Postcard from Joseph Piazza and Ava Gaughan
This week’s postcard features Joseph Piazza, Music Director of the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus and SFGC Soloist Intensive singer Ava Gaughan.
On April 30 and May 1, Piazza will lead the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus along with Level IV and members of SFGC’s Soloist Intensive Program in its annual spring concert, “Love and War.” Ava Gaughan is one of three SFGC Soloist Intensive singers that has prepared for this program in which San Francisco Girls Chorus and Jubilate Orchestra perform Handel’s Psalm 109 Dixit Dominus. Additionally, the men of the GGMC will perform powerful anthems and tender poems of love and loss, featuring music by Sibelius, Janáček, Dvořak, Monteverdi, and a new commissioned work from Bay Area composer, Stephen Main, New Fire.
Performances take place:
Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 8:00 PM and
Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 4:00 PM
At Mission Dolores Basilica | 3321-16th Street (at Dolores), San Francisco
Joseph Piazza, Music Director of Golden Gate Men’s Chorus
How did you first learn about SFGC?
I moved to San Francisco when I was 25 years old, just out of grad school and was hired as assistant director of the San Francisco Boys Chorus. During that year I attended the annual fundraiser dinner for the San Francisco Girls Chorus and for the first time heard the girls in performance. I thought the level of musicianship was extraordinary and the quality of performance was something to be admired. In the years that followed I joined the music staff of the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir and was appointed director of choral music, music theory and composition for the Piedmont Unified School. Over the years I saw many of my students go on to pursue their careers in music and the arts and I am proud to say that one of those promising young students was Anne Hege. Fast forward to 2017 and that year was the first ever collaboration with the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus in a performance of the Duruflé Requiem.
Tell us about your path to becoming a musician and working with the Golden Gate Men's Chorus.
I studied music at Northwestern University and went on to do my graduate degree in choral conducting at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. Once I arrived in San Francisco I became a member of the SF Symphony Chorus where I came to know Vance George. Vance became my mentor and teacher over the years. Together we studied choral technique, repertoire, conducting and worked on and off together as colleagues over the last 30 years.
How do you find your inspiration for bringing creativity and imagination into your work with performers of all ages?
My work in conducting coincided with my study of music education. As conductors most of the performers we will work with over the years will be non-professional singers who will need a director’s guidance, insight and an ability to impart knowledge and understanding of the musical score.
In college I took a course in elementary music education and was fascinated by the Kodály method of teaching. I always felt that if I could teach musical concepts to the youngest of performers, then having a system to teach students of all ages, including adults would be a huge advantage.
Can you describe the work you are doing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus?
The work being performed is Dixit Dominus by G. F. Handel. The work was composed when the composer was just 22 years old. He began the work in Venice and completed it in Rome where we believe it had its first performance. The work is highly influenced by the music of Vivaldi and Corelli. There is an excitement in the string writing and the vocal lines are nothing less than virtuosic. It’s a great example of how closely church music of the time imitated Italian Opera. The text is Psalm 109 and was one of the most popular to set during the Baroque and Classical period. And yet the text is strange, mysterious and often difficult to comprehend. Its bellicose language and graphic imagery make it ripe for all kinds of musical description and text painting. We believe the text might come from the coronation ceremonies of Israelite kings.
Can you describe the program, Love and War, in your own words?
I knew back in September of last year that I wanted to perform two works…The first was the Handel Dixit Dominus with SFGC and the second was Jean Sibelius’ work, Rakastava or the Lover…so when I thought of what the theme of the programs could be, Love and War came to mind. Little did I know what the state of the world would be given the war in Ukraine. The first piece I chose is God Protect us From War by Estonian composer Veljo Tormis. It was composed in 1984 to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The second piece I chose by Kodály is Huszt, which is about standing amid the ruins of the ancient city of Huszt and speaking to the ghost of the past that calls the listener to rise up and rebuild the future. And it just so happens that Huszt is inside the border of the Ukraine.
The Love theme picks up and we hear music from Dvořak, Janáček, and a new commission by Steve Main. There is even a work by Monteverdi from his 8th book of Madrigals, the madrigals of Love and War.
A lot of our choristers have parents who are not musicians - what would you like to tell them about what it means for a young musician to be doing music?
We go to school to learn to read and write in order to learn to think. We study art, music, dance, theater in order to learn to feel. Through the arts we learn about history, culture, society, peoples hearts and minds are revealed, and music expresses what words in and of themselves cannot express.
For our singers who would like to become professional musicians, is there anything you would like to share with them?
There are many paths to becoming a professional musician. It is about dedication and discipline. And there are all levels of professionalism and pursuing several paths is absolutely possible. Teaching, performing, conducting, composing, arranging, accompanying, are all possible paths that intersect and can combine to create quite a career.
Ava Gaughan, member of SFGC's Soloist Intensive Program
What has your path been like with SFGC? How long have you sung with the Chorus?
My mom tells me I was always a singer, ever since I was an infant! She says I sang before I learned to talk. I would hum and pick up tunes, and when I was a toddler I’d make up little songs about whatever I was doing. My grandma is a classical singer, and she had put my mom in a Kodály musical class as a child, so because I loved to sing my mom looked for something similar in San Francisco and found SFGC! I started in the Prep Chorus when I had just turned six (I’m a September birthday, so I was the littlest in my level for a long time!) and absolutely loved it. After my first year, it was recommended that I audition for Level I. I remember being so confident that I had knocked it out of the park with my 6-year-old rendition of “The Water is Wide”, and sure enough, I started Level I that next year. This is my 12th year in the Chorus, and my 5th year in the Premier Ensemble!
