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Graham comes home for concert at FUMC
by Georgia Temple
Midland Reporter-Telegram
By Georgia Temple
Entertainment Editor
American mezzo soprano Susan Graham performs here following a 10-day concert tour in five South American cities with a French orchestra. Before leaving the States, she answered questions from the South American press via e-mail. Among those questions was one regarding what advice she would give to aspiring singers.
"Always keep studying voice because your voice is always changing," Graham said she told the reporters. "You have to stay on top of it. And the other thing -- you can have the most beautiful voice in the world but unless you have something to say nobody will listen to it for more than five minutes.
"Say what you mean and mean what you say. That came from my daddy because he was one of those people like so many people I grew up with, his word was his bond, and my musical word is my bond."
Graham, who is the daughter of Midlanders Betty Graham and the late Pete Graham, spoke of what the third annual Susan Graham Day means to her.
"It is such an incredible honor to be recognized by your hometown," said Graham, who performs a free concert here Sept. 5 at First United Methodist Church. "You spend so many years as a student and as a kid trying to decide what you're going to turn into as an adult. And to recognize years later that you have the support of all those people who helped you, that is very, very gratifying. And I really feel like there are specific individuals who were really instrumental in helping shape the artist that I would become."
Those individuals include Graham's music teachers and her family.
"Joyce Finley was my piano teacher and Ruth Ann Griffin was my voice teacher and Doug Brown was my choir teacher and Carol Hall - those people were really instrumental," said Graham, who was born in New Mexico and grew up in Midland. "In addition to the obvious support, the undying and unflagging support of my family who encouraged me and took me to lessons all the time. My mother is very musically talented, and she sort of fostered that in my sister and me. And my father was a big man with enormous lung power."
Graham laughed and added, "I think I got my lung power from him. In addition to being an oil man he was a Little League coach. He had to yell across big arenas. I think that's where I got my ability to yell across big theaters -- a slightly more cultivated yelling."
A graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music, Graham has performed in the major opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
"It's fantastic," Graham said of performing at the Met. "It's a pinch-me-moment every time I do it. I feel very at home there now, but I never forget how fortunate I feel to be there."
Graham's performance here at 7 p.m. Sept. 5 is sponsored by Midland Opera Theater. The concert is free. Donations will be accepted. For more information, call 699-4759 or (432) 352-3398.
The program will include works from operas as well as Broadway numbers. Graham will be accompanied by Doug Montgomery, another performer who is well known to Midlanders, especially those who travel to Santa Fe, N.M. A graduate of Northwestern University and the Juilliard School of Music, Montgomery will give Graham a break during the concert and perform a set by himself.
The two have worked together before.
"Doug and I have been friends for 20 years," Graham said.
"We always have fun because both of us are serious about what we do, but we don't take ourselves seriously," Montgomery said, noting the program will include "what Susan does best. And what they pay her the big bucks for is the arias written for the mezzo soprano voice."
Recently, Montgomery performed at the Spencer Theatre in New Mexico.
"I just broke a record according to the Spencer Theater in Ruidoso last week," said Montgomery. "The Smothers Brothers were there the week before. And the week before that the guy who wrote 'American Pie.' That was my fifth performance last week. I ended up playing for three and a half hours. I started at 8, had a 15-minute intermission, and I ended up at 11:30 p.m. I told them to get the sleeping bags out."
Montgomery last performed here for a MOT benefit in 2007. He has since married and finds himself better organized than when he was single.
"She (Denise) basically took her skills from her previous career in the dental field -- she had her own business and organized everything," said Montgomery, who is the featured pianist and vocalist at Vanessie of Santa Fe. "I took her away from all of that, and she's organizing me." He laughed and added, "And I've got nice teeth, too. My dental hygiene has never been better."
Since her last performance here, Graham's appearance has changed.
"I've gone blonde," Graham said. "I've reinvented myself as we are wont to do at certain points in our lives. It sort of came along as a lark as it got harder to stay on top of the gray." She laughed. "I was always highlighting, and then the highlights took on a life of their own."
Age and experience have their advantages.
"I've sort of been known in the opera world as someone with a sort of sunny disposition and a kind of affability that made people think of me as the girl-next-door parts, not the dramatic heroine parts. And that's been the shift. As I've moved through my 40s, I've developed into a person and an artist of a little more depth and maturity with the ability to take on some of these more epic characters.
"It takes a real ability to dig down deep to access the emotions, to access hope and joy is easy for me because I'm naturally a pretty joyful person. The challenge has been to go beyond that. The thing that makes an epic character epic is how large they live and how far they fall.
"I haven't sung Cleopatra in an opera, but I've been doing a big concert piece about her final days, and actually I've just recorded it with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Raffle, and it's going out in October. That's sort of going into the more dramatic repertoire."
The "great thing about getting older" for Graham is that now she "can sing with experience. My heart has been broken so I can bring heartbreak to the stage. My goal is to let people feel what I'm feeling."
Growing up in West Texas was instrumental in forging her expressive style.
"I come from a place where opera isn't very well known, so I feel like I work even harder to make it fun for people and to make it understood and accessible," Graham said. "In New York I saw people who had grown up in opera that didn't work as hard as I did. I try to infuse it with some extra juice. If I could make my parents love it and keep them interested, to make them appreciate the kind of music I was doing, then I could certainly do it with audiences who knew about it.".
