Introducing: Singing Stories
Vancouver Opera In Schools proudly returns to school tours following the pandemic
The 2022-2023 Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program toured ten elementary schools performing their show Singing Stories, a fun and exciting operatic experience designed for elementary school students.
Join host Ashley Daniel Foot in a discussion about Singing Stories with five members of the Young Artists Program: Sawyer Craig, Luka Kawabata, Amy Seulky Lee, Jeremy Scinocca, and Hillary Tufford.
This year's School Tour is supported by Telus Friendly Future Foundation, CIBC Wood Gundy, Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, and the Diamond Foundation.
You can also download this podcast on all major platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
TRANSCRIPT
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Welcome. It's Inside Vancouver Opera. My name is Ashley Daniel Foot, senior manager of Partnerships Engagement and EDI. And today we're talking about opera as it happens live. No two shows are really ever the same, and everyone in the audience truly has a unique experience that could only ever happen at that show in particular on that particular day. And recently, the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists at Vancouver Opera were honoured to go on a 10 school tour of a school show that we put together called Singing Stories. Singing Stories is a fun and exciting operatic experience for elementary school students that ask the question, what if the show goes wrong but in the best possible way? At Singing Stories, the singers show up late, they haven't seen their props, and some of them don't even know what the songs they're going to sing are. And let's just say operatic magic happens.
So I was curious to know a little bit more about the process that Singing Stories took to come to elementary schools, especially after such a long time away from touring. Singing Stories represented a return after the terrible pandemic that cancelled our big tour of The Flight of the Hummingbird, which is coming back next season, I'm pleased to announce. So let's listen in as we talk to Luka Kawabata - baritone, Jeremy Scinocca - tenor, Hillary Tufford - mezzo, Amy Seulky Lee - pianist, and Sawyer Craig - director and soprano. Missing from this conversation was McKenzie Warriner - soprano, who was off competing in the Eckhardt-Gramatté Vocal Competition and she actually won first prize, which is very exciting. Hope you enjoy the conversation.
What's really wonderful at Vancouver Opera is to be able to see all of you flower and grow the way that you have over the last, I think two, three, four years. And we just finished a ten-stop tour of elementary schools in the lower mainland in Burnaby. And it was a show called Singing Stories, and it was kind of a surprise, I think for all of you that we were doing this tour and it was a surprise for us too, in fact, quite frankly. Hillary, why don't you tell us a little bit about the show?
Hillary Tufford:
Like you said, it was a surprise. We didn't initially know that we were going to be putting on a show for schools. Basically our really talented stage director, Sawyer Craig, wrote the show and Amy Seulky Lee was our music director. And it was basically a story based on The Show that Went Wrong where we could introduce ourselves as people and as artists and show the kids what we do. So we sang some of the top hits of opera and got to connect with the kids. So it was a surprise, but it was a good surprise in the end. It was fun to connect with the kids.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So Sawyer, when you're putting the show together, what were the themes that you're trying to thread together?
Sawyer Craig:
I had kind of a couple of goals with it. I have a sister who's a school teacher, so I was calling her a lot and being like, what are the kids like? And one of the things she told me is that the kids really benefited from interactivity. I really wanted to do something that would encourage the kids to interact with it, and to not judge their interactions with it, and to not feel like they had to behave a certain way to interact with it. So that was one of my first jumping off points, and then the other thing that I really love just as a director in general is the concept of theatre as play, and play as in go find your inner child - do what you want to do.
And so I kind of knew I have a bit of a background in clowning and that's one of the things that for me as a singer really unlocked my singing and that I really, really love and sort of evangelize everywhere I go. But I knew I kind of wanted to construct it through clown type methods, which is really often improv and following your impulses, and we played theatre games at the start of the rehearsal process and that was kind of something that I wanted to build in so that it was not just part of the product but part of our process as well.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
I love that. That's amazing. And it was really hilarious to see you in rehearsal as you all prepared for this show. I think I saw it seven times and it was so much fun and there were moments in the show that I would wait for every single time and that you did not fail to deliver. Amy, can you talk a little bit about the music choices that we made for the show and how you prepared for it?
Amy Seulky Lee:
Well, the music was chosen based on what singers wanted to perform and also how it could make sense out of the libretto that Sawyer wrote. So that's how we chose the music.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Jeremy, why do you think music education is so important for young folks?
