Greetings XCI #2 - Wayland Academy

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alumniartists E very student who has ever felt forced to justify his/her decision to focus on the arts during high school should hang a poster of Susan Caldwell `73 on their wall. Susan Caldwell is neither a famous singer, nor is she a guitar rock goddess or the sort of pop star known solely by her first name. This Wayland graduate, though, is a professional musician living a life she loves surrounded by and infused with her life’s passion: music. SUSAN Caldwel 8 wayland academy greetings Susan Caldwell’s job description is not easily encapsulated in a few words, and this is because she has numerous vocations. She is a church organist, a mother, a faculty member at the Mannes College of Music, and she holds a title that seems to encompass all the responsibilities of the three aforementioned positions: Assistant Conductor for the New York City Opera. Oftentimes a job title can hide the complexity of a person’s duties, and in Caldwell’s case this couldn’t be more true.
l According to Caldwell, the Assistant Conductor position “entails the musical preparation of singers for their performances. Private coaching, anything they need to improve their musical understanding of a role.” That sounds simple enough, but, in order to truly coach an opera singer at this high level, Caldwell has to exercise disparate skills simultaneously. For one thing, she has to be versed in a number of different languages. Caldwell noted, “As an opera coach one has to be, if not fluent, literate in French, German, and Italian, as they come up most frequently.” In addition, she has to rapidly transpose music that was written for an orchestra and play it on the piano while multi-tasking in a nearly unimaginable fashion. “If I’m coaching the singer in the role of Carmen, I need to sing all the other voice parts, so she can make her entrances while I’m playing the piano.” This means that, while playing music on the piano that was never meant for a piano, she must sing multiple roles in a foreign language while correcting someone else. And these corrections must be delivered in the most careful manner. In addition to linguist, musician, and coach, Caldwell often finds herself playing psychologist. “Singers,” said Caldwell, “are vulnerable creatures, entirely dependent on their instrument. There is not much work for them to begin with, and they have a pretty short shelf life. They have to be ready by thirty years old; youth is kind of everything these days. They need a lot of people to support them and make them look as good as possible.” Caldwell, herself, credits many people in her life for helping her achieve her current status as a musician and professor, and she looks back fondly on her time at Wayland Academy as a day student. “I’m grateful for my Wayland education. I had three tremendous music teachers: Connie Koehne even before I went to Wayland, and she continued to be a great mentor and influence, and I studied piano with Mr. Kahn and the organ with Mr. (Franklin) Stecker.” She credits these and other teachers for guiding her in the right direction and creating opportunities for her. “The training for a musician is not always as straightforward as for other fields; you have to get an early start,” said Caldwell. During her time in Susan Caldwell `73 (center) with her students in the opera program at the Mannes College of Music Beaver Dam, she would sometimes accompany the choir on the chapel organ, and Mr. Stecker made her his assistant at First Lutheran Church in Beaver Dam. She performed with the Beaver Dam Community Symphony and was part of a group that called itself the New Baroque Jazz Trio. “I had so much professional experience even before I went to college. A lot of responsibility was entrusted to me at Wayland, and in other places that might not have been possible.” Her education at Wayland provided Caldwell with four years of French and enough Advanced Placement credits that she was able to test out of classes at St. Olaf College, opening doors to a number of other courses and allowing her to accelerate. Since then, music has taken her all across the United States with further schooling and experiences from San Francisco to Michigan to Georgia. For a brief spell, she found herself on a Cunard cruise line as part of an opera trio. Today, she works with some of the most talented young singers from around the world, sometimes even performing with the New York City Opera. “If there’s a keyboard in the orchestration I will sometimes play that in the performances. For instance, recently during Puccini’s Tosca, there’s a very thrilling part in the opera, where I had to run from playing celesta in the pit, get in an elevator, ride that to the top floor, climb a ladder, and play the organ over the stage.” All of that sounds truly exciting, but the way Susan Caldwell speaks about music reveals that her art is more than just an exciting job. “It isn’t just our career. It’s who you are. Sometimes I have to remind myself that for many, many people, even if they have a career, it’s still just what they do. There’s something about music that fills your every atom. “Music transforms people. When I’m working you can be sure I’m not thinking about anything else, and worries and anxieties all leave your mind. I realize more and more how blessed I am to have this career.” www.wayland.org 9 ALUMNI ARTISTS
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Page 20 and 21: COMMENCEMENTby Tyler Graham 2009 18
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Page 24 and 25: Adam Bunkoske Valedictorian Audrey
Page 26 and 27: Sara Sanderson `74 and son Andrew W
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Page 34 and 35: alumnigatherings Alumni in the Sara
Page 36 and 37: newsandnotes Editor’s note: We wi
Page 38 and 39: newsandnotes Seven women from the W
Page 40 and 41: newsandnotes 1990s continued Liz Bo
Page 42 and 43: newsandnotes Throughout his life, W
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