The Joy of Collaboration: An interview with Composer, Educator, and Performer Dr. Sharon Guertin Shafer

I met Sharon Shafer through the alumni chapter of my music fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota, and the local music club associated with the National Federation of Music Clubs, The Friday Morning Music Club of Washington, DC, after moving to northern Virginia. Once accepted as a performing member of FMMM, I wrote to the co-directors of the organization’s Composers Group, expressing my desire to perform the music of the club’s members. Sharon was and continues to serve as co-chair of the group and immediately responded, sending me several song cycles. And, as she likes to say, “the rest is history.”

With Sharon, I have explored the joys of collaboration far greater than with any other colleague. Performing together for almost 10 years, I have commissioned songs, and she has written for and dedicated songs to me. What a gift! She is drawn to texts, powerful, whimsical, and many written by her friends. A tonal composer, incorporating 20th and 21st century techniques and sounds including altered chords, added note chords, chromaticism, quartal melodies and harmonies, and melodies that exploit leaps of 9ths, 4ths, and 5ths, her music is always accessible to audiences and skillfully written for the voice.  Her use of silences and harmonic colors heighten and highlight the texts. 

VALENTE: Sharon, I want to start with that first package of music you sent me after we met. The thing that struck me was how carefully and thoughtfully you wrote for the voice because, when we met, I thought you were a pianist. 

SHAFER: I did start out as a pianist. I was always fascinated by the piano, begging for piano lessons from the time I was very young. My sister taught me to play some simple chords and melodies by ear at age 3. I started formal lessons at age 7 and I studied through my first year of high school. And while I had always been singing, I didn’t think at that point that I wanted to be a singer. But I finally decided that I didn’t want to be in a practice room 8 hours a day by myself and that’s when I thought that I would study voice. I started voice lessons at 16 and then knew that I wanted to pursue a voice major in college. 

VALENTE: You earned music degrees at Catholic University (Bachelors) and the University of Maryland (Masters and Doctorate) and then studied at The American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. In one bio you shared that you made your singing debut in NY at Lincoln Center and performed across the US, and in France and Germany. 

SHAFER: At first, I wanted to be an opera singer, to sing on the Met stage. But I realized that what I really wanted was to collaborate with other musicians in a more intimate setting.

VALENTE: You’ve created some really interesting collaborative experiences, especially with poet and visual artist Gene Markowski. In the Composer Notes for The Artist Speaks: Creative Conduit, you shared, “I started setting poetry by Gene in 2010, a set of 7 songs. Then in 2011 I created a set of 13 songs based on his words. The songs I composed would not exist without Gene Markowski’s poetry. My music exists primarily as a response to, and expression of, the meaning of the words.” You and Gene created what you called, “an innovative fusion of the visual arts, poetry, music, spoken word, and improvisation, expanding further the definition of art song.” 

SHAFER: Yes. For the performance, Gene wanted to read the poem, do a water color or drawing, and we would perform together. I set the poems in a way that I could play them, too. There was a lot of improvisation and we even got the audience involved with creating. We did quite a few of those. His poetry is very intense.

VALENTE: And The Artist Speaks was the first cycle of yours that I performed. Thank you for including directions for singers to perform them without the visual components. But I made sure that every time I performed them, the texts and Gene’s sketches were included in the printed program.

SHAFER: You were able to accompany yourself and you performed that cycle a lot. And I remember how carefully you prepared, sending emails with questions, and even sending rehearsal recordings.

VALENTE: I wanted to be sure that my performance met your expectations. 

SHAFER:  Your performance of that song cycle went well beyond my expectations. Your expressiveness and musical understanding, as both singer and pianist, gave new life to The Artist Speaks. And you are certainly very closely related to the compositions I wrote after we met and began collaborating.

VALENTE: Let’s talk a bit about how you choose texts.

SHAFER: When I come across a text, if it appeals to me, I wonder how it would be setting it for singing, how to create a relationship with the text. I start thinking of the vocal line and how those words can be sung, if it makes sense. Take for example The Dream of Knife, Fork and Spoon (poem by Kimiko Hahn) that you commissioned. At first I misinterpreted what it meant. I thought silly things. But the more I studied and read the text, and we talked about the text, it seemed heavier to me. Our collaboration for the end of the piece, THAT’S what really gets me excited; the collaboration. I can’t really explain how the sounds come to me that I want to put on the page. But the text is always in front of me. Sometimes I’ll just work on two lines for a day. And if I try to continue, it doesn’t work. I’ve had to train myself not to push it and allow it to come as it wants.  

I’ve set poetry by Emily Dickinson, WH Auden, Shel Silverstein, Garrison Keillor, by my friends Gene Markowski and Joan Donati, by family members, and even poems I’ve written. I have three considerations when I compose; the right hand, the left hand, and the voice. I try to think of sounds on the piano that are collaborative that help express the text without underlining what the singer is doing. The voice is an independent part. There are times when the voice is alone, and then the accompaniment comes in. Or there are interludes that are still expressive of the text even though the voice isn’t singing. 

VALENTE: It has been such a thrill singing your music, and especially performing with you. What do you hope to accomplish with your music?

SHAFER: I don’t have huge goals for my music. The most important thing is the journey of collaborating with another musician, particularly singers, because my background was as a professional singer, although it was always on a part-time basis. 

VALENTE: How can others access your music?

SHAFER: Musicians can email me at ShaferS@Trinitydc.edu. All of my vocal music has been written for female voice. Quite a few are mid-range, but some are truly for soprano with enough high notes! I want to entice musicians through the poets and poems I’ve set. The goal for me is that the music is singable and accessible.

Bio of Sharon:

Sharon Guertin Shafer is professor emerita of Music at Trinity Washington University in Washington, DC. Many of her performances of art songs and piano solos have focused on music by women composers. She has done extensive research on music by women composers and has presented many lecture recitals on this topic. Dr. Shafer’s publications include articles on Igor Stravinsky’s songs, Anna Magdalena Bach, seventeenth and eighteenth-century women composers, medieval women, and a book entitled The Contributions of Grazyna Bacewicz to Polish Music, published by Mellen Press in 1992. Her chapter on Eleonore Sophia Westenholz and an edition of three art songs are included in Volume 4 of Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, published in 1998 by G.K Hall.