Jeremy Scinocca:
For me as a kid, music was such an outlet. It was such an outlet for my energy. It was such an outlet for my wants to share with other people. I know from a really, really young age, I was always up and singing and performing. My dad joked that I was humming in the cradle as a kid, that kind of thing. So music education played a huge role in my upbringing and allowing my confidence to come through. I went to a regional arts high school after grade school, which I then continued that education and all that kind of stuff. And it really was an amazing outlet for me on a similar level, but with different lessons to sports, because I also played sports, so I kind of got some lessons from team sports. But on the other side I got a whole bunch of different life lessons that I learned through music and music education. So aside from obviously the parts of making it important that kids need to learn and develop different parts of their brain and all these kinds of stuff, I think there's a lot of lessons outside of just the notes and things like that that are really important about music education.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
I agree completely. Luka, you do a lot of really wonderful work in which you centre some of your own personal history in the work that you do. And what I loved in the show also was a moment when you asked our audience like, you've heard a lot of languages today, I'm going to now share a song in Japanese because I have family there. Talk a little bit about that and your own personal connection to that moment and also the larger work that you're doing.
Luka Kawabata:
So in Singing Stories, I sang a lullaby in Japanese that I didn't previously know, I knew of but I hadn't performed before. But it's a very famous lullaby in Japan called Takeda No Komoriuta, komoriuta means lullaby in Japanese. And it has been kind of a personal process of feeling comfortable bringing personal stories or personal identity into opera and into an industry where you're almost as a performer told to be the product of someone else's vision. And so taking that ownership to have individuality and personal history too.
Personally, I'm currently working on a project called the Hafu Project. Hafu which is the anglicized word for half in Japanese. And this refers to people that are half Japanese in Japan. And it is kind of an ongoing series about identity and culture and coming to terms with not feeling like a bunch of pieces put together, but realizing that you can be a whole.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Hillary, there's a hilarious moment in the show where you sing the Habanera from Carmen, but it's unlike any version I've ever seen before. You start the song and you are in the trunk, you've been like resting in the trunk from the beginning of the show, and then the lid pops open and you put one foot up and then out you come. Tell us a little about that moment and tell us about what that song means for you.
Hillary Tufford:
Yeah, so what was cool about this project, as we got to have a conversation with Sawyer before the show was even written about our journey as people and how classical music has interacted with that. And for me, learning to sing has really been a way to find my full self and be able to express myself and figure out who I am and stand with confidence in a room. So it been this very powerful and crazy journey, and I've gone through a big voice shift recently, which has been very much entwined with the discovery of my personal identity in a more deep way. But basically I went from singing small soprano repertoire or light soprano repertoire and trying to make myself feel small in a way to stepping into some fuller mezzo-soprano repertoire. And along with that, I've found a lot more confidence in my life and connection to who I am as a person.
So one of the roles that I'm studying right now is Carmen, which has a lot of history behind it. But basically Carmen has this huge personal power because she's so confident she knows who she is. So we put that in the show. But what was fun about this show is we still wanted to keep the light, silly, playful quality that would help us to connect with kids. So Carmen is totally out of context here. I basically get to have this super diva movement. I don't even show up on time to a show because I'm such a super diva, which is not something I practice in my professional life. But having that comfort and relaxation in the story.
So basically I come in late and I'm not even aware of the time and I'm looking for a place to nap. And so there's this blue trunk on stage and I mean I'm 5'2" and pretty petite. So what was a fun idea is “let's sleep in the box”and the kids went wild! And then a few songs go by and I'm still in the box and the kids just could not stop focusing on the fact that I was in a box. So there's a big reveal where I pop out of the box with the Habanera, which always got some laughs. It was a lot of fun!
Ashley Daniel Foot:
And it's one of my favourite moments of the show. You see it all play out together. Another wild moment in the show is when one of our other artists who's not here with us today, Mackenzie, was away for a week. We turned to our director Sawyer Craig, who not only is a director but is a singer, and you sang what I believe is one of the most insane songs I've ever heard, and it's the Doll Song. Tell us... unearth what that was all about and how it came together.
