One thing is certain about Cathy Lawrence-she knows what she is singing about. Once a struggling music student who was dismissed from her university vocal program, then a professional opera singer and voice teacher, and then an ordained cantor, Ms. Lawrence has reinvented herself several times during her career. Each time, she felt she was responding to a call from a power greater than herself. The twists and turns in life’s road have taken Ms. Lawrence from a quiet Quaker childhood to service as an ordained cantor in the Jewish faith. Though her life has changed dramatically, two things have remained constant: a passionate love of music and an almost obsessive drive for learning.
Ms. Lawrence-who went by the name Catherine Schwartzman when she was singing opera-grew up in a house where music was hardly ever heard, because it was considered to be too sacred to be played as background music. She took piano and cello lessons but wasn’t very interested in practicing. She enjoyed singing, but only in secret or in large groups until she was given a solo part in a 5th grade musical.
“I was an almost inaudible Gretel,” Ms. Lawrence quips, adding that following the performance, her mother told her that she should never become a singer. “But I discovered Joan Baez and Pete Seeger as a young teen, learned folk guitar from a show on channel 13, and sang a raucous 2nd alto in the school choir. My mother said, again, “If you have to sing, just sing the low notes.”
In college, Ms. Lawrence’s roommate didn’t like folk music, so she put away her guitar. But it was not long until she found herself singing again, though mostly in secret. A friend who was studying voice suggested that she try voice lessons. She was skeptical, to say the least.
“I thought voice lessons were just for people who can’t sing and never will be able to. When I started taking voice lessons, everything changed.”
From her first experiences with voice lessons, Ms. Lawrence saw quickly that it is possible to make dramatic changes in one’s voice. She threw herself completely into her study of voice, determined to learn as much as she could. At the time, she never dreamed she would become a professional singer, but singing was clearly all she wanted to do.
She proceeded to enroll in a second BA program at Rutgers, majoring in music, but her first years were not objectively successful. She was surprised to find that she had failed her first semester of voice classes, being told that she wasn’t good enough to continue studying in the voice department. Shaken but determined, Ms. Lawrence enrolled in a voice class open to non-majors and worked hard, eventually convincing the head of the voice department that they should give her another try. From that point, she continued to work with several voice teachers and slowly became more comfortable with her voice and the sounds she was making, even though she still received a fair amount of criticism from both teachers and her mother.
“I was so obsessed that I never gave up. People thought I was crazy. I actually thought I was crazy. I wondered if I was just being defiant, continuing to study when everyone was telling me I was making horrible sounds. On a daily basis I questioned why I was studying music.”
Ms. Lawrence says that in her twenties, when she asked herself if she loved singing, she truly didn’t know the answer. Yet she knew she had a zealous passion to understand how she could improve and make it better. When she was 32, she applied to Rutgers, graduate program to continue her study but was not taken seriously in the program, no doubt due to what she refers to as her “former shaky vocal self.” In a summer program in Minnesota, she found a mentor in opera director/singing-acting pedagogue Wesley Balk, who was coming to New York City to teach at Mannes the following fall. Ms. Lawrence took a leap of faith to apply for the master of music program at Mannes, and that was where she found the true voice that had been waiting within.
“In my first year there I won the voice competition, and by the second I was starring in the school opera and getting hired for roles in regional companies. It seemed that I could sing after all.”
Just as her opera career was beginning to blossom, Ms. Lawrence married and suffered two miscarriages, both when she was involved in overlapping rehearsal periods for two different operas. Ms. Lawrence made a dramatic change when she became pregnant for a third time.
“I was pregnant with twins, as if to make up for the lost embryos, and I decided to be more careful. New York City Opera asked me for a call-back, but I explained my situation and was given a raincheck. The babies were born 10 weeks early; they were small but healthy identical boys. Once again, my life had changed.”
Ms. Lawrence embraced motherhood and struggled to earn a living teaching voice. She found teaching gratifying, because it allowed her to experience the exciting process of learning over and over again. But they were difficult times.
“We couldn’t afford babysitters. There were times I’d be teaching with the babies under the piano in car seats, which meant I could rock them both with one foot. Occasionally I’d have to stop to feed them from their tiny bottles. I’d feed one and let the student tend to the other. When they were a little bigger I’d crank up the baby swing, which gave me about 15 minutes of time that I didn’t have to worry about one of them…It wasn’t idyllic, but it worked pretty well.”
Not long after her sons were born, Ms. Lawrence’s marriage became increasingly difficult, eventually ending in divorce. The brunt of wage-earning and childcare fell on her shoulders. Realizing that her busy life of juggling professional singing and teaching with motherhood and personal stress was burning the candle at both ends, she decided that she would have to put something aside. Her newly-budding singing career was the only choice that made sense, so she decided not to pursue further opportunities.
Soon after that door closed, however, a window opened. When her sons were two years old, she found herself in the local synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, almost by accident.
“Though I had converted to Judaism earlier upon marrying into a Jewish family, I didn’t consider myself more than a technical Jew. I had joined the synagogue, I admit, to qualify for a lower nursery school tuition rate. But there I was, hearing the sound of the shofar and finding myself in tears and covered with goosebumps. Jews aren’t generally ‘born again,’ but I was, I think, on that day.”
