Support Sisters
Celebrating International Women’s Day with Perri Lo, Emma Parkinson, & Tabitha Brasso-Ernst
Opera is a world of grand stories, unforgettable voices, and the incredible artists who bring them to life. This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating two such powerhouses: mezzo-soprano Emma Parkinson and pianist Perri Lo. With rich careers spanning international stages, mentorship, and innovative collaborations, these two have forged their own paths in the classical music world. In this special conversation, guest hosted by Vancouver Opera’s Engagement Strategist Tabitha Brasso-Ernst, Emma and Perri open up about their journeys, the resilience required to navigate the industry, and the friendships that sustain them along the way. From pandemic collaborations to the balancing act of artistry and self-care (plus a shared love of baking), this candid exchange is a tribute to the strength and camaraderie of women in music.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
We are Inside Vancouver Opera, and I am Tabitha Brasso-Ernst, Engagement Strategist with Vancouver Opera. Today we are featuring two absolute powerhouses in classical music, Emma Parkinson and Perri Lo.
Audiences will remember mezzo-soprano Emma Parkinson's most recent engagement with Vancouver Opera as Third Lady in The Magic Flute. She has soloed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and that's just to name a few. She has work-shopped and performed many operatic roles across Canada and internationally, including a recent engagement as Flora in La Traviata, with Opéra de Massy in France.
Pianist and vocal coach Perri Lo has become a fixture in the Vancouver Opera fold, having graduated from VO's very own Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program as apprentice coach. She has collaborated with renowned organizations such as Opera Atelier, Ballet BC, the Banff Centre, and Pacific Opera Victoria. She was music director for Vancouver Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria's co-production school tour, Flight of the Hummingbird. Perri also serves as BC's provincial coordinator for Opera InReach, dedicated to making opera education and mentorship more accessible to youths across Canada. Most recently, she served as répétiteur for Vancouver Opera's Flight.
These two remarkable women have established distinguished careers in this industry and have truly paved the way for others to follow and I am absolutely delighted to have them with us here at Vancouver Opera for our very special International Women's Day episode. So we have Emma and Perri here today. Hi!
Emma Parkinson:
Hi!
Perri Lo:
Hi, Tabitha!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Alberta-born girls, now based in Vancouver.
Perri Lo:
Sure are!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Tell me a time that you've been able to collaborate together.
Emma Parkinson:
During the pandemic, actually, we put together, as was the trend during the pandemic, everyone was doing virtual videos.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Yes, I remember.
Emma Parkinson:
So we put together with a couple of our other colleagues, what we called Opera Box. And so that was basically a platform in which we put together virtual videos, we had people singing on them, Perri would play, she would record, lay down some piano tracks in advance, send them off to the singers, and then we'd splice everything together to make it seem like we were all performing together.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Oh, I love that!
Emma Parkinson:
That was fun. And then the last few summers, we've done Summer Stages in Burnaby with another singer.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Emma Parkinson:
That's right! Chloe Hurst, soprano.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Hi, Chloe!
Emma Parkinson:
Perri's always one of my go-tos for auditions, and so quite often we get to collaborate, which is nice.
Perri Lo:
And bake.
Emma Parkinson:
And bake!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Baking? Tell me more.
Emma Parkinson:
Take it away.
Perri Lo:
Oh, I don't know, we like to have Christmas baking.
Emma Parkinson:
We weren't able to do that this year though because we were both busy.
Perri Lo:
No, a bit too busy.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
That's a good thing though for an artist, right?
Emma Parkinson:
It is.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
You're really busy during the holidays.
Emma Parkinson:
But baking is important too.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
No, that's true.
Perri Lo:
It’s a fine balance.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
You have to balance, right?
Emma Parkinson:
Find the balance, yeah.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So, Perri, baking is your thing.
Perri Lo:
It calms me, yeah. I feel like I need to do a big bake before I start a production. It's something that I like to do in my spare time, which happens here and there.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So that point actually segues very well into a question I was about to ask about self-care as both humans and classical musicians, because you're basically athletes performing at the highest level. And so baking for you, you said, is a big self-care activity when you're preparing for a project. Emma, I do see that you have done some salsa dancing. Would you include that into your self-care routine?
