Read Online Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman - Free Book Online
Authors: Jessye Norman
Tags: nonfiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Retail, music, Opera, singer, Composers & Musicians
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did not seem a good time to speak about it.
My parents were, of course, thrilled at the prospect of my going to Howard University, and totally overjoyed when, just a few weeks later, word arrived that not only would I have the opportunity to attend, but that on the recommendations of my two new best friends there, Dean Fax and Professor Grant, I was being offered a full-tuition scholarship. I did apply to other universities in the course of my senior year in high school, just for the fun of it. I found myself in happy disbelief that I was accepted wherever I had applied, though none of the others offered me the scholarship assistance that Howard had.
The summer before I entered the university, I spent a great deal of unnecessary time packing my trunk. My mother would walk through my bedroom while I pretended to have so much to do to get ready to travel to Washington. She knew well that I was feeling torn. Part of me wanted to study in the College of Liberal Arts at Howard, in preparation for medical school. Yet I also held the “bird in the hand” prize of the College of Fine Arts. In her typical fashion, my mother stated something like “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, dear, but you do have a full-tuition scholarship to the School of Music.” We both had a little laugh at that.
I’m most grateful for that not-so-subtle nudge. You have to wonder how many parents would have encouraged a child to pursue music over medicine.
AT LAST, THE FALL of 1963 approached. I would arrive again at Union Station in Washington, this time accompanied by my father, only a few days after the great March on Washington and one of the most renowned speeches of all time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” Even then, the irony of this now historical speech’s title and my arrival in Washington was apparent to me: a dream.
At Howard, I arrived to find that even though I had been accepted to study vocal performance, I would still have to sing for the entire voice department, as only Professor Grant and Dean Fax had heard me sing those many months ago. This is a normal part of the entrance process there. First-year music students present themselves before faculty in determining their two primary courses of study. I recall my uneasiness when waiting for my appointment outside the door to the audition room, I spotted another student holding a stack of music scores in what seemed to be about eighteen different languages.
“Do you know all those songs?” I asked nervously.
“Yes,” she answered confidently.
“Are you going to sing your Schubert songs in German?”
“Oh, yes!” she said matter-of-factly.
I thought I might as well go home right then and there. I still knew only the one Schubert song, and I was not going to sing it in German. I didn’t know that anyone expected me to. When the time came, I sang the music I had prepared, including my Schubert song in English. The faculty was pleased with me and asked me all kinds of questions about my education in Augusta. I was happy to talk about the many teachers who had supported me throughout my public school education. I also sat for an initial piano examination, which went so well that I was allowed to choose piano and music education as my second subjects.
It was Carolyn V. Grant who helped me to find and know my own voice. She had been teaching for about forty-five years when I came to her, and there was nothing about singing that had not come across her desk at some point. It was so wonderful to work with a person who, though a trained singer herself, was dedicated to teaching, who wanted to be a teacher, rather than a performer. Professor Grant was a person who, from the time she was a student studying music, wanted to teach other people to sing and to sing properly because she felt very strongly that, somehow, we were getting away from the understanding that the sounds we make as singers should be produced naturally. She insisted that there were
My parents were, of course, thrilled at the prospect of my going to Howard University, and totally overjoyed when, just a few weeks later, word arrived that not only would I have the opportunity to attend, but that on the recommendations of my two new best friends there, Dean Fax and Professor Grant, I was being offered a full-tuition scholarship. I did apply to other universities in the course of my senior year in high school, just for the fun of it. I found myself in happy disbelief that I was accepted wherever I had applied, though none of the others offered me the scholarship assistance that Howard had.
The summer before I entered the university, I spent a great deal of unnecessary time packing my trunk. My mother would walk through my bedroom while I pretended to have so much to do to get ready to travel to Washington. She knew well that I was feeling torn. Part of me wanted to study in the College of Liberal Arts at Howard, in preparation for medical school. Yet I also held the “bird in the hand” prize of the College of Fine Arts. In her typical fashion, my mother stated something like “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, dear, but you do have a full-tuition scholarship to the School of Music.” We both had a little laugh at that.
I’m most grateful for that not-so-subtle nudge. You have to wonder how many parents would have encouraged a child to pursue music over medicine.
AT LAST, THE FALL of 1963 approached. I would arrive again at Union Station in Washington, this time accompanied by my father, only a few days after the great March on Washington and one of the most renowned speeches of all time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.” Even then, the irony of this now historical speech’s title and my arrival in Washington was apparent to me: a dream.
At Howard, I arrived to find that even though I had been accepted to study vocal performance, I would still have to sing for the entire voice department, as only Professor Grant and Dean Fax had heard me sing those many months ago. This is a normal part of the entrance process there. First-year music students present themselves before faculty in determining their two primary courses of study. I recall my uneasiness when waiting for my appointment outside the door to the audition room, I spotted another student holding a stack of music scores in what seemed to be about eighteen different languages.
“Do you know all those songs?” I asked nervously.
“Yes,” she answered confidently.
“Are you going to sing your Schubert songs in German?”
“Oh, yes!” she said matter-of-factly.
I thought I might as well go home right then and there. I still knew only the one Schubert song, and I was not going to sing it in German. I didn’t know that anyone expected me to. When the time came, I sang the music I had prepared, including my Schubert song in English. The faculty was pleased with me and asked me all kinds of questions about my education in Augusta. I was happy to talk about the many teachers who had supported me throughout my public school education. I also sat for an initial piano examination, which went so well that I was allowed to choose piano and music education as my second subjects.
It was Carolyn V. Grant who helped me to find and know my own voice. She had been teaching for about forty-five years when I came to her, and there was nothing about singing that had not come across her desk at some point. It was so wonderful to work with a person who, though a trained singer herself, was dedicated to teaching, who wanted to be a teacher, rather than a performer. Professor Grant was a person who, from the time she was a student studying music, wanted to teach other people to sing and to sing properly because she felt very strongly that, somehow, we were getting away from the understanding that the sounds we make as singers should be produced naturally. She insisted that there were
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