Composing in childhood: A short photo essay

With my grandmother, the concert violinist `Daisy Kennedy

When I was born I was separated from my mother from day 4 because she had a catastrophic post puerperal depression. This was very sad for her, me and my dad and had far reaching implications on my development. However I believe, it was the very lack of initial connection to my mother that led me early on to develop neuro pathways which made me into a composer. This is because composing music is all about creating connection between notes and sounds so what I lacked on a human level I compensated for with composition. 

From age 3, I was composing. My grandmother gave me a key coloured glockenspiel which may have led to my my synaesthesia, seeing colours in notes. This is why I also find connection between composing and painting. In addition I may have developed my intuitive musicality due to my genetic inheritance. My cousin is Nigel Kennedy and my grandmother was the concert violinist, Daisy Kennedy. 

 

With Nigel Kennnedy, my cousin

The gene AVPR1A on chromosome 12q has been implicated in music perception, music memory, and music listening, whereas SLC6A4 on chromosome 17q has been associated with music memory and choir participation. Both nature (a predisposition for music) and nurture (musical training) are believed to “establish a neural foundation for musicality,”. Researchers have observed structures in the infant brain that may serve as a scaffold upon which ongoing musical experience can build.

With my Dad

Becoming a composer was also due to the empowerment that my Dad gave me. He had a sense of play and fun that brought me into the presence of a life in which I was allowed to develop traditionally male traits such as being a tomboy, playing football, fishing and going on adventures. However in many respects I was made by my parents to play out my childish life as a very conventional girl. I am grateful for the ballet! Today, I could have easily been a candidate for gender re-assignment. But the truth is that I was just a girl who wanted to be doing exciting things that men did, like compose!

With my Dad

When my mum died I found that she had copied out a rather amazing report from my first composition professor at The Royal College of Music, Alan Ridout.  

Listen to my work Synapse on you tube

https://youtu.be/FqpA104rEQY

The function of synapses in the brain provides a platform on which to compositionally further engage with my fascination with the nature of random systems. Synapses simultaneously demonstrate a state of chaos that interface with their own unique sense of formality. This process connects with my eclectic methodology of compositional quilting in which abstract shapes can be contained and even made sense of within a grid. I find it extraordinary that this tangle of synapses is the epicentre of human thought and memory! The Psychologist Anthony Storr contextualises their paradox in the following way:

Music plays a special role in aiding the scanning and sorting process which goes on when we are asleep or simply day dreaming.

Anthony Storr: Music and The Mind. p. 107

Dog = God with interactive performance piece

Tristan

When I visited my cousin Will Self's writing den, the walls were surrounded with stick-it notes. 

One stuck out for personal reasons 

Opera = Orgasm. 

But I have an even better one, which you may have heard before. 

Dog = God 

And yes God is Dog spelled backwards! 

When I made my career shift from opera singer to composer ten years ago, our prize cat Leo was approaching his life's conclusion. It felt impossible to replace him so I suggested a dog to keep me company as I composed. Rachmaninoff had a dog called Racky. I know this because my maternal grandmother's first husband was the pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch and he premièred the second piano concerto which was forged under the guidance of Racky.

The animal spirit of a dog is unchallengeably the most glorious colleague in life. He will love and nurture you whatever the circumstances. He will lay his head on your feet or snuggle up to you head in the middle of the night. He is your best buddy come what may. When my arms are around him I am safe from difficult thoughts and the terrors of the World. His healing comes at no cost, his love is sublime.

Susie and Tristan on the water

Our Tristan is a performer, a swimmer, a singer, a showman, a dog outraged at CATs.

 

He is unanimously friendly to everyone.

Relax now and perform with him in

 

TRISTAN SINGS

https://youtu.be/HJaKxyHTlbE

For performer(s) and Soundscape

Composed by Susannah Self

Commissioned by Andy Ingamells

Purpose of The Piece:

 

The act of howling provides a cathartic release through long doleful cries which facilitate a disintegration of pent up feelings. Tristan Sings is a response to anxious emotions. Outcomes could include a calmer mind. 