Emma Parkinson:
Yeah, sure. It's slightly different for a production because unfortunately I'm not really able to do much salsa dancing when I'm on a show because I usually take a class per week. So that flies out the window when I'm on a show. But physical activity in general I think is super important. Regularly on a daily basis, I like to take a walk every morning, it's usually about an hour. And then I'll try to do some sort of physical activity after at home, whether it's just some stretching or Pilates or something like that. And then one day a week I will try to go to the gym to do some weight training or something like that, which is not my favourite, but I know it's important.
So that, and also eating well, sleeping well as best I can. It's not always easy, especially if you're on a contract away from home, that gets trickier depending on access that you may or may not have to a kitchen. But those things are all really important and I can always tell when I'm lacking in one of those areas. So those things help me to feel really grounded and good and at my best singing and vocally when I'm on a show.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
I remember in the summer we hung out and you were preparing for an Early Music Vancouver, a heavy hitter duo of, was it Monteverdi?
Emma Parkinson:
Yes, Monteverdi and Bach motets.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Yes. And I remember you were saying that you were hitting the gym a lot with your music on the treadmill just studying.
Emma Parkinson:
Just getting it in the brain, just listening to it over and over. And there's certain points as we both know that you really have to get yourself really comfortable with it. You're living with it all the time. And even right now, I'm working on a show that's coming up in a few weeks and I will be waking up at three in the morning and that music is just swirling around in my head, so it's crazy but we signed up for this.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
That's true. That's showbiz baby! That's what they say. And that's The Little Prince with Pacific Opera Victoria.
Emma Parkinson:
That's right.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Very exciting, congrats!
Emma Parkinson:
Thank you!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
You both have had such exciting seasons the past few years. You've been very successful for so long, but I feel like you've really hit your stride in this industry and have really carved out very strong names for yourselves so another big congratulations on that.
Emma Parkinson:
Thank you!
Perri Lo:
Thanks!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So Perri, you wear so many hats in your music jobs, but how do you manage to keep all of that in your brain and not get overwhelmed? Do you have any mental strength tips and tricks to share with this audience?
Perri Lo:
Well, I love a bullet journal and I just like to see everything laid out in front of me physically on a page of what do I have coming up. And for a full opera, I like to give myself at least two months to prepare, do my score studying, writing in additional parts in the piano vocal, just getting in the fingers, in the body. Similar to Emma, like to bike and go to the gym and trying to keep a balance of physical activity.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So I want to touch a little bit about how you both deal with situations, it can be in your everyday lives or it can be in classical music during contracts. Have there been moments in these spheres where you realized you could break a barrier or defy an expectation as women in this field?
Emma Parkinson:
I'm not the most rebellious person by nature as a human, but I think as a life choice to be an artist is a bit of a rebellious choice, I suppose you could say. For the vast majority of people, what we do is wild. Whenever I meet people, I know there's a lot of fascination with, "Oh my gosh, you're a singer or you're a musician, why?!" Or, "But what do you actually do with your time?" It's a bit of a mystery for a lot of people I think. So I guess that would be my rebellious choice and the way that I live my life is not super conventional to most people and to most ways of life. But I feel really lucky to be able to do it and I can't see myself doing anything else. So that's a bit of a weird answer, but that's my answer.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
I love that. I think, I love that you set it up as if your entire career choice is defying an expectation.
Emma Parkinson:
Breaking boundaries
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
I guess in some ways.
Emma Parkinson:
It feels unconventional, I think, to the vast majority of society. But, it feels normal to me.
Perri Lo:
I agree. I feel like when you are in it and in this industry and in your career path, wherever you are, there's always people there supporting you and they're in their own path as well. And it's just a nice... I'm just imagining this Petri dish of little organisms just working together, making something happen, and then you step out and it's this wild thing of being an artist. But we're all supporting each other and breaking those barriers together.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So speaking of collaboration in classical music, I'd love to know more about mentorship and if you both have special mentors that help guide you through the way or teachers or coaches or just peers that may have helped lift you up.
Emma Parkinson:
For myself, in my formative student years, I would say it was definitely the teachers that guided me and whatnot. But now that I'm in the profession and since I have been, I feel like my colleagues and my friends are my mentors really, because they're the ones that I go to for advice on things that I don't know much about.
