Lyric baritone Robert Sims of Chicago has been recognized for his authentic, sincere singing of African American spirituals that “warms the hearts and souls of his appreciative audience.” A gold medal winner of the American Traditions Competition, a frequent guest singer at California’s Crystal Cathedral, and a part of the successful trio concert called Three Generations—along with Benjamin Mathews and the late William Warfield who has now been replaced by George Shirley—Sims believes that opera is not the only career opportunity for the classical singer, and that any alternative singing path can be just as fulfilling and successful as long as the singer is true to the art and the essence of the music.
Rodika Tollefson: You started out with a career in opera but later changed your focus to spirituals. Why did you make the change?
Robert Sims: I decided to be a singer when I was 14 years old. I went to the Oberlin Conservatory and was trained to sing all sorts of classical repertoire and opera roles. I concentrated on an opera career for 10 years. While I was with Tri-Cities Opera, one of the teacher/directors liked my singing more when I sang spirituals and wanted me to sing just those songs. This was very different from Oberlin, or any other school, where you are protected in a politically correct environment. I had sung lead opera roles every semester at a school, but now the director of a professional company wanted me to sing just spirituals. I found his request offensive. Later, though, I realized that there was a sense of my not being myself in opera—I was trying to make my voice be what I thought it had to be—but there was a natural quality to my voice when I sang spirituals. I think my teacher recognized that quality, but he wasn’t very clear about it.
How did spirituals become your niche?
When I left Tri-Cities, I still concentrated on opera. For a young singer starting out, the opera world can sometimes be quite brutal and make you question if this is what you really want to do. I was wondering if opera was what I wanted to do, and I had to get back to the reason why I wanted to sing in the first place. I realized that I was full of joy when I sang African American spirituals.
I had never heard someone give a full recital of spirituals. I started grouping the songs, like underground road spirituals, or biblical narrative, and I came up with a recital program. I didn’t start on a mission to make spirituals my niche. I had a love for it, and what got me thinking about it was the fact that I was so beaten up by the operatic, auditioning world that I stopped singing and had to find joy again. The spirituals inspired me to sing again, and when I started sharing these songs with other people, they enjoyed them too. Not to say that singing spirituals is for everyone, it just worked for me.
How do you choose your songs?
I’ve had several composers write songs for me, like Lena McLin and Jacqueline Hairston. A lot of times, I took folk songs to composers who created beautiful arrangements for me. There are thousands of these songs, and only about 25 of them are very popular. I didn’t want my recitals to be filled with songs that everyone knows. I also found some spirituals that were already beautifully arranged. I sing them in a classical voice, in an oratorio style, not a gospel style.
When you began singing spirituals, you were met with a lot of skepticism. Why?
When people hear of an all-spirituals recital, or come to a concert, they don’t know what to expect. But they really enjoy the music, and some say they prefer it to recitals of German arias, because this is American music. It was strange and different to sell. But when Paul Robeson gave his first all-spiritual recital in the 1920s, he had a small audience, and five years later it was a huge success. He was able to go into churches and social clubs and sing folk songs and make a good living even when he couldn’t sing in the theatre because he was blackballed. I wanted to carve a career for myself from something I can always sing.
So was Paul Robeson your inspiration?
He definitely was an inspiration, as well as Roland Hayes, who gave Marian Anderson a start. Hayes became quite a wealthy man as a recitalist, but later he took spirituals and grouped them and became very popular for that.
There is legacy of singers who have done this kind of music, in addition to Robeson and Hayes. Marian Anderson had to book her own concerts in churches, and she toured all over. She was inspired by Hayes, who arranged spirituals as well. The church was a concert stage for them. They were carving a career for themselves—nobody gave it to them.
How did you create a market for your performances?
In marketing myself, I thought, “What can I offer that other baritones cannot?” I was managing myself, and I had created a CD. I had really studied the spirituals and the language. Then I had the opportunity to sing at the Ravinia Festival, and at the end of the recital I sang a group of spirituals. Everyone came backstage and said they really enjoyed the spirituals. They didn’t say anything about the Debussy or Schumann songs. I thought, “Is there something special about spirituals that touches the listener?”
Eventually I teamed up with the legendary William Warfield, who was famous for the movie version of Showboat, and Opera Ebony founder Benjamin Matthews. I asked them if they would join me in a full concert of spirituals, called Three Generations, and they did. The concert was first produced by Canti Classics, a company I co-founded in Chicago with Arthur White and Everton Swearing, and we toured for three years. William Warfield has recently passed away, and George Shirley will now join us.