Tristan Magnus Christie is a 9-year-old border terrier. His research involves sniffing out prey, eating, running with horses on the beach and howling. Tristan is sustained by a raw food diet proved by

 https://honeysrealdogfood.com 

His daily practice of interactive howling with Dr Self was initiated from an early age. Tristan Sings is inspired by John Cage with whom Dr Self worked in the Rocky Mountains in Canada.

Creating Opera for a Community of Singers

When the pandemic arrived my amateur/semi-pro opera company in Coastal Norfolk, North Sea Opera, was about to perform the tour of the première of my opera ARTEMISIA. Three years later, I overcame the ramifications of many of the cast moving away and re-presented it last week with three performances, two in village halls and one in the local arts centre's theatre. My aim with North Sea Opera, the community arm of my professional company Selfmade Music, is to challenge the way opera is conceived, composed and created. At the core of the company's value is the empowerment of performers in concert with discerning what will work for amateur/semi-pro singers. The focus is on building community and how they will enjoy doing it.  

"Imagine living in a tiny town in North Norfolk and being able to wander out and and see a newly composed opera about the 17th Century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Bravi tutti North Sea Opera, what an amazing piece. Thank you Susie Self, it was exquisite." 

Joss Bundy, audience member at Wells Maltings

Susannah and The Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi

Developing New Opera 

Ever since I undertook my academic research, I have made it my business to investigate and invent new opera practice. For Artemisia in particular, I wanted to find methods whereby amateur/semi-pro singers could shine at their best. It would be fair to observe that singing standard operatic repertoire is often disappointing for them as the vocal expertise is not always within their grasp. It must be  acknowledged that it is highly competitive to get into a conservatoire to train and then make it in the profession, this fact needs to be taken into account when discerning levels of vocality. When I conducted a local amateur opera company for 7 years I found the repertoire that suited their voices best, despite the complexity of the music, was Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten. Moving on, for my own company, North Sea Opera, I want to contradict prejudice and clichés in traditional opera and instead create opera that is appealing to the singers and audiences of today.To do this I need to develop my powers of freeness and spontaneity. As the leader of the company I need to be reliable (people singing for love do not always turn up whereas I always do) and I also need to be responsive to their needs. For example learning off the book is a big issue, so for this production I suggested we didn't need to learn the music. This took the pressure off and all the singers learnt their music beautifully. Reverse psychology works! I also played piano with some playback so that I could follow the singers if needs be. To include an ensemble of instrumental players would have been impractical with the dimensions of the venues, it would be much more costly and most importantly make a lot more stress for the singers. Only conservative trained singers have the ability to securely count, therefore accompanying the singers on piano gives them full reign to enjoy and express themselves with allowances. Especially as the composer playing, I can do this. As a consequence of such low stress they sang mostly in good time. I also suggested to the ensemble that we create the stage action together which leads to the term SINGER LED OPERA, a phrase which will come as sweet music to many singers' ears.

Serving The Community

To serve my community of singers in North Norfolk in particular, where the gender make-up of singers is 80% women to 20% men, I reflected this in the roles. In ARTEMISIA there are six equally weighted roles, one is for a man, 5 for women. The cast can expand to 7 women and 2 men bringing it up to 9. This makes the opera very usable by small low-funded touring companies and conservatoires. The roles are crafted to be singable with good tunes to enjoy. This opera is also very suited to underdeveloped voices.