Sawyer Craig:
Well, I was contacted, actually I was called by Leslie Dala, who is the head of our program. I was called by him, which is unusual. Usually he communicates by email or message. He called me so I immediately, I was like, “Les, am I in trouble?”And he was like “No, I'm actually hoping you can do me a favour…”
And basically what it was, was Mackenzie wanted this N.A. (not available) for a big audition and Les really wanted to give it to her. And he knew I sang, so he asked if I wanted to... If I would be okay with stepping in to do five of the shows. And I was like, well, I'll be in rehearsal anyways, might as well, happy to help out. So yeah, it was a little bit wild, but honestly really, really fun. It was a big gift to me as well, to be able to go and sing for the kids. And I love... The Doll Song is a little nuts. It's from Tales of Hoffmann and you play kind of this malignant automaton girl and it's a doll that keeps breaking down and that's kind of the running gag throughout the piece is that she's a doll that kind of is not quite functional.
And I always really enjoy doing that piece and doing it for the kids was just so funny, so fun. So I will say it was one of my most fun performing experiences, certainly this year. Just really amazing to get to... Well, to be supported by this program, not just as a director, which is what I've been hired to do here, but also as a performer was honestly really meaningful for me because in opera often the lanes are very delineated and people can sometimes be very resistant to letting people exist in multiple types of artistry. So yeah, it was awesome from my perspective.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
It really was, and it was totally fun to see it play out. So Amy, not only were you the music director of this show, but you're also heavily involved, and tell us how, in our main stage production of The Flying Dutchman, which is a massive, massive opera. And Sawyer also is as well, you're assistant directing that opera, as well as the Young Artist opera that you did before and Singing Stories. So you've all been very busy, Amy, how on earth do you balance it all together and what are you doing on the Wagner right now?
Amy Seulky Lee:
Oh, balance. Well, I have to figure out what balance means first, I guess. But it was a really intense two weeks because I was music directing the school show, but at the same time I was the chorus pianist for the Dutchman rehearsal. So yes, the working hours are very long, but the whole team was actually very supportive. They said, I don't have to be part of Dutchman because your school show is very intense on itself, so don't worry about it. But then I was the one like, “No! Don't bench me! I want to play!” Yeah, yeah, no, I was the one who was like, “No, don't tell me I can't do it!”
But in that process I learned what is my limit. It's not just the mental thing, but also it's the physical body. So I also had to learn how far can I go. How much can I actually play and how much can I actually work. So it was very meaningful in that sense.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
And you don't know what kind of environment you're going to be going into in every school. What is the temperature going to be like? Are your hands going to be freezing? How is that going to play out?
Amy Seulky Lee:
Yeah, that was the difficult thing to be a music director for the show. That was a challenge for me because every space that we went into, I had to figure out what are the acoustics like, how the voice would react, and how the instruments that we were carrying would react. So all of that had to go into consideration within the limited time that we had while we were setting up. So that was a very interesting challenge.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Well, it's amazing because you all arrive in a big van, big sprinter van. You all unload the truck yourselves. You put set everything up, you find a dressing room and you put sign on the door, get ready, and a show just appears in about an hour. You're all fully set up and it's just amazing to see how you all pull together.
And I have to just relate one part of the story that I'm still thinking about this moment. We went to a school and we had to drive the van onto the school property. And right after the show was recess. So that means we also had to make sure that the van could safely leave the premises. So that meant that Jeremy had to wear the safety vest and Luka had to wear one and walk behind the van. Jeremy was in front, and there's something really powerful about seeing a group of wonderful artists who just performed an amazing show, also take the care and attention to not run over children. So it was absolutely lovely.
Luka Kawabata:
Going above and beyond.
Sawyer Craig:
We love avoiding accidental manslaughter.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
There was a moment when I was like, well this, you really do everything.
Amy Seulky Lee:
I mean, the kids were following us! Following our van because they loved the show so much!
Sawyer Craig:
And you know what, Jeremy loved that vest.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
And you wore it so well!
Hillary Tufford:
He really did rock that vest!
Jeremy Scinocca:
I was right by the door ready to put it on and go! I just needed the two airplane things!
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Amazing! “Opera, coming through!”