How did Three Generations get started?
William Warfield had coached me in a performance of Messiah by Handel, and later I found out we were both singing at the weeklong Yachats International Music Festival in Oregon. I loved his interpretation of spirituals. Someone asked me what my dream concert would be, and I said I’d love to sing with Warfield and Matthews in Three Generations. Two of my friends, who are businessmen, said, “Let’s make it happen.” And we did. I went to every church in Chicago, no matter how small, and sang spirituals and told them about Three Generations. We sent out a about 10,000 mailers to lists of people from churches and cultural organizations. We were selling tickets when we found out we had to become a business and incorporate, so we did that fast. Our first concert was sold out. We sang some trios and some solos. Luckily, I recorded one of the concerts and made a CD so we could promote the concert.
Later, I was a winner of the Savannah Onstage Festival, and I got a choice of concerts as part of that, so I chose Three Generations. It was a huge success, and we started getting reviews. William Warfield was a big draw, and Benjamin Mathews was a big name, and they introduced me to a new audience. We have since performed at many concerts at major music festivals and other venues around the country.
What was it like working side by side with two renowned singers?
Hanging out with those two guys was like a big party. I learned a lot. I was a very lucky man. They were my role models and essentially had 80 years worth of experience together. I was soaking it in like a sponge.
How did your 2001 solo tour come about? How was it different from the Three Generations concerts you had around the country?
This tour was by myself. I found out about Community Concerts through a friend visiting from New York. They have a wonderful tradition of singers from Duke Ellington to Marian White, and they have close to 400 venues throughout the United States. I contacted them and didn’t hear back. But when I won the gold medal in the American Traditions Competition in 1999, I asked them to send Community Concerts a recommendation letter. In 2000, Community Concerts called me and said I could do any concert, so I chose to have a full spirituals recital in the classical operatic tradition. I also sang some songs by Aaron Copeland, some Broadway. I had 20 concerts that season on the tour, while also performing with Three Generations and continuing my own solo career.
My first concert was right after September 11th, on September 14th in Colorado. My pianist couldn’t fly out of New York. But I was determined to do a concert: my spirit needed it and I thought the people in the remote communities needed it also. I had to find a pianist at a local university, so I toured with him through Colorado. I asked Jacqueline Hairston to do a special musical arrangement for me of “God Bless America,” and I started my first few concerts with that song, coming out unannounced, instead of starting with my regular program. I sing the song now as my first encore. It’s not a patriotic interpretation, though, but a supplicant sort of prayer.
You had no rehearsal time with your pianist; how did you manage to create a successful concert?
The concert went well; he was a fine pianist. I went over some of the tempos with him, and he had a very good feel for it. I also marked through some of the notes, and we were able to pull off that first concert. Then we had a second one, and since then we have done more together, and he has invited me back to his university for a concert.
Was the tour an important step in your career?
I believe the tour has built an audience for me, and more people recognize the name Robert Sims and what I do. I think I built my audience 20 or 30 people at a time, instead of one at a time. I had an audience, and I was a working musician, out there working my art.
Would you do it again?
I am doing it again this year through Community Concerts. I started a tour in 2002 that will end in May.
Why did you decide to do it again?
I want to share my love and joy of music with others, and it doesn’t matter where they are. When you are applauded by an audience, it means you have connected with your composer and poet, and your music and accompanist, and for a second you are one. I enjoy touring through the United States and touching different people. They often tell me how moved they were by the concert and how much they appreciated it. I am the luckiest man—to be able to carry a full-spirituals recital through the United States and have a full audience hungry for that music.
How did you start singing at the Crystal Cathedral? What was that experience like?
It was always a dream, something I wanted to do. They have a full orchestra and major operatic stars come there to sing, and the church is about the size of two football fields, all glass. They orchestrate the entire service and the musicians are superb; it’s a wonderful place. I used to watch it as a child with my grandmother. I wrote to them and they didn’t respond; I continued to write them, and then I called. They said they received my materials, and I went to do a mini-concert for one of their non-taped, evening services as an audition. They invited me back for a non-taped performance, which proved successful, so I was invited to perform during a taped service that would be telecast. It broadened my audience, and I only sang spirituals there because that is what I marketed to them. I have been singing there quite often since 1999 as a guest artist.