And like Perri said before, there's such a huge support system within the group of friends or colleagues that you're maybe working with or your immediate support system. I'm very fortunate that most of my dear friends happen to be also musicians. It just happens to work out that way.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
It's funny how that happens.
Emma Parkinson:
I know, but it's a level of understanding and a level of support and connection that it's hard to beat. And so I think those are definitely my mentors and have been. And people that I've known for years, people that I've gone through Young Artist programs with that I'm still in touch with to this day, those are relationships that I think are long-lasting and really valuable.
Perri Lo:
I always feel like even as a pianist, when you're really young, you're always practising alone, performing alone so when I decided to do collaborative piano, I loved working with instrumentalists and singers. You have your whole group of friends and close colleagues and it really is nice to have that support. And I've been able to keep in touch with some other pianists in other cities because we don't work together all the time. We're working simultaneously but in other productions and in other cities, so it's nice to have that being able to check in with other friends and seeing, "How's your production going and how's your year, what's up," and share challenges and work together.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
I love to hear that. I love to see musicians being there for each other and lifting each other up in what could potentially be the opposite kind of environment.
Emma Parkinson:
And that's I think the more I've worked, the more I've found that people really do want to help each other. And I think the more of that that happens, the better the industry becomes as a whole, because everybody really wants the same outcome, which is to keep this beautiful art form alive. And so I think while it can be competitive, it doesn't really serve the industry and the continuation of the art form for people to be so cutthroat and things like that. I find that unhelpful. So it's really nice to know, at least within our country and all the people that I have met when I have been on contract elsewhere, everybody has this understanding that we love what we do and we want to keep seeing it happen and the only way through that really is to help each other out.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Have there been moments in rehearsals, contracts, projects that you felt you had to advocate for yourself or for others in a place that your voice might not always be heard?
Perri Lo:
I do a lot of my self advocating at home. I feel like I internalize, "Okay, I heard that and I'm going to just put that aside and stay professional and continue on with the end of the day, the end of the rehearsal," and then I'll spew it out to my cat later or write it down and talk about it with friends of how did that go and try and not in the moment be confrontational because I'm also not a confrontational person. So I like to find another route to work through some tension that may happen in rehearsals.
Emma Parkinson:
I think we're similar in that way. It's hard to... And I actually don't know many people who receive or if they're in a challenging situation in a rehearsal or whatever to react brashly. I think for me, I often internalize it, same as you, and then I'll go home or wherever I am and talk it through with my support network and get opinions and really try to think about how I'm feeling about it myself too, and how I can best preserve my own sense of integrity. And then I try to approach it if I come back to the situation by having a conversation or in the best way that is professional, but also standing up for oneself. I think that's really the only way to do it where you're not ruffling feathers and everyone can still find a happy medium.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Sometimes you need to break the rules, especially in an industry that is constantly having to evolve and change with current times. Do you remember any times you felt you needed to take risks or break the rules in order to succeed or just keep on moving?
Emma Parkinson:
I don't know if it's necessarily risk-taking or breaking the rules per se, but I think a big piece of what I've come to enjoy about the last few years of my time in this career, I suppose, is really not adhering to what I grew up with knowing about the opera and how auditions are set up and how you're supposed to present yourself and this and that. I think I've come to realize there's a bit more freedom in that, or I like to find a bit more freedom within that because it's more exciting and it's a further expression of myself feeling like you don't necessarily need to always be wearing a three-inch heel.
I know that's a really trivial thing to say, but it was really drilled into me at a young age when I was in school that this is how you present yourself and because you're a lady, this is what you wear to auditions. And I've come to a point where I need to be comfortable. I always say I want to look nice, but I need to be comfortable too when I'm in a performance or auditioning and being your most comfortable so that you can perform as authentically as possible.
Perri Lo:
I feel like in recent years, and maybe it's because I'm further and further from school, but aria packages are evolving. And I was working at the Banff Centre a couple of years ago and there were some mock auditions happening and a singer brought this Debussy art song and she was bold and really just set a ground of, "Yes, this is still you singing in your ballad repertoire of songs." And it was a mock auditions but there was still a panel. And that whole day was about feeling what can we feel comfortable to present and I think taking that and applying that to present day auditions. Where I think now there seems to be more of an equal level of presentation when you enter the room. I really hope there is everywhere. But that's just something that I've noticed and I really support that. And if someone throws some Schubert to me in an audition, I'll gladly take that.