Ms. Lawrence then began taking her sons to the Shabbat children’s services and was enthralled by the services’ power. The next year, some friends asked her to sing for the Rosh Hashanah children’s minyan. Knowing how wild and noisy those events tend to be, Ms. Lawrence was reluctant, but agreed. She learned her first Hebrew song and was astonished to find the three and four-year-old children amazingly attentive.
“I knew I had discovered a new relationship to singing. This was not performance, or at least it wasn’t only performance. It left me with a sense of warmth and satisfaction unlike anything I’d felt before.”
Suddenly, the two powerful transformational processes Ms. Lawrence had been engaged in-that of finding her singing voice and that of finding her faith-came together. Ms. Lawrence had the idealistic notion that she could be a cantor but quickly brushed the idea aside. After all, she was “barely Jewish,” had no knowledge of Hebrew, liturgy or Judaism, and was struggling to survive on her teaching income. Yet if there is anything clear in the pattern of Ms. Lawrence’s passions, it is that they are not easily squelched. True to form, Ms. Lawrence began studying Hebrew and liturgy in order to pass an entrance exam for the Academy of Jewish Religion.
Ms. Lawrence took courses at the seminary when she could. She continued to sing opera when she was asked but did not actively pursue auditions. She worked as a cantor and found that immensely gratifying. She did not, however, have any way of knowing the role she would soon assume. When the rabbi she had been hired to work with died suddenly and tragically, she was the only person able to step in and fill the gap he left in the community. She rose to the occasion and studied further so she could read Torah and give sermons, as well as perform funerals and wedding ceremonies for her rabbi’s bereft followers.
“Singing in the context of prayer became more and more meaningful and gratifying,” says Ms. Lawrence. “And, on a technical level, cantorial singing added immeasurably to my skill and to my understanding of voice.”
In essence, after being told for years by various teachers that she should not try to listen to herself but merely rely of feeling and doing, Ms. Lawrence learned that she does need to listen and, in doing so, was able to discover new subtleties in her voice. Most important, she developed the ability to alter what she does to the needs of her listeners.
“Cantorial singing is not about making oneself into a perfect product to be admired and duly applauded. Neither, as I now know, is opera and concert singing, but it’s harder to grasp this when we’re caught up in the judgmentalism that is so prevalent in the world of classical singing.”
This past May, Ms. Lawrence completed nine years of study at the seminary, was ordained to the clergy, and assumed a new position as Cantor of Temple Sinai in Stamford, Connecticut. No one is more surprised than she is.
“I never would have guessed that I’d be Jewish, a professional singer, and an ordained member of the clergy. I was Quaker! I was quiet and shy! Oy! How did this happen?”
Ms. Lawrence is full of wonder at the mysterious processes that have brought her to her fulfilling life as a cantor. When she talks about her transformation, her warm speaking voice seems to embody both her awe in the powers that have shaped life and an unassuming acceptance that this is exactly where she is supposed to be.
Another wonderful change in her life occurred last year when she married composer Stephen Lawrence. He was initially uneasy about her professional involvement in Judaism, since he hadn’t been in a synagogue since his Bar Mitzvah. Ms. Lawrence, however, was more interested in finding out if he could cook. Mr. Lawrence frequently plays piano for his wife during Friday night services, and the two of them enjoy their family life immensely. Ms. Lawrence admits that her role in synagogue leadership makes it a challenge to spend enough quality time with her sons, since she is leading worship services or performing other duties during prime “family” times. Yet she adores her work and the way it has deepened her relationship with music, her faith, and herself.
“I really want singers to know that this is a deeply fulfilling way to work as a singer. The program at The Academy for Jewish Religion is magnificent, and they are eager to accept new students for the cantorate.”
Ms. Lawrence hasn’t sung opera recently, although she does get to sing operatically during the High Holidays. She says that she rarely misses singing opera and is thrilled that she gets to revisit her “folky days,” playing the Martin guitar she bought in high school to accompany herself during services, weddings, and baby namings. She continues to teach voice privately and still gets an electrical charge from opening students up to the changes they can make in their voices.
Ms. Lawrence carries her love for teaching into her work with choirs and congregations. “I love showing these groups the amazing experience it can be to discover more and more of one’s singing voice and being,” she says.
Never one to stay stagnant, Ms. Lawrence continues to challenge herself musically. She has begun to write solo and choral music that she has been able to use both in and out of the synagogue. Her gratitude in her given path is infectious and will no doubt continue to inspire everyone who comes into contact with her dynamic energy.
Ms. Lawrence admits to a predilection for singing in minor keys in her early singing years and laughs that she is now in the business of singing an abundance of songs in minor keys. It’s obvious, however, that this is one singer whose performance in minor keys is making a major difference.
Note: Singers interested in pursuing cantorial study at The Academy of Jewish Religion should contact Ora Horn-Prouser or Andrea Myers at (718) 543-9360. Ms. Lawrence can be reached at cathyschwa@ztel.com.
