An evening of song with Sylvia McNair

This post was written by Joel Buursma, and posted on September 9, 2007 | Filed Under uncategorized | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Joel Buursma | | For info on this author, visit http://www.sdgmusic.org/voices/2007/08/19/introduction-joel-buursma/

The area where I live has been privileged to have more than its fair share of Sylvia McNair concerts. My wife and I recently got another opportunity to hear her, and I thought I would share my thoughts about the evening.

At a previous concert, Ms. McNair spoke about beginning her undergraduate studies studying violin. But, like many college students, she changed her major. As I recall, she said there were multiple reasons for this, but one was that she found vocal performance to be more highly communicative.

At this stage in her career, she is undergoing another change. Her most recent bio states that she has “segued from opera and oratorio to the Great American Songbook, the music with which she feels most at home.” Again, I’m sure there are multiple reasons for this. For example, after an impressive 2-3 decades of singing professionally, some of the magic from the top of her range and her trademark sense of effortlessness has waned a bit. But, perhaps like her transition in college, her new repertoire seems to allow her to be more highly communicative than that of her classical days.

And she does seem at home in this genre; she puts her heart and soul into it. A few rather pedestrian songs come alive when with her masterful touch, and other well-known (and well-worn) songs sounded fresh and made to be her own. And I believe that her expressiveness, her phrasing, her charisma, her ability to communicate to and connect with the audience, and her ability to sell the texts she is singing are as good as or better than ever. She may at times reach to the audience as a dramatic gesture, but really her whole concert felt like a reaching to the audience — an act of giving.

The concert took place in a chapel, lending a sense of intimacy and also of the sacred. Furthermore, Ms. McNair’s spoken words and sincerity of delivery encouraged the audience to take the songs she sang as personal statements and not just performances. Given that, and given that she had a bout with breast cancer last year, songs like “O God Our Help in Ages Past” and this one seemed to take on some of the greatest meaning:

No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth,
how can I keep from singing?

This is a strong statement indeed, and many of us would feel blessed indeed if we could make one like it after facing a serious trial.

Ms. McNair also made a case for looking in sacred not just in settings of religious texts like the Prayer of St. Francis, but also in more ordinary texts from Stephen Sondheim and Harold Arlen. This should not be a stretch as it sometimes is for those of us who believe that the God of heaven and earth was found as an infant by sheep herders amidst cattle.

For a few numbers, Ms. McNair invited a college choir to join her. That got me thinking: much of the training of a young artist is spent on technical development. This is reasonable, for without sufficient skill great art cannot be made. But I’m guessing that one strong lesson that many students in the choir will take from that experience is that artistry goes beyond the merely technical. An artist might even allow a little soul to creep into his or her work from time to time. And hopefully those students also would have picked up some of Ms. McNair’s spirit that can’t help but share the joy of life with others, and that can’t keep from singing.

Comments

One Response to “An evening of song with Sylvia McNair”

Anne Branch on September 21st, 2007 10:22 pm

I would assume that most people who choose to study music in college became very serious about music when they were teenagers. I feel pretty certain that most of these people were drawn toward music precisely because of it’s communicative nature (which, I would argue, comes through perfectly fine on the violin, thank you very much, Ms. McNair).

As a music major myself and, perhaps more importantly in this case, as an educator of high school musicians (many of whom ARE very seriously committed to the art), I can say that that near overload of emotional energy that young people have lends itself perfectly for the well-trained and gifted young musician to fall in love with the FEELING of making music. I think it will not come as a surprise to most of us that teenagers, as a group, do not love practicing their scales and etudes. They do not love having their posture, position, shifting, etc. fiddled with and nit-picked by private teachers. What they love is the surge that they feel when they turn a beautiful phrase or (more universally) hit the climax of the accellerando in the “Pirates of the Carribean” concert arrangement!

As I’m writing, I realize that there is a difference between communicating through music and feeling the emotional drive of a piece. The former is a gift to others, as you perceived in Ms. McNair’s performance. The latter is maybe more self-serving (and maybe more natural, too.)

Before I ramble too much more - my point is that though it is not typically the technical that draws us in, the best musicians realize in youth that the technical IS essential. The better tools one has, the better the music is as a product - BUT more importantly (I think) is that the experience (for both performer and listener) is at a higher level. That higher level experience should, in the end, provide both a greater emotional satisfaction for the performer and (therefore?) a more communicative performance.

It’s all pretty circular. I guess I just think that it is important to really come full circle and not get stuck in the technical focus that inevitably comes with serious study, as you said, Joel. I hope that the McNair concert did remind the members of the college choir why they got into this music thing in the first place.

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