Mysterious Islands: One minute read

With the recent baffling and disturbing disappearance of Dr Mosely on a Greek island I am reminded of  curious events that happened to me last year on a similar island. On that glorious island, I received news that a close family friend had died suddenly and tragically in a motor bike accident. A thunder bolt literally coursed through my body, I was unable to accept it. Curiously, the people I were with showed little sympathy and instead emotionally brought me to my knees by attacking me. As a Jungian I would suggest they were incapable of dealing with their shadow side and fear of death and so projected these momentous emotions on to me. The most powerful response I could muster was to leave that island very quickly, however it came at a huge cost to my well being. Thankfully with the love and support of my husband Michael, my wonderful friends and a very astute psychotherapist I can truly say I am now 9 months later moving on. In the painful process of recovery some home truths were realised such as "you are are never more than 6 feet away from a rat". It is curious that such a gorgeous place as a Greek island could throw up trouble, but in this respect Shakespeare in The Tempest alluded to such events.

 It was on the island that that I composed my 4th symphony The Island. 

Yehudi Menuhin, the virtuoso violinist, said that to be an artist is to suffer. I am not sure that I agree with him as like everyone I want to have a happy life. However I could say that great art can emerge from suffering because it provides the grit in the shell that makes the pearl. Perhaps I wouldn't have composed so prolifically had I not been overwhelmed with grief at the premature loss of my parents many years ago and perhaps I would not have elected to go to the same Greek island for so many years had I not been looking for a replacement family. My final composition from the left island last year was my Stabat Mater which I consider my best work yet. The island blessed me.

You can watch the performance in Ely Cathedral on this link. Please make a comment if you can.

https://youtu.be/YZwU3PJYTic?si=M6uvONv-uuEosHZB

 

On the plane home last year from the Greek island, the Greek architect that I was serendipitously sitting next to smiled as I shed tears and said " but there are so many Greek islands to explore". This year I am heading out to Greece on a new adventure to the Peloponnese region with a spring in my step and gratitude for all the good and bad that the Greek island that I have moved on from has afforded me.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

From Ithaka

BY C. P. CAVAFY

 

Tim Le Mare: His ideal was self-empowerment. 2 minute read.

I met Tim Le Mare 27 years ago. Tim ran the sailing for Skyros holidays and very well too. Imagine  Atsitsa bay on the island of Skyros was once graced with a modest yacht moored in its glorious waters. However the character of the sailing man called Tim was even more magnificent than the bay. He was a truly loving man with a passion for the sea which he shared with us through his high level of emotion. He also loved classical music and opera. He took participants sailing without fear for their ineptitude or judgement for their anxieties. Instead his core ideal and passion was for each individual to feel a sense of empowerment, a quality which lined up with the philosophy of Skyros holidays. In particular Tim was passionate about encouraging women to take the helm. He saw this gesture as a metaphor in which he wanted to contribute to a paradigm shift for men and women. Again this noble ideal was in keeping with the focus of Skyros holidays. Skyros was the place where Tim could reveal his authentic manliness without judgement, he could comfortably wear his heart on his sleeve. Although a deep lover of women, in particular his wonderful wife Jo, Tim was also a matey man, Mark Gunston being one of his longest term friends.  

Tim Le Mare

I felt instantly connected to Tim. His generosity of spirit and personal authenticity shone through. When I joined Skyros as a facilitator it was with some surprise that I discovered how passionate Tim was about maintaining boating standards. He would get quite apoplectic when arrangements weren't working out, his face reddened and his voice boomed. It was a magnificent display of how he really felt. Keeping the yacht at Skyros in tip top condition caused many frustrations which he daily brought to the table of the teachers Oekos group. Yet for the love of his work, Tim would often be up early in the morning snorkelling beneath the hull to clean out the bilges. He always felt held in the teacher's group which provided a safe place to express anything that was on one's mind. A rare gift in the workplace and what makes Skyros so special.

With Tim in Greece

My connection to Tim though was not only about boats and a love of the sea but we also shared a love of music in particular opera. Tim was highly cultured and in another life I can imagine he might have become a heldentenor singing in Wagner operas. We hung out together a lot when we were working at Skyros and Michael and I went on a yachting holiday with him and his beautiful wife Jo. On a personal level my encounter with Tim allowed me to finally take the helm of my own life. In recent years I lost touch with Tim partly because his influence had caused me to become very focussed on my composing and conducting. I always though hold Tim with deep reverence in my heart. Thank you Tim for being you. May you sail forever on the high seas bathed in the love of your friends from Skyros days.

https://youtu.be/dhA7yiIsq10?si=iiJ11ymOHeRPPis3

Lux Aeterna from Sea Requiem composed by Susannah Self

 

A Poem for Women’s Day

 

I choose not to wear frilly clothes, paint my nails or spend hours having my hair done

So, am I still a woman?

I like adventure, to walk for days into the wilderness

To kayak un-chartered seas, to swim unknown channels. 

