Most singers have more than one income source. In addition to performing, many singers teach, direct, conduct, work in arts administration, or have other music-related work—one or more “day” jobs to supplement their performing work in order to make ends meet. Several singers who run successful performance series in addition to their own performing agreed to speak about how they make everything work together.
Mezzo-soprano Sara Murphy has had great success as a concert singer. She was a 2013 winner of the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition and has performed with the Oratorio Society of New York, with the American Symphony Orchestra, and with conductor James Conlon at Cincinnati May Festival and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival ( www.SaraMurphyMezzo.com).
Murphy is also executive director of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space (SMSS), a performance series at New York’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. As executive director, she works closely with Artistic Director K. Scott Warren and is responsible for marketing, fundraising, box office, program production, general administration, and anything else that needs to be done. In addition to its oratorio and organ recital offerings, SMSS also presents informal, salon-like benefit concerts, with all proceeds directed toward charities that address social justice concerns.
Soprano Martha Guth has been performing professionally for over 15 years. Her repertoire is primarily orchestral concert repertoire, oratorio, and art song—although she also performs in one or two opera productions a year. Her recital work includes engagements at Wigmore Hall in London with Graham Johnson at the piano and New York City recitals with Malcolm Martineau and Dalton Baldwin. Orchestral performances have ranged from Bach to world premieres and everything in between.
Guth has recorded three CDs, including a solo Schubert disc with fortepianist Penelope Crawford for Musica Omnia (www.MarthaGuth.com). Guth is cofounder and administrator of the Casement Fund Song Series. The Casement Fund is a trust set up to encourage creative writing and poetry. The Series presents live performances several times a year in various venues in New York City. Its mission is to provide a home for both poetry and classical music through passionate performances of art song. The CFSS began when Guth was asked by a Casement Fund board member to curate a recital series sponsored by the Fund. The board member had heard podcasts that Guth hosted with pianist Erika Switzer that contained interviews with composers and live performances by colleagues in art song.
Baritone Jesse Blumberg grew up in New Jersey. Having been educated at some prestigious Midwestern music schools (Michigan and Cincinnati), he now lives in New York. He narrowly missed selection for some year-long Young Artist Programs in those first few post-grad years, but considers that a blessing in disguise. He stayed in New York, working on the professional choral scene and meeting composers and conductors with whom he still works today. He eventually realized he was having just the career he wanted—lots of collaborative and rewarding concert work and a few staged operas each season
(www.JesseBlumberg.com).
Blumberg is artistic director of Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF), a chamber music series. He and Executive Director (and mezzo-soprano) Donna Breitzer try to apply a broad definition to the genre, presenting early music, “ink-still-wet” new music, and the occasional non-classical chamber program. “We certainly present a healthy amount of classical song repertoire,”says Blumberg, “but I wouldn’t say we’re a song festival or song series. Our mission is really grounded in the geography of New York; we want to bring world-class talent to every corner of this city, at affordable prices.”
5BMF began in 2007 when an opportunity to curate a series in the Bronx didn’t pan out but triggered Blumberg’s aspirations to create a city-wide music series. “I had always really enjoyed programming recitals and connecting colleagues I thought would play and sing well together,” he says. “And when I stumbled upon the five-borough idea, I realized that while it was very ambitious in scope, it was also likely to be really interesting.”
Mezzo-soprano Cindy Sadler has been working as a singer consistently since graduating from the University of Texas, first in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Young Artist Program (now called the Ryan Opera Center), and then in the LA cast of The Phantom of the Opera. Along with a Ring Cycle in Arizona, these jobs led to more and more engagements and steady work. Sadler’s repertoire ranges from Bernstein to Verdi, with signature roles like Mistress Quickly, the Marquise of Birkenfield, Marcellina, and Erda (www.CindySadler.com).
Sadler also runs Spotlight on Opera, a multifaceted arts service organization that offers a concert series (Spotlight Concerts), where professional singers and young artists have the opportunity to perform roles needed to advance their careers, and a low-cost summer training and performance program that offers a wide variety of performing opportunities for aspiring and avocational artists. Spotlight on Opera began in 2007, when Sadler was on the voice faculty at St. Edward’s University in Austin and was asked to create a one-week summer opera camp. It grew tremendously after the first year and quickly expanded to four weeks, producing two full operas, two scenes programs, numerous concerts, and classes for the participants. The program introduced Spotlight Concerts to fill the need for a performance program year-round. “Spotlight Concerts encompasses singers at all stages of development, including professional, whereas Spotlight on Opera is strictly a summer training and performance program,” says Sadler.
When Sadler’s singing career grew so that she could no longer teach at St. Edward’s, there was no one at the university to carry on the program, “So I took it with me!” When asked if running the program has affected her performing career, she states firmly, “I don’t allow it to. Performing is the priority.” Spotlight has a team of faculty members who also serve as administrators, and Sadler relies on them to help run the program. She and her team plan seasons around her performance schedule, but conflicts are inevitable.
