Berea, Ohio, lies just to the southwest of Cleveland and is called “The Grindstone Capital of the World” because of the abundance of sharpening stones that were once mined from its quarries. Every year as the spring semester ends, students, teachers, and devotees of singing gather to Berea to hear some of the premier artists in the world perform art song and to watch them instruct others how to sharpen their skills in this demanding art form.
The Baldwin-Wallace Art Song Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary in May of 2010, continuing a unique program borne from the desire to create more complete artists and to promote the neglected art form of the song recital. The festival recently moved to Baldwin-Wallace College after being hosted by the Cleveland Institute of Music for over 20 years, and the program has maintained its prestigious reputation for training singers and pianists to work together in this most collaborative of vocal genres.
Unlike most summer programs that focus on the dramatic development, vocal technique, and marketing of a singer, the Baldwin-Wallace Art Song Festival concentrates on the partnership between the singer and pianist. Ten singer-piano teams are chosen each year as featured participants. Singers receive two coachings with renowned singers, helping them through the rigors of art song. What makes this festival unique is that the pianists receive the same training from some of the top accompanists in the country. Each singer and pianist pair then works together as a team to achieve a final product that gives equal weight to the voice and piano and more effectively expresses the song.
“This is important because art song is a collaborative art form,” said Lenore Rosenberg, associate artistic administrator at the Metropolitan Opera, “and the pianist has to be as much of an artist as the singer and has to contribute his or her own ideas, because if the songs are well composed, and generally they are, the composer put a lot of what he’s trying to convey in the song in the accompaniment. It isn’t just giving you the pitch. It’s part of the whole atmosphere that they’re trying to create. This festival is really about the teamwork.”
George Vassos, founder and artistic director of the festival, further articulated, “There are all of these festivals with no emphasis on the piano-singer combination, that the pianist has to be as good as the singer. It’s not just the singer singing and the pianist tagging along and playing softly. That’s what we wanted to emphasize—the relationship between singers and pianists. That’s how the Art Song Festival started.”
The first festival was held at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1985 with Gérard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin, and Elly Ameling as the guest artists and instructors. Vassos was inspired by his work with these artists, particularly with the classes given by Gérard Souzay. “He was a great, great artist,” averred Vassos. “There haven’t been any masterclasses given (at the festival) that have ever matched his.”
The Baldwin-Wallace Art Song Festival continues every year to feature great singers who present recitals and work one-on-one with the festival’s participants. Past singers have included Barbara Bonney, Dawn Upshaw, Anthony Dean Griffey, Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Marilyn Horne, Maureen Forrester, François Le Roux, Arleen Auger, and Sarah Walker. The singers are, of course, only half of the story. Well known pianists such as Martin Katz, Warren Jones, Roger Vignoles, and Julius Drake have also served as featured artists and instructors.
The chance for pianists to work with these masters of art song provides a truly unique opportunity, rarely encountered at any other festival or workshop. Art song is written specifically for the piano, but rarely do pianists receive the same attention and training in art song as singers do.
“The pianist has to know the poetry, and both the singer and the pianist go their own way,” explained Vassos, “but they go together on the same path.”
“Of course, that means that the pianist has to know the languages,” added Rosenberg. “You can’t just get a degree in piano and suddenly become a Lieder accompanist, and certainly not a coach. You need other skills. The pianist needs to do all of the same things that we ask singers to do.”
Again, however, the emphasis in the Art Song Festival is on teamwork and collaboration. “That’s one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed about it,” said Jones. “Everyone that’s there is not there just for singing or just for piano playing. The emphasis is on collaboration, and I really like that. In my experience as a pianist with singers and instrumentalists, I very much like to be an equal partner. When I’m working with younger singers and pianists, I want them to treat each other that way as well.”
Equality between the singer and pianist is sought after from the first audition for the program. When auditions take place, if the pianist isn’t great and the singer is fabulous, or vice versa, they don’t take them. The emphasis is really on the team and the art they create together.
“An artist has to incorporate all the good things that a singer [or pianist] would have, and then to be able to communicate and tell a story and make an audience feel that they’ve become part of this intimate relationship,” explained Christine Brewer, who will join the festival as a 2010 guest artist.
The experience of intimacy in art song is a reason why the festival does not focus on other genres of vocal music. “Art song is so important,” said Vassos. “We were the chamber music, the singers, long before instrumental chamber music.”
“Most art songs were meant to be sung in living rooms,” agreed Jones. “When people were writing them back in the 1800s, for example, everyone got up and sang. You didn’t go to a big soirée in front of 4,000 people and sing art songs. A lot of people sang and a lot of people appreciated singing. Our job is to bring art song to people in an accessible way—not dumbed down, but accessible—and they begin to understand that it’s a valid form of human expression that a lot of people really can do. It’s an incredibly personal expression, and our job is to show the people the personality of it.”
Brewer also believes in the importance of art song. “I think there’s a real desire out there for people to hear this kind of music and rally around it. I’ve been very heartened to see the big audiences we’ve had at the venues we’ve been to so far. What I love about doing recitals is the intimacy and to really look at the audience and feel like I’m communicating stories to the audience that I can’t do in concerts and opera. The best reviews I’ve ever received have said, ‘We felt like we were in Ms. Brewer’s living room tonight.’” The festival at Baldwin-Wallace emphasizes the personal nature of art song, aided by a fairly small auditorium that allows the audience to be up close to the singers and pianists.
Wondering if this festival is for you? Obviously, anyone would benefit from this experience, but the festival aims to serve young professional singers as well as high-caliber students in both graduate and undergraduate programs. Active performing voice teachers and those who teach piano and accompanying might also greatly benefit from the chance to work with some of the top artists in their profession for an entire week.
“There’s a very wide range of people who apply and are accepted,” explained Jones. “It’s a fairly tough audition, and the people who audition are usually very good and at a very high level.”
The continued and growing interest in art song and its appreciation from singers, pianists, and audiences seems to suggest that the Baldwin-Wallace Art Song Festival will enjoy a successful 25th anniversary season in 2010, and that its unique collaborative approach will continue to enrich performers for many years to come.
