26 July, 2005
Kiel, Germany
It’s hard to believe I’ve been gone for a month. The past four weeks have flown by faster than I ever would have thought. After visiting friends in London, and seeing Brussels, Bruges, Amsterdam, and Munich, I ended my two weeks of travel where I began, back in Frankfurt. I booked another night in the Stay and Learn Residence, and prepared myself for Fulbright orientation the next day.
At the first meeting, Reiner Rohr, chair of the American Program Unit of the German Fulbright Program, welcomed us, the 25 Fulbrighters who had to take a language course. (The other 55 German Fulbright Fellows would have their orientation in November.) As a matter of course, we each said our name and our project in Germany. Each project seemed better than mine, from the biologist studying Alzheimer’s to the economist studying the ethics of embedded computer chips in consumer products. Coming to Germany to study 19th-century art song seemed a little banal.
I know that the presence of artists and musicians in society is important, but as a singer I’ve always felt a little superfluous. When I was younger, I excelled in math, the sciences, languages, writing, whatever I chose to study. Everyone thought I would be a scientist or a mathematician, and so did I.
I didn’t show any promising talent in music until I was halfway through high school. When I informed my guidance counselor that I wanted to study music in college, he told me, full of smug wisdom, that I could—and should—change my mind once I actually got to college: For those with academic prowess, music was an extra-curricular activity, not a career.
Even though I rebuked him, I think I’ve always harbored the secret fear that he might have been right: If I didn’t choose some sort of academically prestigious field, I would be wasting my intelligence. For the next eight years, I constantly fought the notion of the intellectually-challenged singer by reading and learning as much as I could about music; I certainly wasn’t going to be caught playing the part of the dim-witted soprano.
I didn’t eat dinner with the others that night, and spent the night in my room, thinking about my decision to be a singer and my year here: Was this really the right thing to do? The next day, after another meeting, we took a tour of Frankfurt. Still brooding, I didn’t pay much attention; I’d already seen it, anyways.
After the group tour, I decided to take the tram back to the Haus der Parität. After a few stops, I saw the economist get on the bus. Recognizing me, he walked towards me and sat down. After reintroducing ourselves, we set to talking about our projects. I was genuinely interested in his project, but I also didn’t really want to talk about mine. He finally said it was my turn, and I gave my spiel: I’m here to study, blah, blah, blah. He nodded and seemed marginally interested.
In an uncharacteristic move, I abruptly blurted out that I felt like a child among adults, pretending to do something worthwhile. He gave me a funny look and said, “But you know that music is just as important, right? Otherwise, why would you be here?”
I thought he meant that I should believe in myself and my project, and felt even more childish. I quickly steered the conversation elsewhere and tried to avoid talking about music. I again spent that night in my room, while a lot of the others went out to do karaoke. I started to think about my guidance counselor, and what he’d said to me.
The next day’s orientation was intense, and a lot of critical information was thrown at us in just a few hours. In addition to the cultural differences here, the banking system is different, there are a number of laws concerning registering to live here, and the process of registering for classes at school can often be haphazard at best. By the end of the day, everyone was mentally exhausted.
After a short break, we sat down to our farewell dinner, and then sat outside on the Haus der Parität’s patio, drinking good German wine and beer, and talking. The conversation eventually wound its way around to music. One of the scholars from the previous year, who had come back to give us an insider’s account of what it’s really like here, recounted her story of watching Così fan tutte in Berlin. She professed to be a lover of music, but no connoisseur, so she was a little lost by the plot.
The man sitting next to her had been kind enough to explain to her what was going on, dramatically and musically, and she’d thoroughly enjoyed his commentary. It was only afterward, when they walked out and the press mobbed him, that she realized her companion that night was Valery Gergiev. Everyone at our table knew who Gergiev is, and we began talking about him and the Mariinsky Opera, and then about opera in general, and then Simon Rattle and the Mahler Eight, and on and on. And everyone was joining in. I understood then what the economist had meant: Music is important to people in all professions, not just to musicians.
I finally got it: My guidance counselor was wrong. My presence here, among those biologists, chemists, engineers, journalists, and artists, was proof enough that being a musician, being a singer, is no less worthy than being a scientist. We need both. And that, I think, is the real reason I am here: to learn not to doubt myself and my worth as a singer and musician. I’m not there yet—but I’m on my way.