Hillary Tufford:
It was a really unique experience, as a professional, because I learned a lot of stagecraft doing community theatre shows and I mean, community is in the title. And so you don't necessarily just play one role on stage. It's like “you can do posters” and “who is connected to the newspaper?” and everyone's taking roles to make the show happen. And I mean, doing some professional work at Vancouver Opera, it does feel like, okay, you do your role and that's what you do. And there's people, a lot of other people, helping behind the scenes to make jobs happen. But on the school tour, we all took on different hats too. And it did have that sense of community, which was really fun and I think brought us all close together as artists and people. And it was cool to show that side of what happens, and how much has to go into the art, to the kids. And they could watch us all play different parts in making it happen.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
There's definitely a power of that. I mean, we have a massive team that helps us put together all of this stuff here at Vancouver Opera. We don't just exist in a vacuum. We have an incredible stage management team of Nicole Lamb, who's also our director of production here at the Opera. And we also have Marijka Asbeek Brusse, our stage manager, who helped us in immeasurable ways. What the stage manager does is just remarkable. And then we have our production and props and support and costumes that all helped contribute to the tour.
And we also have our development team that goes out and gets funding for Vancouver Opera in schools, which is actually a massive deal because we are able to offer this project or this show to schools for a very discounted rate, for what it would usually be. And Vancouver Opera in schools has been going for decades and has brought live opera right to the doorstep of children across the lower mainland. And it's something that we're going to keep doing.
And we're excited to bring back our show that we put on with Pacific Opera Victoria, The Flight of the Hummingbird, and while we did 10 shows for this tour, next year we'll be doing over a hundred different schools. And on my end, in our Partnerships and Engagement department, I also have contractor Vincent Huynh, who worked tirelessly to reach out to the schools and to follow up on the little details about when we can arrive. So I have to give credit to him as well. It's a massive, massive project, a big lift for all of us on top of everything else that we're doing.
I want to ask one last question of you, Jeremy, as we are starting to wrap up. As a tenor, and as you know you talked about also doing sports, there has been, and I feel like it's changing, quite a lot of stigma related to being a guy and then being a guy who sings. Talk a little bit about that.
Jeremy Scinocca:
Yeah, I mean I kind of existed in two different sort of paths as a kid of playing both hockey and baseball and singing and living within that duality. And you sort of are on the edge of either environment, from time to time, in terms of the personalities that go around the room. I was really lucky growing up because I had a really supportive family who both supported both sides of the things. So I had a really great resource in my ear through my dad and my mom through things like this.
There definitely is some sort of stigma of people who sing, who are maybe in a sports environment, who do arts, and kind of do both. There's some tension that gets throughout that. But having that sort of “word from the wise” voice in my ear of my dad and my mom throughout all those situations, I was really lucky to be able to exist in both and excel in both. You have to choose one down the line and then that's sort of the direction that I went. But definitely there are some struggles for people who do it. I definitely was really lucky in when I was doing that.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Absolutely. And I think we were all very lucky to be able to share this music with young students across the lower mainland and beyond. And so I want to thank you all for coming in today and chatting about the experience. It's been pleasure to work with you over the last year and we hope that you have continued success. Thanks all for being with us today. It's been really a pleasure to talk about all of these things. I think one of the things that's so beautiful about this project was allowing students to envision their future selves if they were musically inclined. And we definitely heard that as you were leaving. People could picture themselves doing what you're all doing. And so it's great that you could take the time out today to talk and reflect back on this experience.
Aha, what a great conversation! Live opera really is live indeed. And how amazing to talk with the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists at Vancouver Opera. And next time on Inside Vancouver Opera, I'm honoured to welcome back to the podcast Luka Kawabata, baritone, who will be talking about his unique and interesting Hafu project. A beautiful creation that links together opera, family, and memory. It's a conversation that is both fascinating, insightful, and touching as we explore the tensions that exist within opera today and it's our way of honouring Asian Heritage Month. That's next time on Inside Vancouver Opera.
As always, I want to acknowledge our podcast editor, Mack McGillivray, who we're lucky to have from BCIT for this month, and we are so thrilled with.
To be continued… over and out.
Episode Credits:
Host - Ashley Daniel Foot
Guests from the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program - Sawyer Craig, Luka Kawabata, Amy Seulky Lee, Jeremy Scinocca, and Hillary Tufford
Audio Editing - Mack McGillivray
Music Credits:
Japanese Lullaby 竹田の子守唄 (Takeda No Komoriuta)
Performed by Japonské Trio - Natsuko Bručková, Tomoko Kanda, and Yukie Ichimura
Doll Song “Les oiseaux dans la charmille” from Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d'Hoffmann
Performed by Katarzyna Dondalska
Overture to Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer
Performed by the University of Illinois Symphonic Band