So, am I a woman?

I can’t identify with the visual constraints that the media imposes on women

 I don’t want to waste my time with appearances.

 Instead I want to compose symphonies and operas.

So, am I a woman?

Actually, I don’t feel much like one especially since becoming older.

So, what am I?

I am just a human being who wants equality. 

Watch the performance 

https://vimeo.com/615142400

Soundscapes, Music, Video, Performance: SEAWOLF (Susannah Self)

A woman emerges from a pile of rubbish like Erda in Wagner’s Ring. Extended vocalisations interface with sea sounds and film. International composer/singer Susannah Self performs as SEAWOLF to combine physical theatre with punchy minimalist music. “I know that my body excites women, body excites men”. The Anatomy of a Woman, once the focus of male artists, is re-conceived to allow us to become authentically embodied. Inspired by artists Yayoi Kusama, Billie Eilish and Pina Bausch, HER BODY is the antidote to traditional operatic interpretations of what it feels like to be a woman.

 

 

So, you want to be an opera singer? 2 min read.

 

 An overview from the Voice Whisperer. 

 

It seems and is appealing, what’s not to like. Being paid to sing a solo role in a top opera house is a peak experience, a total high, addictive. But then there are the accumulated years of time spent alone in isolation, 25 in my case. The living in glamorous cities (Ghent), the elegant parks with naked sunbathing (Berlin), the soigneé fountains in shady boulevards (Lyon), the bike rides along vineyard-cuddled rivers (Luxembourg), the midnight skiing (Salzburg), the 3.00am frites with mayonnaise (Antwerp) and the haute cuisine (Strasbourg). Glamorous (the curtain calls) and lonely (night after night alone in a foreign apartment), stressful (over-demanding directors and conductors), modified by surprisingly personable co-cast colleagues (generous and empathetic).

Singing Madame Flora in Antwerp for Music Theatre Transparant 1997.

My breakthrough moment to singing in real opera houses.

If you are able to get your voice technique ready for purpose you will then need to venture out to auditions. Your voice will need to have a firm core, a centre which can soar over the orchestra. This is not a question of volume but of resonance which comes with a free function, resulting in a natural ring. 

 

Put a wine glass too close to your chest and it will no longer ping.

Tighten the surrounding muscles against your voice box and you have a clamped sound.

 

Unfortunately, a lot of conservatoire voice training places too much emphasises on fussy technique, too much over-control so that voices are perfectly formed but have no carrying power.

 

My primary teacher Josephine Veasey emphasised the necessity of

 

1. Core singing. 

2. Speaking on the pitches rather than singing.

 3. Great rhythmicality. 

 

"You’ll never get a job, Susie, unless the tone is right." 

 

Josie would say in her appealing East End accent. And she was right - somehow by dint of my insane level of determination I achieved the required sound. This was much to the surprise, even annoyance, of my professors from the Royal College of Music where I had sung as a treble choral scholar.

Singing Medea by Michael Christie in Extraordinary Women: Self 1991

 

Auditions became my friend in the end. This was as a result of my hard won totally secure vocal technique combined with a rebellious attitude of self-love and self-reliance. There is no room in this game for self-criticism.These self-determined qualities are paramount as one of the worst aspects of being an opera singer is that at whatever level you are singing at, you are liable to be pushed and pulled, bullied and abused by:

 

1. Sadistic casting agents and management.

 

2. Your own agent.

 

3. Directors who don’t know what they want.

 

4. Conductors suffering from sadistic projection.

 

The Crazed Conductor

 

He is a stray dog running from the street down the steps into our yard.

 He is in pain.

 His eyes are crazed, his belly inflamed. 

I have never seen such suffering.

Sharp twigs are sticking out at all angles from his stomach.

 

 

He is the conductor at the opera in Strasbourg,

 

He tyrannises me and all singers.

 

“You’re flat

 I don’t like the tone of your voice”

 

He bellows like a Alsatian dog.

 

But this is a dream and I gain the upper ground.

 

I stick up to him.

 He calms as

I remove the wounds, stick by stick from his dogged belly.

 

Analysis: Self,2019

 

https://vimeo.com/359964166?share=copy

 

Of course, there are some lovely ones too! So if singing is your passion then you must do it!

However it is best to be prepared for the reality. It is also important to develop your own artistic agenda and entrepreneurship so that you are not simply a hostage to fortune. 

 

So do you still want to be an opera singer?

 

My advice would be that if it is your passion, that if nothing else would satisfy you as much, then go for it.

Make sure you have the best personal support from the best singing teacher that you can find also from a musical career/voice coach like myself, The Voice Whisperer, to guide you into success.

 

The Voice Whisperer 

Offers meaningful career support for professional singers via

 

Residential consultations in Coastal Norfolk,

Day experiences in Ely,

Extended sessions near the Wigmore Hall in London

 

Email

selfmademusic@aol.com for more details

 

Dr Susannah Self has sung many solo roles for The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Vlaamse Opera, Opéra du Rhin, Lyon Opera, in the opera houses of Salzburg and Luxembourg as well as Katisha in The Mikado in London’s West End. For the Royal Opera House’s Garden Venture she created HEROIC WOMEN which went on to tour to the Far East, Syria, USA and Europe.

