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Multifaceted Mezzo Featured in Debut Recital By CHRISTOPHER KAPICA
Mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson—the alumna who will perform this month as winner of the 2004 Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital—had an epiphany at the age of 7, when she and her family attended a production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The performance greatly affected her, and she delved into exploring every aspect of the opera, from learning German to designing sets. Studying voice was the next logical step. She wholeheartedly committed herself to being a singer and, at 9 years old, begged her parents to get her vocal training, despite what she calls an admitted lack of innate talent. "I didn't really have any voice at all," she concedes humbly. "I just learned how to sing, really; I don't think I was somebody who was born with an extraordinary instrument. I started out with a very limited one. It's something I've worked at very gradually over a long time," she says. It is truly inspiring that her desire and ambition have never faltered; after 19 years of voice lessons and a lot of hard work honing her craft, she has achieved abundant success as a vocalist, producer, and scholar.
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| Brenda Patterson (Photo by Sam Handel) |
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Brenda graduated two years ago with a master's degree from Juilliard. She has studied for almost 10 years with Edith Bers, who she says was monumental in the development of her artistry. Ms. Patterson calls her teacher "an infinitely wise person" and adds, "She is so passionate about what she does, and is totally warm and devoted." While at Juilliard, Brenda also participated in the New Juilliard Ensemble—a source of some of her modern repertoire—the Focus! Festival, and the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, in addition to a multitude of individual collaborations. Some of her opera credits since graduation include Orfeo in Gluck's Orpheo ed Euridice, one of her most demanding roles; Fidalma in Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage; Hippolyta in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream; Aloës in Chabrier's L'étoile, and Alcina in Haydn's Orlando Paladino. She has participated in a vast array of festivals, including Tanglewood, Aspen, the Music Academy of the West, the Cleveland Art Song Festival, Bowdoin, Ravinia, and the Greenwich Music Festival. In addition, Brenda has sung with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the New York City Opera's "Showcasing American Composers."Brenda explicitly distinguishes herself and others in her field as "vocalists," rather than merely singers, and is pleased that Juilliard identifies its department with the label "Vocal Arts."
"Your voice is your instrument," she says. "You should be able to use it in all sorts of ways." She has cultivated a very diverse background, consistently performing a range of opera, song, chamber music, and everything in between.
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| Brenda Patterson performing with the New Juilliard Ensemble and conductor Joel Sachs in January 2002. (Photo by Hiroyuki Ito) |
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Brenda will surely be utilizing her full palette of techniques at the Alice Tully recital, performing a gamut of contemporary pieces. "I try to sing only things I believe in," she says, adding that she believes contemporary music—though more challenging to perform—can be more accessible and humanistic, especially to younger people. However, she doesn't believe it to be drastically different from the classical repertoire, considering both merely components of a heterogeneous body of music. In terms of contemporary works, admits Brenda, "you have to bring more of yourself to it. There's more of an interpretive challenge. You can't take anything for granted."Her program will include six songs by one of her most beloved composers, Charles Ives: Walt Whitman, Down East, The World's Highway, The See'r, Songs My Mother Taught Me, and In the Mornin'. She will also present George Crumb's Apparition, Haydn's The Spirit Song and Arianna a Naxos, and the premiere of a piece by Edward Bilous titled Night of the Dark Moon, for female vocalist, chamber ensemble, and electronics. Brenda says that the themes of the series of works are evident, but she wants the audience to determine them themselves.Accompanying Brenda will be pianist Lydia Brown, a current doctoral student at Juilliard studying under Margo Garrett. The two met at a chamber music festival in Aspen in 1997 and have worked together ever since, for almost eight years. Brenda recognized their synergy almost immediately. "I never worried about finding a husband, but I always worried about finding a pianist," she says jokingly. "After probably the second time I heard Lydia play, I was like, 'That's the one!'"
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Brenda Patterson, mezzo-soprano
Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital
Alice Tully Hall
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 8 p.m.
For ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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One of the most interesting facets of the singer's background is her fascination with medieval history. She simultaneously earned a bachelor's degree in medieval studies from Barnard College while pursuing her master's degree at Juilliard. Though contemporary music and the medieval world do not seem to parallel one another superficially, Brenda draws a correlation between the two. "The medieval world is before the rules were written, before things were codified, and contemporary music is after all the rules have been broken; there's that sort of lawlessness to both worlds, which appeals to me." While at Juilliard, she had the opportunity to portray the role of Denise in Stephen Paulus's opera Heloise and Abelard, a conduit between the medieval realm and the stage. "That was one of the few times the worlds came together," she says. "I was very excited about it. It was very emotional for me to get to meet the characters."Brenda will finally get to meet another character of her childhood fantasy after 20 years, when she takes on the role of the Second Lady in The Magic Flute at the Hamburg Opera. "It's like a dream come true, finally. It's funny, though, because the Second Lady wouldn't be a dream role for anybody except me, probably."Christopher Kapica is a first-year undergraduate studying music composition.
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