How did it feel for the dream to finally come true?
It was wonderful! What was really special about it was that my grandmother was with me at the time (she’s passed on since then), and she went with me to California a couple of times to hear me sing there.
Reviewers say you have immaculate articulation and that all your spirituals and work songs can be clearly understood. Is that intentional?
Yes, although sometimes I am singing a dialect. I think singing is a communicative art, and if one cannot communicate the words, even if the vocal quality is wonderful, that takes away from the singing. William Warfield taught me that there are basically five or six human emotions, and every song deals with those emotions, be it in German, French, or English. What is so wonderful about the spirituals is that they don’t have a lot of flowery language; they’re very direct and immediate. You don’t have to pull out your thesaurus.
You say your goal is to make spirituals as popular on the concert stage as the lieder songs. Why?
If someone puts out a full recital concert of Schubert songs, that’s accepted. A full recital of Schumann or Brahms is accepted. But a full recital of spirituals—why is that not accepted? Why does that cause raised eyebrows? There are thousands of spirituals that can be put together. They can be grouped to get across a certain feeling, just like Schubert’s Winterreise, or Die Schöne Müllerin. It can be an evening of storytelling, just like these other programs, and why not? Paul Robeson was making a political statement with his singing, but I am not making a political statement. I believe it’s my calling. Not everyone can sing spirituals well either, just like not everyone can sing Puccini or Verdi well.
Do you feel spiritual recitals are becoming more accepted?
I was invited to sing at the National Opera Association Legacy Awards in New York a couple of years ago. They were honoring Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Regina Resnick, Jon Vickers and other great opera singers. They chose six or seven upcoming opera singers of the day to be the banquet’s entertainers. They all sang arias, and I sang spirituals in honor of Roland Hayes. I was a little nervous about it. Here I am singing for all these opera stars; would they look at this as second-class singing? But it was received very well, and I was applauded and thanked by the opera singers for doing it. Sherrill Milnes gave me a wonderful comment, and Shirley Verrett was very complimentary and said she loved what I did. That was enough for me—knowing that opera singers enjoyed it.
What do you think makes a classical singer successful?
What is sometimes missing in classical music is the spirit of the music, being connected to something deeper than the surface, or being connected to the soul of the piece. Some opera singers are successful because they have a connection. They are not just singing words and music. They have made a connection with their art, and they are touching people. They have the key. I think people go to the theatre to be transported and spiritually lifted. Spirituals definitely do that, but the other music can do the same thing if we can just get to the core and the true essence of the music. A Bach cantata can be spiritual and moving if you can get to its essence.
If you were invited to sing an opera role, would you do it?
There is really only one role I am interested doing right now, and that is Silvio in Pagliacci. There is something in that part that speaks to me. I have done most of the lyric baritone roles, but I am not really interested in doing them now. I like doing what I do, and I have a conviction. I don’t know why the part of Silvio speaks to me—I think I like the realism. I have been offered roles and invited to opera auditions, but I turn them down.
Based on your singing career, do you think other singers can be successful on alternative paths?
There is another way besides opera, and I never knew that when I was coming up through the ranks. The spiritual was a verifying thing for me, because I could be myself and didn’t have to make my voice what I thought it had to be in order to meet operatic standards. I think what happens is that a young student likes music and likes to sing, so he joins a choir, or he may start to take voice lessons. In America, voice is taught in a European classical manner. Then the natural tendency is to start singing classical and operatic pieces, Italian arias and French songs. Just like young gymnasts want to go the Olympics, the young solo singer wants to sing at the Met. They are being led, including by the teachers, to think that once you are on this course, you have to be an opera singer, and if you are not an opera singer than in some way you have failed. That is not true. There are people who have something wonderful and special that is cut out for the operatic stage—that is a talent in itself, they are meant to do it. But there are also people who are meant to be recitalists. Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau was a great recitalist as German lieder, but was he as great at everything else? That’s a matter of opinion. Birgit Nilsson was a wonderful singer of Wagner, but was she as good in the French repertoire? It’s all about finding your thing. Just because you are taking classical music and you have classical training does not mean you should be singing at the Metropolitan Opera or La Scala. That might not be where your talent is best displayed. And it doesn’t mean that your place—wherever it might be—is less important.
What would you encourage other singers to do?