 

Susannah Self is a British singer who also sings Mistress Quickly in Salzburg, her Mrs. Grose was as good as any I have heard.

Hugh Canning, Opera Magazine, 2005

 

 

IDENTITY one minute read

 

I am an old composer.

I am an old woman.

My bones though feel fresh. 

I have travelled far and yet I am nowhere near my destination. 

My breasts are still pert, my breath fresh, my libido intact.

I am an old composer.

I am a poet.

 

 I am a cherry picker of dreams and I pick my nose at night.

I am gay in my heart but in reality, I am straight.

I identify as a successful male composer

And yes, I would have liked to have a penis 

But that was really because I wanted the power that men have, that men still have.

I am an old composer. 

Fuck I am a woman. 

 

Most featured art music composers are still young men. 

The teachers of composition departments are mostly middle-aged white men. 

Sure a few women get a show. 

But did you know that only 11% of new art music featured on the BBC is by women?

But there are more women composing than that, I can assure you.

 

I walk by the roaring symphony of the North Sea every day

I am whole without accolades. 

I have a male composer soul-mate who sustains my vision.

 

I am an old woman composer 

Who identifies as a young successful male composer 

Help me!

No forget that, I will help myself 

I am worth it. 

I am a god, if only you knew!

Sunken Cities 8' for string quartet composed by Dr Self

https://soundcloud.com/selfmademusic/sunken-cities-8?si=41163cb0d0434afaa15bffb8f0a6fd80&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

Holkham Bay, North Norfolk

We agree to meet at 6.00am in the secret club house.Two Minute Read

I meet a tall, slim, mature man with long, wavey, fair hair. He has the feeling of a magician or a form of Dr Who. I am deeply attracted to him and he drives me in a sturdily armoured 4 x 4 truck along the side of a beautiful, clear, pollution-free river. It is summer and there are large oak trees set slightly away from the grassy banks that caress the winding river. The bank that we drive along is rocky and rough at first but then smooths out to grass and makes an easy ride. 

The Scene: Self, 2024.

We arrive at a club house in the woods, were I discover that the elegant man I am attracted to is a composer. He is meeting a choir to talk about a commission. We are so excited by each other that we agree to meet in secret the next morning at 6.00 am in the club house to have sex. He gives me a four digit code to the club house which is 4121.   

This is the dream I had last night. It was I fancy about the male soul that lives within me. He is a composer, he is my muse. He is also my husband, my lovers, my friends who support me and my infinite  imagination. If a male artist has a female muse then it is fitting that a woman needs a male muse. I am not transgender however I identify as male composer because I am outspoken and compose muscular music as well as beautiful music. I like pithy music drama like Martha's Rant in my opera The Butt which I composed for Musiktheatertage in Vienna in 2016.

https://youtu.be/ZAGo-Jmiv9w 

Dr Self conducting in Vienna 2016

But the dream has some other pointers. The infinite stream of clear and gorgeous music ideas that I have, the beauty of nature, the fact that being an artist is a rocky road sometimes. But most intriguingly of all that to get into the clubhouse, where I can join with my soul composer, I need a code.This final point reminds me how difficult it is to find the way into the accepted profession of composers. I still feel like on the outside but I am working on it!  

Her Self in Mexico

On Resonance: Two Minute Read

When you strike a tuning fork, its resonance continues for a very long time. This is also what happens with experiences. So my musing this morning is about the beautiful loft flat in Ghent at Claudine Bovyn's Beguinage tucked into the centre. The resonances continue: the creaky wooden floors, the slightly pooey smell from the drains below, the vast Norwegian sledge bed and the view of the famous three church towers from the loft window. To know that Van Eyk's iconic altarpiece was only as minute away filled me with delight.

Detail from Van Eyk's Altarpiece, Ghent

But even more during these months spent living in Ghent was the feeling that as an artist that anything in my imagination was possible. It was a time of multiple contracts singing for the Vlaamse opera. But I also composed my second symphony Memories, Dreams, Reflections in that enchanted loft . Days of waiting to be called to rehearsal facilitated this so that I interfaced composing with gentle walks down the main canal where Maeterlink would have wandered.

Memories

https://youtu.be/0EerLaeHKP8

Dreams

https://youtu.be/taT26j1fhTA

Reflections

https://youtu.be/VLUqLMu_0Xo

Now some considerable time later the resonance of the Ghent experience strikes as I sit in another version of that loft, The ARC in coastal Norfolk. It is A Room of My Own as Virginia Wolf would describe it. I have all day to compose and drink in the stunning view of the water meadow interlaced with walks by the sea. 

The ARC, Artists Retreat Centre, February 2024

The Norfolk Coast