class Sept 24.
JP Jubilee begins Friday Sept 19 at 10:30 am. Flyer below
I was good in school, but bad at two things: penmanship and conduct. Got “Satisfactory” in both subjects–like a gentlewoman’s C.
I spent a lot of time in first grade in the hallway, mostly from talking. “Yes, I know the other children were talking, Liz, but we HEARD you.”
Well, I’m not sure I behave any better as an adult, but I am learning to conduct better. Conduct others, that is. Turns out, it’s a neat trick to be able to telegraph musical ideas in new ways. I’m used to singing, breathing, moving to give signals to colleagues when I’m performing. I’m accustomed to guiding the student(s) with my piano playing. Now, I am actually working with a pianist (a very good one–Megan Henderson is a singer, player and conductor herself) who will follow my gestures and take my tempi, all with a wave of a hand.
I had some great choral conductors in my life. Tom Fettke was my high school chorus teacher at Oakland High School. William F. Russell at Pomona College, Louis Magor in the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Roger Nelson in the Port Costa Players, and Craig Smith at Emmanuel Music in Boston. All these folks LET US SING, they let us BE MUSICAL. You have no idea how many conductors try to control a group of singers and get no music made at all. Others try but are ineffective at keeping a beat or showing what they want.
The leaders who inspire me clearly LOVE their players and the music. I once sat onstage to watch Bernard Haitink conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Brahms 2nd Symphony (We called it the Tweedy symphony after that because of the Dutch spelling of 2nd: Tweede). He looked at his players with such warmth and respect, and wow, did he get a sound from them.
This past weekend I heard and saw Maria Schneider and her Orchestra perform in Boston. This woman attracts the very best jazz players, folks who ordinarily wouldn’t be playing with such a big group–they are all marvelous soloists on their own. And she not only writes such beautiful arrangements, but she clearly lets them do their musical thing. Not just on their solos, but being musical partners to her tunes all through.
So as I begin my new phase of conducting these voice classes of elder adults–away from the piano, just standing and waving and breathing–I am inspired by the marvelous models above. And others. So far, so good. We sang a dress rehearsal at a senior residence this morning, and I really enjoyed just being with the music and with my group. Listening, loving, not worrying about how I was doing, being in the moment.
What a gift.
JP Jubilee in concert tomorrow night, Jamaica Plain branch library, 7:00, free. Very short program.
Platinum singers begin their summer session May 7 at the Harriet Tubman House.
The chorus at the Simon Fireman Home in Randolph is making a couple of field trips in June (one to visit the Platinum Singers, their “cousins” through me, and the other to the “Mother Ship” of Hebrew Senior Life in Roslindale.) We’re working on “Goin’ to Boston” and other tunes about Time and Place.
“Come on up, I’ve got a lifeline…”
We’ve been singing the Harriet Tubman song for a few years now–you may have heard it sung by Holly Near with Ronnie Gilbert or by a grade school choir. It’s a particular favorite of The Platinum Singers–a compelling story of this strong woman who risked her life over and over to free more slaves. We meet at the Harriet Tubman House, and there is a large portrait of Miss Tubman in the room where we rehearse every Wednesday.
This Saturday the United South End Settlements–the facility which sponsors our Singers– is honoring a wonderful community leader, and we get to sing with some teens from the Choral Union of the Boston Children’s Chorus. We all got a lift when we met to rehearse last weekend, watching the kids do their body percussion as they sang, and working on an African folk song all together.
But best of all, I am now in contact with Walter Robinson, who wrote the iconic song which has become a kind of anthem for The Platinum Singers. He now lives in the Philippines, where he does anti-slavery work. He wrote about Harriet Tubman: She literally removes the word “by-stander” and replaces it with “everyone can be an activist for the good and freedom of those oppressed.”
Sometimes I write a thank you letter and hope it reaches the teacher/composer/performer. Because of one of those letters, I have a new colleague. Walter used to live around here, wrote Harriet Tubman in 1977, and has been writing more ever since.
We never know who and what will be that Lifeline, but it helps to pay attention and be ready to go with it. The Platinum Singers have been Lifelines for each other and for me.
No, not that one…how about a few others you might not have heard lately?
Join us for a short, free concert to celebrate, sing along and eat some cookies.
I hesitate to call my elder singers “cute.” But that keeps coming to mind. My mom used that word plenty and I’ve used it from everything to describe shoes, food, people and especially animals. Can’t help it. But what is NOT cute about:
It’s not that we try to act silly in class or onstage. It’s just that we are willing to let go of those carefully crafted personas we developed as we grew into adulthood. We let go of having to be in charge and set an example to the kids, the bosses, the clients.
I teach all ages and learn from them all. That’s the fun of teaching, continuing to learn. What I notice is how LITTLE my older students complain about what they cannot do or what ails them. They go on, move forward and keep growing. It inspires me to be a better conductor and pianist. So, come to one of the class concerts I’m conducting in the next few weeks. JP Jubilee is the new name for Singing for Seniors at The Boston Public Library. Our concert will be short, free and full of fun. Thursday December 5 at 7:30 pm in Jamaica Plain, see full info below.
