Summer '21 Updates
1. ABD – A Step Closer to “Dr.” H
In May, I crossed a significant milestone in my doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin: I finished my coursework and was promoted to “Dissertator” status!
ABD (short for, “All But Dissertation”) status means that there is no remaining residency requirement for me at the University, and I am free to take a full-time faculty or administration position at another institution—or to return to full-time singing. I remain a Paul J. Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Fellow at the University with funding for one more year, during which time, I intend to sing three more recitals and finish my dissertation. Homestretch!
In addition to a standard graduate music curriculum, my coursework has included 12 credits towards my Arts Entrepreneurship Minor, 9 credits toward a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship from the Wisconsin School of Business, a year-long consulting project/board placement at one of Madison’s most active and consequential community nonprofits, and two semesters of Dutch language.
2. Fulbright Semifinalist
In January, I learned that I had been selected by the Institute for International Education (IIE) as a semifinalist for the Fulbright Student Program for the 2021-22 school year. My proposal would have sent me to Düsseldorf and Köln (Cologne) for the school year to work on my final recital and dissertation at the Institute for Music and Media at the Robert Schumann Hochschule für Musik. The Fulbright has long been a dream of mine, and alas, it remains a dream deferred. In April, I learned that I was not selected for the Fulbright program, but it remains a tremendous honor to have achieved semifinalist status in the most competitive year in the program’s history.
3. A Return to Live Performance!
On May 13, my collaborator Thomas Kasdorf and I performed the first of four recitals required for my doctorate. Due to COVID restrictions, the live audience was small, but the evening was live-streamed, and video recordings of the evening may be seen here.
The program was as follows:
Ibert – Chansons de Don Quichotte
Wolf – Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo
Lynn – Your John Keats
The final set was composed in 2017 by Debra Lynn, and the text of the nine songs is drawn from the letters of John Keats to his fiancée Fanny Brawne at home in England as he was dying of tuberculosis in Italy.
I dedicated my performance that evening to my friend Antoine Hodge, a bass-baritone who succumbed to COVID in February at only 38 years of age. In the last year of his life, Antoine achieved perhaps the two pinnacles of an American opera singer’s career: singing at the Metropolitan Opera (Porgy and Bess) and winning a GRAMMY (Porgy and Bess, Metropolitan Opera). Antoine was a wonderful artist, but an especially great friend and colleague, and I and so many others miss him immeasurably.
4. UW Arts Business Competition 2021
This spring, I submitted a business plan to UW’s Arts Business Competition (ABC) and was named a finalist shortly thereafter. The three finalists presented our business proposals publicly and to a panel of judges that included a Venture Capital executive from American Family Insurance, the COO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), and a former ABC winner who currently runs a music festival in Wisconsin.
My business, Atelier Unlimited, took second place and walked away with some very helpful feedback as well as $1000 of seed money to get us off the ground. More to come in Fall 2021!
5. Back to Utah Festival Opera
Late this past spring, in the wake of gradually relaxing COVID restrictions in the mountain west, Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre announced that it would be mounting a 4-show season in 2021 and welcoming audiences back to the Utah Theatre after taking 2020 off (along with the rest of the theatre world). I had previously worked at UFOMT in the summers of 2014 and 2015, singing Jigger Craigin in Carousel and covering Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha. As luck would have it, I had recently been released from a summer contract at another festival and was available to join UFOMT as Company Manager for the 2021 season.
The experience has been challenging in many ways, but it is wonderful to be back at a company I love making live theatre happen again, and I am very thankful for the opportunity to learn the ropes in such a supportive environment.