I would encourage them to sing with their own voice. Sing with your instrument; you don’t have to beat your voice up to be a baritone if you are not. Sing what inspires you, because that is what’s true for you. Sing what speaks to your heart. The sacrifices I had to make in order to sing opera and classical music were not worth it to me, but the sacrifices I had to make to sing the music I love are worth it. I am not trying to please everyone with my music, but I love it; it does something for me. That’s important, and I think that comes across to the audience. Not everyone is meant to be on an operatic stage, but if you cannot be successful at that, it doesn’t mean you have failed. There is another place for you.
How do singers stay successful on an alternative path?
Be true to yourself. Have you bought into an opera career? What do you really enjoy doing? You may enjoy singing jazz, or Broadway songs, or Hebrew songs, or Spanish songs. Do you love it so much that you don’t mind having to wait tables in order to do it, and make the sacrifices for it? Or maybe opera is your calling. Listen to what speaks to you and what you enjoy. And sing it with your voice. A steady diet of anything in singing is not good. The early singers sang operas, and recitals, and everything. There is something about recital singing that heals and nurtures the voice.
So it’s a matter of finding the particular talent and growing it?
Yes, it’s about what best suits you, your niche. The sad thing about that, though, is that for many early African Americans the opportunity wasn’t there to see if their talents would be great on the operatic stage. Now the opportunity is there, which is wonderful, but I just don’t think that opera is the only way.
Once you find that niche, where do you go from there and become successful?
It’s very individual, but where there is a will, there is a way. I think one has to stay very positive about it. I was very fortunate because Three Generations has helped me build a solo audience. I surrounded myself with very experienced singers who had many years in the field, and they introduced me to a broader audience. Singing at the Crystal Cathedral and touring with Community Concerts has also definitely helped, as well as working with Canti Classics, my small management group, and commissioning arrangements. Winning the American Traditions competition and singing spirituals helped. But just because I won the competition didn’t mean there were out promoting me. I was out promoting myself.
You have been very persistent in following up with all these opportunities and knocking on the same doors several times.
You know, some people have things come to them, but others have to be aggressive. Now offers come to me, but it wasn’t always that way. I had to seek out offers, and I had to sing for free many times. You have to find the work and find a way that you can fit into it.
Do you have any other dreams?
We were planning to take Three Generations to Carnegie Hall but had to transition when William Warfield passed away. I have some other goals with the spiritual concerts, like getting them more into Europe and major festivals, and I am working on setting up some concerts in Europe this summer. I found I could reach a lot of people through television, as I did with Crystal Cathedral, and I would like to do more of that media kind of work. I am also working with kids and teaching them spirituals, doing workshops.
Do you think the popularity of American music will grow?
They say the art of the recital is dying, and I think that is not true. Quite frankly, it is less expensive for churches and smaller venues to put on recitals than a full production or a full Mass with choir and orchestra and so on. And this is our music; it’s American. We are so taken by European music, but when we go there they are taken by our music. It’s time to celebrate our own music. I am doing it by finding collaborators, essentially contemporary women American composers, to arrange spirituals for me for the concert stage. People go to recitals and sit through German songs, French songs, and operatic arias, but their faces really light up at the end when we get to the American tunes, something that is in their language. To me it’s so wonderful when an audience member says before leaving, “I didn’t know what to expect, but I loved your concert and I understood every word.” I think in some ways classical music can be so “highbrow” that it’s losing its audience. We need to get back to something that people enjoy, something in their language.
Footnote: CS recently relayed Muscalamerica.com’s reports of trouble with Community Concerts and it’s future since its parent company, Trawick Artists shut down operations in early 2002. When asked about this Mr. Sims replied:
“I am currently on tour with Community Concerts, and have been doing so since 2001. I am scheduled for recitals through 2004, and look forward to the continued collaboration and opportunity to add these performances to my other recital tours. It is an honor to be apart of the great Community Concert Tradition, which has presented such artists as Leontyne Price, William Warfield, Van Cliburn, Marian Anderson etc. I am hopeful this organization will continue to offer young artists the opportunity to perform throughout the United States, because this tradition should not die.”
Baritone Robert Sims is highly regarded for his “moving” and “authentic” interpretations of African American spirituals and has given spiritual recitals throughout the Unites States, Europe and Asia. He is the gold medal winner of the American Traditions Vocal Competition, a regular guest artist at the Crystal Cathedral and is presently on a 20-city recital tour under the auspices of Trawick Artists Community Concerts.