Asked about coordinating her performing activities and her administrative duties, Murphy touts the benefits of planning and organization. “I have not had to turn down anything I have been offered as a soloist because of my ED position,” she says. “I just work ahead and make the scheduling pileups as manageable as possible. I have excellent colleagues and a handful of superstar volunteers at St. Ignatius. With the benefit of technology, I can manage and check in on things from wherever I am. I set as much as I can in motion ahead of time and then check in to make sure all is going reasonably according to plan when I can’t be there in person. I see my ED position and my solo vocal work as very happily blended and I definitely notice that one enhances the other.”
This paid off for her in December 2014 when Murphy had her Carnegie Hall debut taking part in a concert of Ligeti and Schnittke, a Messiah performance with Oratorio Society of New York, and her Lincoln Center debut in Hindemith’s opera The Long Christmas Dinner—while also overseeing details for the five concerts SMSS presented the same month.
“Being ED of Sacred Music in a Sacred Space has positively affected my singing and musicianship,” Murphy offers. “No question about it. I am very grateful to be able to look at performing from both sides—from the perspective of the performer and from the perspective of the producer. As a producer, I can understand singers’ and other performers’ needs and, as a singer, I can understand what producers are facing. Both as a producer and a singer, I consider myself to be the servant of the music. My goal is to bring it to life in both cases.”
Blumberg’s performing hasn’t been affected by his administrative duties, but it’s something that is always on his mind. In the first few seasons, he performed on 5BMF programs, but now rarely does so. “It was never meant as a vehicle for my career in any way,” he says, “so I’m really glad that it quickly began to take on a life of its own.” Concerts have to be scheduled at the convenience of the artists and the venues, so he and Breitzer find a way to make it work in their own lives. “This week is one of the crazier times—we’re somehow going to present an early evening show in Queens on the same night that Donna is singing offstage at the Met and I’m covering at the Phil!”
Asked about his own singing, he admits, “I wish I found more isolated practice time for myself, but I’m not sure that I’d be any better at carving it out if I weren’t directing 5BMF.” Being an administrator has affected his view of the business. “I walk into an audition differently, and perhaps more empathetically, knowing how much work goes into planning repertoire and artists for an entire season.” When he works at a regional opera company, he makes sure to network and pick the brains of their marketing and development staff.
Guth is performing more now than when the Casement Fund Song Series first began. “Perhaps because my work has always been concert repertoire, my career has had a slow and steady rise all along,” she says. “Each year, my gigs tend to get better and more plentiful.” Because concert work requires shorter, more manageable time commitments than opera work, Guth is able to give the CFSS the attention she feels it deserves.
She admits it has been stressful at times, but says both performing and running CFSS are important to her as an artist and that she would not let either go. “Is my own singing suffering from this? Absolutely not!” she says emphatically. “I have become a more complete artist since I now know what really goes into both production and performance, and it makes me even more invested in bringing bigger audiences to art song.” She believes art song is undergoing a renaissance, considering how many composers are now writing new songs.
“What has been most interesting in my work running the CFSS is finding what things I am good at outside of performing and where I really need help,” says Guth. “I do all of the promotional work, I find and contract the artists, I secure the venues, I help create programs with the artists, and I set up ticket sales. In other words, it is a one-woman show right now! There is a risk of burnout in ventures like this if you feel like you have to manage everything yourself.” Guth will have the assistance she needs next season, when the series will be under the aegis of Sparks & Wiry Cries, the website that evolved from Guth’s podcasts (www.SparksAndWiryCries.com).
Sadler says the administrative work she does has its benefits. “If anything, it’s improved my technique and focus,” she says. “When you take away learning and practice time you’ve got to replace quantity with quality. I learned three new roles this year and will have been on the road five months from the beginning of the year until July, when the Spotlight Opera program starts. Everything is still getting done. Performing is and always will be my priority and first love, but I love working with other singers—especially developing talent—almost as much as I love performance. I really do like the administrative side of things.”
All of the singers interviewed believe more and more artists will form careers combining performance with other elements of the music business. “Many music schools are making a business-of-music class an option,” Guth says. “This was not available to me in school, and I have had to learn so much by making mistakes along the way!”
“I tell my students the vast majority of professional musicians have more than one income stream,” Sadler says. “That is the norm, although you rarely hear that in an academic setting.” Sadler once was circumspect about her non-singing activities, thinking people wouldn’t believe a singer is successful if she did anything other than performing. She is now known for her work in many areas, including stage directing, career consultations and workshops for singers, writing a blog and Classical Singer articles, teaching voice, and administering Spotlight. “I’m a strong believer in defining my own success—and at this point, the cat is out of the bag.”
Murphy challenges the view that “day job” and performing are in opposition to each other. She sees more and more singers moving away from viewing the two things as opposites, as either/or. “I view it as a happy ‘and’ in my life.”
