My very first post!! (and some beautiful Boulanger)

Hello and welcome to my website! Since this is my very first blog post, I thought I’d start with a little bit about me. My mom says I’ve been singing since I could talk, but I started taking voice lessons in the seventh grade for musical theater auditions. My voice teacher made me sing classical art songs to build my technique, and I fell in love. From then on, I was hooked. Growing up in the Bay Area, I didn’t know it was possible to have a career as an opera singer, but I knew I loved to sing. Attending BUTI (Boston University Tanglewood Institute) in 2016 opened my eyes to the reality of a performing career in opera. It was the most magical summer of my life.

16 year old Stephanie at BUTI!

Fast forward to now, I’m finishing my first year of graduate studies in Voice at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, still just as passionate about music and performance as I was 7 years ago. Some things have changed though! I know now what my favorite niches of classical music are–-I don’t automatically say Mozart anymore, just because he’s one of the only composers I’ve heard of! I’ve learned that I love singing early music–Handel and everything that comes before–and I love working with composers and singing the music that’s being written right now. I love collaborating with instrumentalists and singing chamber music. And I especially love art song and curating recitals. I spend hours going down Youtube deep dives, starting with one song and clicking on recommended links for pieces I haven’t heard of, and I’ve built up a pretty big collection of underperformed/relatively unknown music in my head.

…which leads me to this very first post of a project that I’m so excited about!

I’ve decided to start blogging about the music I find! I hope that by sharing, more people will be able to hear this beautiful music and perhaps even be moved to perform it!

The first piece I want to highlight is “Pie Jesu” by Lili Boulanger. The first female composer to win the Prix de Rome for her cantata “Faust et Helene” at the age of 19, Lili Boulanger was a trailblazer, following in the footsteps of Debussy and Fauré. However, unlike her predecessors, her music is rarely performed and deserves to be in the standard repertoire. Her compositions are some of the most nuanced and sensitive pieces that I have ever heard. Scored for mezzo-soprano, string quartet, harp, and organ (or alternatively, mezzo-soprano and organ), “Pie Jesu” was the last piece that she wrote before she died of tuberculosis at age 24 in 1918. Her sister, renowned pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, notated the music for her because Lili was too weak to write.

This “Pie Jesu” is haunting and ethereal. It is unlike any other setting of this text that I have heard. It so perfectly captures the emotional complexity of loss, the melancholy inexplicably intertwined with the knowledge that the deceased has moved on to a better place.

I've chosen to attach this recording of contralto Bernadette Greevy with the BBC Symphony Orchestra because it was conducted by Lili's sister, Nadia. I hope you enjoy!

If you like this and want to listen to more of Lili Boulanger's music, I just performed her song cycle, "Clairières dans le ciel" (Clearings in the Sky) on my masters recital a few weeks ago! It was quite possibly the hardest piece I have ever learned and put together, but it was so worth it. It is my favorite piece that I have ever sung, and I know that I'll sing it for the rest of my life.

That's all for now! I'll be back with some more hidden musical gems soon! Thanks for reading :)