A ten minute taster of the performance from The Wells Maltings, Norfolk June 2024

https://vimeo.com/963649124?share=copy

Changing Female Stereotypes in Opera

Artemisia’s inspiring story is of becoming a successful painter in the face of adversity after a #MeToo situation she encountered when she was 16. Artemisia’s character reflects my commitment as a composer to move away from presenting female stereotypes that Catherine Clément refers to in Opera, or, The Undoing of Women as ‘the role of jewel, a decorative object... on the opera stage women perpetually sing their eternal undoing.’ Surprisingly the majority of female characters in new operas rarely pass the Bechdel test as established by Alison Bechdel in Dykes to Watch Out For (1986). To comply, two women must talk about something other than a love interest. I believe that the 21st Century needs an alternative operatic paradigm in which female characters are defined by their actions rather than their gendered identity. This shift will in turn help contribute to developing the dramatic scope of male and non-binary roles. However, my chosen focus is to address the way in which 50% of the earth’s population is under-represented. I seek to transform Christopher Small’s observation in Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening that ‘it is rare on the opera stage to meet a heroine who is permitted to be strong and independent, which means not depending on male support, and get away with it’ (Small, 1998). 

The Background to Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652) was one of the foremost painters of the early 1600s. She created intensely powerful interpretations of biblical stories such as Susannah and the Elders. Artemisia moved in the courts of Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. The opera takes a fictional perspective informed by historical research. In particular Artemisia’s residence in Venice coincides with the rise of convents as documented in Jonathan Glixon in Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters? Venetian Nunneries and their Music (2018). Even though Artemisia was subsequently forgotten by art history she was admired in her time and her gender was no bar to her acceptance as an artist. This may have been aided by the situation in which many cultured women in Venice were forced by circumstances to become nuns. Convents re-invented themselves as refuges from the patriarchy so that women embraced an unprecedented freedom. They dressed in their own clothes, commissioned artists and created operas which were accompanied by lavish feasts. In Artemisia the artist receives a commission from St. Catherine’s Convent to create a portrait. The National Gallery has just purchased Artemisia’s painting of St. Catherine as a Self-portrait. 

Making a story and libretto for the opera

As the opera develops the nuns devise an opera within an opera based on the historically documented rape trial heard by the Pope in which Tassi, Artemisia’s fiancé, was convicted of rape. History shows that Artemisia’s response to this attack was to literally roll up her sleeves and become the artist that she was destined to be. Running parallel to Artemisia’s story is that of Artless, a modern painter. Artless struggles with her practice that seeks to convey art with no meaning. She falters in confidence until she discovers Artemisia’s work. Courageously she re-names herself from Alice to Artless by re-ordering the syllables of Artemisia Gentileschi, which reflect ‘less gentle art’, as in Artemisia’s Judith Decapitating Holofernes which was painted in three versions after the trial. 

There is a Conversation 

Opera director Phyllida Lloyd says there is a conversation ‘that is being had amongst women in the theatre, about the dearth of great roles for women over a certain age, and also [how] job opportunities are much narrower for women who are of unconventional size, shape, accent, ethnic origin, whatever.’ (Saner, 2016: The Guardian). Artemisia directly addresses this issue. 

ARTEMISIA promotes 4 dynamic contemporary issues in a way that traditional opera does not. 

They are: 

1. A female character can fashion her own destiny towards a positive outcome despite a traumatic event.
2. Women artists deserve parity of representation.
3. Art does not always need to convey a meaning. 

4. Ethically, new operas need to feature a higher percentage of female parts so as to reflect the current proportionality of singers available.  

To conclude, many elements of story-telling embodied in Artemisia reflect recent shifts in some opera companies especially in Scandinavia, North Germany and the Americas. At Creation: Opera Europa’s 2019 conference in Antwerp I could see that the tide is turning towards areas in which my research has led me. In particular, creating new work that relates to contemporary issues and that features empowered women. However, in discussion with some of the main publishers and opera house intendants at Creation, I discovered that they remain invested in promoting new operas which often feature a proliferation of male protagonists such as in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (2008), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), Hector Parra’s Les Bienveillantes (2019) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz (2015). Even if a new opera features a lead woman such as in Mark Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole (2010) she is defined by her ability to ensnare a rich man with her sexuality which again references the traditional model. While I personally enjoy these operas for their astounding compositional dexterity, my response as a composer is to suggest that there is also room for women of action to take centre stage. 

The composer of Artemisia

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