Entertainment Editor
American mezzo soprano Susan Graham performs here following a 10-day concert tour in five South American cities with a French orchestra. Before leaving the States, she answered questions from the South American press via e-mail. Among those questions was one regarding what advice she would give to aspiring singers.
"Always keep studying voice because your voice is always changing," Graham said she told the reporters. "You have to stay on top of it. And the other thing -- you can have the most beautiful voice in the world but unless you have something to say nobody will listen to it for more than five minutes.
"Say what you mean and mean what you say. That came from my daddy because he was one of those people like so many people I grew up with, his word was his bond, and my musical word is my bond."
Graham, who is the daughter of Midlanders Betty Graham and the late Pete Graham, spoke of what the third annual Susan Graham Day means to her.
"It is such an incredible honor to be recognized by your hometown," said Graham, who performs a free concert here Sept. 5 at First United Methodist Church. "You spend so many years as a student and as a kid trying to decide what you're going to turn into as an adult. And to recognize years later that you have the support of all those people who helped you, that is very, very gratifying. And I really feel like there are specific individuals who were really instrumental in helping shape the artist that I would become."
Those individuals include Graham's music teachers and her family.
"Joyce Finley was my piano teacher and Ruth Ann Griffin was my voice teacher and Doug Brown was my choir teacher and Carol Hall - those people were really instrumental," said Graham, who was born in New Mexico and grew up in Midland. "In addition to the obvious support, the undying and unflagging support of my family who encouraged me and took me to lessons all the time. My mother is very musically talented, and she sort of fostered that in my sister and me. And my father was a big man with enormous lung power."
Graham laughed and added, "I think I got my lung power from him. In addition to being an oil man he was a Little League coach. He had to yell across big arenas. I think that's where I got my ability to yell across big theaters -- a slightly more cultivated yelling."
A graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music, Graham has performed in the major opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
"It's fantastic," Graham said of performing at the Met. "It's a pinch-me-moment every time I do it. I feel very at home there now, but I never forget how fortunate I feel to be there."
Graham's performance here at 7 p.m. Sept. 5 is sponsored by Midland Opera Theater. The concert is free. Donations will be accepted. For more information, call 699-4759 or (432) 352-3398.
The program will include works from operas as well as Broadway numbers. Graham will be accompanied by Doug Montgomery, another performer who is well known to Midlanders, especially those who travel to Santa Fe, N.M. A graduate of Northwestern University and the Juilliard School of Music, Montgomery will give Graham a break during the concert and perform a set by himself.
The two have worked together before.
"Doug and I have been friends for 20 years," Graham said.
"We always have fun because both of us are serious about what we do, but we don't take ourselves seriously," Montgomery said, noting the program will include "what Susan does best. And what they pay her the big bucks for is the arias written for the mezzo soprano voice."
Recently, Montgomery performed at the Spencer Theatre in New Mexico.
"I just broke a record according to the Spencer Theater in Ruidoso last week," said Montgomery. "The Smothers Brothers were there the week before. And the week before that the guy who wrote 'American Pie.' That was my fifth performance last week. I ended up playing for three and a half hours. I started at 8, had a 15-minute intermission, and I ended up at 11:30 p.m. I told them to get the sleeping bags out."
Montgomery last performed here for a MOT benefit in 2007. He has since married and finds himself better organized than when he was single.
"She (Denise) basically took her skills from her previous career in the dental field -- she had her own business and organized everything," said Montgomery, who is the featured pianist and vocalist at Vanessie of Santa Fe. "I took her away from all of that, and she's organizing me." He laughed and added, "And I've got nice teeth, too. My dental hygiene has never been better."
Since her last performance here, Graham's appearance has changed.
"I've gone blonde," Graham said. "I've reinvented myself as we are wont to do at certain points in our lives. It sort of came along as a lark as it got harder to stay on top of the gray." She laughed. "I was always highlighting, and then the highlights took on a life of their own."
Age and experience have their advantages.
"I've sort of been known in the opera world as someone with a sort of sunny disposition and a kind of affability that made people think of me as the girl-next-door parts, not the dramatic heroine parts. And that's been the shift. As I've moved through my 40s, I've developed into a person and an artist of a little more depth and maturity with the ability to take on some of these more epic characters.
"It takes a real ability to dig down deep to access the emotions, to access hope and joy is easy for me because I'm naturally a pretty joyful person. The challenge has been to go beyond that. The thing that makes an epic character epic is how large they live and how far they fall.
"I haven't sung Cleopatra in an opera, but I've been doing a big concert piece about her final days, and actually I've just recorded it with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Raffle, and it's going out in October. That's sort of going into the more dramatic repertoire."
The "great thing about getting older" for Graham is that now she "can sing with experience. My heart has been broken so I can bring heartbreak to the stage. My goal is to let people feel what I'm feeling."
Growing up in West Texas was instrumental in forging her expressive style.
"I come from a place where opera isn't very well known, so I feel like I work even harder to make it fun for people and to make it understood and accessible," Graham said. "In New York I saw people who had grown up in opera that didn't work as hard as I did. I try to infuse it with some extra juice. If I could make my parents love it and keep them interested, to make them appreciate the kind of music I was doing, then I could certainly do it with audiences who knew about it.".
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