…And The Platinum Singers are performing at the Harriet Tubman House on Wednesday, December 18 at 2:30 in the afternoon. An in-house concert of an hour with these sweeties. We just had a grand pre-Thanksgiving lunch with a terrific group called “Grandparents Raising Grandchildren”. They sang along with us and told us their stories (if we asked). Directions to the Tubman House: www.uses.org Flyer to follow shortly…
So, is there a better word than cute? Let me know and I’ll try to incorporate it…
Ah, New England in the Fall…
The Platinum Singers sang at the International Day of Peace gathering on Boston Common, September 21, 2013. I conduct/direct this fabulous group, and we had some guest singers from the Singing for Seniors at our neighborhood branch library. There were liturgical dancers, the Raging Grannies and speakers at this beautiful event. Thanks to Ghanda DiFiglia who invited us to sing here.
I learned a lot, and especially about leaning on a portable keyboard–sometimes a drum set starts up at the oddest times! And I am also learning about placing singers in front of microphones. Okay! Some of us are pretty shy about those mics.
Last night I sang at a retirement party for a faculty member at Tufts–John McDonald asked if I’d sing “Death and the Maiden”, a famous Schubert song, before a string quartet played the movement of the same name. What a great, intense and dramatic piece, all rolled into 1 1/2 minutes! I should make a career of these memorable cameos. Very satisfying. Singing about death is nothing new to this contralto. We get the sad songs all the time. Next month, I’ll be singing Bach’s take on welcoming death, Schlummert Ein (from Cantata #82, Ich Habe Genug) at a benefit for MS research. http://singtocurems.org/support/poster11-2013Q.pdf
Happy New Year! I am delighted to be starting a new season with a new studio, a new job, new music written for me, and the return of many beloved students.
I inaugurate my new studio on Monday September 16–I have a good number of folks sign up for weekly lessons and still have room for the “occasional” student who wants a lesson every other week or every so often. Address: 11A Medford Street, Arlington, at Mass Ave, just between The Regent Theater and The Book Rack. Easy parking and a Starbucks on the corner. I continue to see students at my Jamaica Plain studio as well. Contact me if you’re interested in lessons at either location.
Two classes begin the week of September 16th. Here are some flyers for the classes for seniors: BPL Fall 2013 flyer
At the New England Conservatory, we begin the Handel for Singers and Instrumentalists on September 25.
I am in that happy place of having sung Rosh Hashanah services with the Havurah on the Cape, been hosted and fed exquisite soul food (Challah, honey cake, matzoh balls, chopped liver, yum) and ready to do the even Bigger Sing, Yom Kippur. Cape Cod is a gorgeous place this time of the year, and the congregation is both traditional and modern, as they say, “Cape Coddish”. I sing old melodies and some of Bob Snyder’s from my Sudbury days, a couple of tunes from my students, Rabbi Minna Bromberg and Cantor Elana Rozenfeld, and even one of my own originals, entitled, “Song of the Sea.” It is an appropriate title for a havurah that is called Am HaYam (people of the sea).
I was recently hired to teach a class at the Simon Fireman Communityin Randolph for the Fall–more seniors singing–the best of Creative Aging!
Finally, I just received the score to a new song cycle for our Mockingbird Trio. Francine Trester has written “A View from Heartbreak Hill,” for contralto, viola and piano. Fran wrote words and music, and these six short songs are in response to the Marathon bombings of April 2013. They are not all sad or morose–Fran is more skillful at conveying complicated emotions than just that. She takes some of the commonly heard lines: “if you see something, say something” and “look for the helpers” and brings us into the grand and mundane. We plan to present these songs before the anniversary of the bombings.
Oh, yes, I joined Facebook. Please “like” me on my page and something good will come of it.
Just yesterday the Platinum Singers performed a concert with the Boston City Singers at the Harriet Tubman House. I hope to have pics and maybe a video later, but I can tell you, one of the “lunch ladies”, a senior who eats a hot lunch at the settlement house every weekday, announced, “This is exactly what we needed!” I got teary when Winnie Lowery read the first stanza of “Lifeline”, the Harriet Tubman song; others were touched by the Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune “What the world needs now is Love, sweet love”. All I know is, we chose the program long ago, but it never is in bad taste to sing about love and courage. Many of the Boston City Singers know the Richard family, as they are based in Dorchester, and Martin’s little sister sings in the youngest group of this chorus. Great kids, great event.
Tuesday, April 30, something different:
The date; Sunday, April 28, 2013
The place: Harriett Tubman House, USES at the corner of Massachusetts Ave and Columbus Aveue in the South End (586 Columbus Ave, half a block from the MBTA orange line Mass Ave Station and many bus lines)
The time: 2:00 pm
The performers: Boston City Singers Cantare under the direction of Josh DeWitte and the United South End Settlements Platinum Singers under the direction of Elizabeth Anker
FREE but RSVP is requested to aedwards@uses.org
For more information, call 617-375-8108 or visit www.uses.org
Elizabeth Anker 