Emma Parkinson:
Yeah, that's a good point. It's been a long time since I've done an audition where I've needed what we call the-
Perri Lo:
The five.
An aria in English
An aria in French
An aria in Italian
An aria in German
An aria by Mozart or a wild card (Russian, contemporary, etc.)
Emma Parkinson:
... standard five, but I feel like that is also shifting and that feels nice and liberating that you don't have to show up with an aria in every single language. And just because that's what is asked of you, show up with what you sing the best and if that happens to be three Italian arias, so be it. If two of them happen to be by the same composer, so be it. It's really going in with your best foot forward and not trying to shove yourself into a category that maybe you just don't feel like you want to be in, or boxes as we call them. We don't like boxes.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Your best non-three inch heeled foot forward.
Emma Parkinson:
Exactly!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Sometimes it's three... Well, no, not for oratorio. It's brutal.
Emma Parkinson:
I just can't.
Perri Lo:
The calves!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So how do you stay motivated and resilient? I'm going to keep using this word resilient because I think as women in this society, we have to be. Let's be real. We have to have that resilience. How do you stay resilient when you're facing creative blocks, rejection, just general bleakness about the future and this industry?
Perri Lo:
I text Emma.
Emma Parkinson:
Yeah, leaning on friends I think it's really the theme of our whole answers I feel. But I went through a whole reframing of everything in the last several... I guess post-pandemic. Like you said, it's a really ruthless, relentless industry. But also just in general to be resilient, if I can give a cheesy answer, I think the key to that is really believing in yourself and keeping that belief in yourself through any possible rejections, any possible downtimes that there are. If you believe that you're meant to be doing what you're doing, I don't think anything can really deter you.
Not to say that that's a complete balm for everything and that that solves all the problems. And you still have your down days and you still have your difficult times. But I think you're constantly being guided by the belief in you that you have something to share or that you know that you're meant to be doing what you're doing. That is the thing that keeps me going is knowing that I want to sing and knowing that nothing can stop me from that regardless. Regardless of if I've had a bad day of singing or if I've had ten rejections or whatever, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day because I'm not going to let the things that are negative take me away from the joy that I get from singing.
Perri Lo:
Yeah, I agree. I think using sometimes the negative feelings you might have or the rejections to feel that around to creating that to motivation because all experienced rejection. And I am a journaler, so I always used to write how I felt after an audition or after a show, "Hey, this went really well. This is something I want to do better at," and going back and seeing those changes and what I've applied to future productions and projects, it helps to not always be stuck in your moment of what you're presently feeling, but seeing how far you've come and knowing that you'll always move forward.
Emma Parkinson:
And having great friends like Perri. And when you're feeling those moments when you just really can't get out of your own brain and you send a text and then there's the cheerleader on the other side. It's really nice.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
It's Perri saying, "You got this girl!"
Emma Parkinson:
Yeah, exactly!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
You go do it! Do the thing!
Emma Parkinson:
That's right!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Do you have any pump up jams that help you get energized for performances?
Perri Lo:
I saw Challengers over the holidays-
Emma Parkinson:
Zendaya!
Perri Lo:
Zendaya, and the music in that is so good. It's Trent Reznor, and it's just a lot of edgy beats so I've been listening to that.
Emma Parkinson:
I do really love Dance Mix '95, which is an album that was released in 1995 and it was at the height of a lot of dance techno beat stuff and there's a lot of good jams on there.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
This is a little bit more of a serious one. How would you define personal success and do you feel like you've reached various levels of success throughout your careers and your lives?
Perri Lo:
I like to informally have my own year-end review and be like, "How did this year go," and see how often I felt really confident in my work and proud of my work so those are markers, looking at who I've collaborated with and how those relationships have flourished so those are my markers for personal success. And I used to think more in terms of how many gigs did I get or how many concerts did I perform? But it's so much more than that now. And we were talking about self-care and that definitely plays a lot into a personal success of did I not have an injury? Did I feel relatively healthy throughout the entire year? And yeah, that's how I like to mark successes on a year-to-year basis.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
I think that's a really healthy way to do it.
