Greetings XCI #2 - Wayland Academy

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