How has being a part of SFGC influenced your life and your future?
Certainly I would not be who I am if I had not been in SFGC. The work I’ve done here has crafted me into the person I am today, and being a part of this organization has given me the tools to launch myself into my future with support, confidence and an arsenal of musical and life skills I’ve been building since I was six. As I wrote about the beginning of my SFGC experience in my personal statement for college applications this year, “From then on I learned theory as dedicatedly as I learned long division, sight-singing as I learned complex sentence structure, musicianship as I learned geography. Music was my lifeblood; my third parent, my closest friend, my deepest self inside amplified into something so much bigger than me. When I sang, I felt the universe. It felt like the reason I was here.” It still does. This coming fall, I’ll be attending Yale College, where I plan to double major in Linguistics and Music (Classical Vocal Performance). The college application process was intense and a lot of work, and the resources at SFGC really helped me get through it, from the music side of things-- art supplements, pre-screening, auditions, repertoire lists and music resumes-- to the rest of it all, from letters of recommendation to supplement essay advice. The Soloist Intensive program and Valerie’s, Justin’s, and my voice teacher Silvie Jensen’s constant support have been so helpful to me in figuring out what it is I want to do and then making my way down the path to get there. I know that even once I leave the Chorus, these mentors, and my colleagues, will be there for me in everything I do.
What has been your favorite performance so far in your musical life? What about the creative process brings the most joy?
I think my favorite performance has to be my role in the Children’s Chorus of Calixto Bieito’s setting of Bizet’s Carmen with the San Francisco Opera in 2016. The chance to participate in such a special and enormous project at 11 years old in my first year in Level IV was really incredible. I was so drawn to Bieto’s interpretation of the famous opera, which takes a nuanced look at the concept of the femme fatale, a male-gaze trope that victimizes violent men by implying she was so alluring, they just couldn’t help but kill her! By re-examining the story of arguably the most famous femme fatale, Bieito’s interpretation gives Carmen more agency but also shows clearly that she was a victim of her society and the man who murdered her, not the other way around. Also, wearing the stage makeup and costumes-- including fake dirt all over-- was enormously fun, and I loved working with the adult opera chorus. Being in the opera chorus wherever I live as an adult is definitely something I’d really enjoy. I love opera so much, and I can’t wait to explore it in depth next year with the amazing Opera Theater of Yale College, whose productions I will be auditioning for as soon as I possibly can.
(SFGC in Carmen in 2016-- I’m the one to the left of the image in the pink with the polka-dot skirt! Photo by Cory Weaver.)
What has it been like to work with Joe Piazza and the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus? What are you most looking forward to in the performance, Love and War?
Something really interesting about worked as a featured soloist instead of a chorus member is that we actually don’t do much work with the ensemble! As of now Isabel, Hannah and I have had only one rehearsal with Joe, and all of our rehearsal with the orchestra and choruses will be the week of the performance. It’s definitely a different way of working that takes getting used to, but I’ve really appreciated the chance to participate in the project and learn this new skill that I’ll be using a lot more often as I continue my professional classical vocal studies in college and beyond. I think I’m looking forward most to singing with the GGMC’s chamber ensemble Counterpoint! I’ve never sung in this format before, and it’ll be really interesting for me to experience the sound and feel of being of a female soloist with a men’s chamber group, and explore that stylistically.
What can you tell us about the piece you have prepared, Claudio Monteverdi’s “Lamento della Ninfa”?
"Lamento della Ninfa”, written somewhere between 1614 and 1638, is a madrigal for men’s tenor and bass voices and soprano solo, which tells the story of a brokenhearted nymph who laments her lost love. It comes, in accordance with the concert’s theme, from his book of eight Madrigals of Love and War. I sing the nymph’s part, a beautiful line that tells with much melodrama of the man who has left her behind and her resulting emotional turmoil. The piece is a wonderful example of Monteverdi’s attention to text and how its meaning can be expressed in the music, with harmonic and dynamic fluctuations demonstrating the nymph’s changing emotions of grief and anger, sorrow and bitterness. As somebody who is fascinated by the ways language and music intersect-- it’s something I hope to specifically study in the future-- I’ve really enjoyed exploring what the text can offer emotionally when paired with the expressive melody. Italian’s decadent rolled r’s and stopped double-consonants are excellent tools to build a story over the rich canvas of Monteverdi’s music. To show just how important the emotion is in this piece, he even specifies that the men’s chorus should sing “al tempo della mano”, or following the tempo of the hand/conductor, while the nymph should sing “al tempo del' aetto dell'animo, & non a quello della mano”-- at the tempo of the soul, and not that of the hand.
Is there anything you would like to add?
This has been such an amazing opportunity for me, both to sing in this concert and to write for this Postcard! I’m so grateful for it all, and for my entire SFGC experience. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how grateful I am for the San Francisco Girls Chorus, everything I’ve gotten to do as a member of this organization, and everything I’ve learned here. Thank you, SFGC.