Emma Parkinson:
I think I like to measure personal success by measuring it with balance, I suppose, which you touched on that a little bit. I like to set short-term goals and then long-term goals, and then it's cool to look back at those and see what has occurred and what has yet to occur, or some of them may never occur, but it's nice to have those written down. And then I guess if I was to really sum it up, personal success is really tied to my happiness level, which is balance on all fronts; a good personal life, having self-care, feeling like I'm not too drained or maxed, which definitely does happen sometimes because there's no way around it in this field. Having a balance with everything and feeling like I'm grounded and centred and able to give my best to every facet of my life.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
So what do you plan to bake together next?
Emma Parkinson:
Well, we had a baking date scheduled because we normally do Christmas cookies, but that got cancelled because we were too busy.
Perri Lo:
Too booked and busy.
Emma Parkinson:
But usually it's some sort of dessert. We've never tried a loaf or something together.
Perri Lo:
I wanted to try focaccia actually!
Emma Parkinson:
Oh yeah!
Perri Lo:
I feel like that might take-
Emma Parkinson:
With the leavening and stuff.
Perri Lo:
... a couple days.
Emma Parkinson:
We'll have to make it into a sleepover then!
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
Like a week-long hang.
Emma Parkinson:
For this one loaf.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst:
And now we do the focaccia…
Thank you so much again to Emma Parkinson and Perri Lo for spending this time inside Vancouver Opera. I'm Tabitha Brasso-Ernst, and I'll see you at the opera.
Emma Parkinson - Mezzo-Soprano
Audiences will remember mezzo-soprano Emma Parkinson’s most recent engagement with Vancouver Opera as Third Lady in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” in the fall of 2023. She made her 2017 Vancouver Opera debut as Jade Boucher in Jake Heggie’s heart wrenching opera “Dead Man Walking.” She has soloed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, The Saskatoon and Regina Symphony Orchestras, Early Music Vancouver, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and that’s just to name a few! She has work-shopped and performed many operatic roles across Canada and internationally, including a recent engagement as Flora in Verdi’s “La Traviata” with Opera de Massy in France last spring.
Perri Lo - Pianist and Vocal Coach
Pianist and vocal coach Perri Lo has become a key member of the Vancouver Opera community since graduating as an apprentice coach from the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program in 2019. A versatile musician specializing in opera, chamber music, and dance, she is passionate about integrating these art forms in her work. Perri has collaborated with renowned organizations such as Opera Atelier, Ballet BC, the Banff Centre, the International Vocal Arts Institute, and Pacific Opera Victoria.
Recent engagements include the school tour of Flight of the Hummingbird, a children’s opera co-produced by Vancouver Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria, based on the book by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. She frequently appears at Vancouver Opera as a répétiteur, has music-directed for numerous local companies, and serves as BC’s provincial coordinator for Opera InReach, an initiative dedicated to expanding opera education and mentorship for youth across Canada.
Tabitha Brasso-Ernst - Guest Host
Tabitha is the Engagement Strategist for Vancouver Opera, overseeing the Opera Experience youth outreach program, which provides high school students with behind-the-scenes access to the world of opera production. Passionate about fostering connections between audiences and the art form, she curated and hosted this special podcast episode to highlight and celebrate the contributions of strong women in the classical music sector.
Mack McGillivray - Producer
Mack is a multimedia producer, creating shows for podcast and radio. He is passionate about cultivating local community and a lifelong lover of opera.
Music Credits:
A Certain Peace from Tobin Stokes' Rattenbury, performed by Emma Parkinson and Perri Lo
Quintet from Georges Bizet’s Carmen, performed by OperaBox Company with:
Perri Lo, Pianist
Luka Kawabata, Baritone – Dancairo
Katie McCullough, Soprano – Frasquita
Katie Miller, Mezzo-Soprano – Mercedes
Nolan Kehler, Tenor – Remendado
Emma Parkinson, Mezzo-Soprano – Carmen
Entr'acte II from Georges Bizet's Carmen, performed by Perri Lo