Friday night I did something I have done many times- I sang a concert. I greeted members of the audience, congratulated my colleagues, and drove home. I took off my tux, put my studs and cuff links in the jewelry box, and dressed for bed.

Some years ago as I did that, I began to muse on how often most men wear a tuxedo. Maybe two or three times-the senior prom, their wedding, weddings of friends and family. But it is something I do several times a year. I actually have something of a ritual. I take the tux to the cleaners, so I won't have to think about it next time. I put the score back on the shelf. I make a folder for the program, reviews, etc. and put it in the "Performances" file cabinet drawer.

As I thought about singing concerts, though, it occurred to me that one day I will do it for the last time. One last time I will greet the audience, congratulate my colleagues, drive home, and take off my tux. Will I know it's the last time? If I do, will it make a difference in how I sing? Will I be a weepy mess, or will I give the performance of a lifetime?

At that moment I softly voiced a prayer that I would not live to see the day when I wasn't singing. Of course, that would mean that I will die with SOMETHING left  unsung. But perhaps that is for the best. I have known singers who stopped singing with many years left in their lives. True, they found satisfaction in other things. They taught, traveled, spent time with hobbies they had neglected during their singing careers. They enjoyed time with their children and grandchildren, making up for lost time.

But I want to sing. I want to sing until the end. Let me die onstage just like Leonard Warren, and I will die happy. I would die doing what I love to do.

If I do get to choose the time and place of my "last concert", I imagine it will be at my church. I will close with "Give me Jesus"...

"Oh when I come to die, Give me Jesus..."

But God only knows...

This coming Sunday, November 30, marks the first Sunday of Advent. For those of you not familiar with the liturgical year, Advent is actually the beginning of the church year, and is the season before Christmas. Advent is a "penitential" season, like Lent (which is why the liturgical color is purple) and should be a time of personal reflection.

Advent is supposed to be about waiting. For strict liturgists, Christmas music is avoided for the four Sundays of Advent. Of course, our culture can hardly seem to wait until Christmas! Here we are, a little less than a month away, and millions spent today fighting the crowds (quite literally in some cases!) in order to get to the bargains of "Black Friday."

This Sunday I will be singing "Every Valley" by John Ness Beck in my church. The text is a familiar one:

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." Isaiah 40: 4-5 (KJV)

I have heard this text read and sung dozens, if not hundreds of times, most often as the first tenor aria and chorus in Handel's Messiah. (I have now sung in Messiah so often, I have literally lost count of how many performances I have had!)

As I have prepared this solo, however, I am struck by something I hadn't considered before. I think the operative word in the passage is SHALL. The promises of God are not things that MIGHT happen or COULD happen but are things that SHALL happen. The prophet speaks with absolute authority and certainty. I believe that Dr. Martin Luther King, jr. felt that certainty when he quoted this passage in his famous "I have a dream" speech in 1963.

This Advent season the world is still waiting. Waiting for "Peace on Earth". Waiting for an end to injustice and intolerance. Waiting for the promises of God to be realized. But this Advent season, I will wait with the certainty that these things SHALL happen.

My best friend from my Indiana days came to visit last week. I hadn't seen him since we both left IU in 1985. That year is on my mind a lot these days. In many ways, it was the most pivotal year of my life, for better or worse.

I know that many of my "friends" were not even born in 1985, or at least have no memory of it. 1985 was not a terrifically memorable year. It saw the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. William "the Refrigerator" Perry and Chicago Bears pummeled every other team in the NFL. Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union.

I began the year as an apprentice with the Sarasota Opera. I had ALMOST finished my MM at IU in December, but got so involved in auditioning (and a new girlfriend) that I didn't do my MM recital and I dropped the one class I needed to finish. While an apprentice at Sarasota I met my first wife, who was also an apprentice.

In the fall I had visited North Texas State University (now UNT) and applied for the DMA program. In Sarasota, EVERYONE told me this was a bad idea, including Sharon, who would be my first wife. I was told that would kill my career, and I should get my butt to New York.

I went back to Indiana, and found that my girlfriend had gotten back with her previous boyfriend, and I started a "long-distance" relationship with Sharon. I visited her in NY several times, and even auditioned for the NY City Opera chorus. I got called back, but didn't get in!

Well, Sharon and I got serious, and we decided to get married, and go to Texas. That decision to do the DMA and not pursue a performing career haunts me to this day. I cannot blame her, of course, since it was my own idea.

I think of that decision just about every day of my life. Obviously we can never go back and change the past, and the further you go along one path the harder it is to change. Do I have regrets? Sure, but who doesn't. I guess the biggest regret I have is not finding out whether or not I really had the "stuff" for a big career. I will have to content myself with the kinds of regional performances I am getting now.

But, I feel like I have made a difference in a lot of lives. For the better I hope! Do I have a point? Yes. We all make choices, and have to live with the consequences of those choices. Sometimes our choices are made for us, but we all have to "play the cards we are dealt."

My advice to young people is to think ahead. And ask yourself, "What do I REALLY want?" Imagine how it will be not just now, but years down the road. Make no mistake, I consider myself a very lucky man. I get paid to listen to great music. I am surrounded by talented, committed young singers. (Well, most of them anyway!) It's a good life...

I have posted some new songs on my main page. The songs are all by American composer Sidney Homer, who was the subject of my final doctoral project.

Homer lived in the early 20th century. He was married to the famous American contralto Louise Homer (who sang with Caruso at the Met) and they were Samuel Barber's aunt and uncle. (Louise's sister Daisy was Barber's mother, and is the "Daisy" to who his song "The Daisies" is dedicated.)

At one time very popular, Homer's songs are now almost forgotten. I think a quick listen to the six songs I have posted will show the quality and variety of songs. He had a sophisticated taste in poetry, using poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Tennyson, William Blake, and other greats.

He and Louise had six children, and songs about and for children feature prominently in his output. He was hardly experimental, but some of his songs are quite innovative nonetheless. They are certainly worth investigating!

My grandmother passed away last night. She was 100  years old. Fortunately, my wife and I visited her in Florda just last week. Michelle had never met her, and that was great. I sang a little program at her facility, and she really enjoyed it.

Of course I am sad, but I am so grateful for so many things. She lived 100 years. And they were 100 GOOD years. She was lucid and aware right up to the end. She never had to use a scooter or wheelchair, never had to be kept alive artificially.

"Grandma" was not actually my grandmother. My mom was orphaned at 9, and she lived as a foster child with the woman who would always be known to us as "Grandma". She taught voice and piano. She gave me my very first voice lesson when I got a solo in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in 8th grade. As destiny would have it, my Jr. High choir director, the one who gave me that solo, lives in the town where she did in Florida, and played for me at that program last week.

 She soloed from time to time at her Christian Science church. She was a Christian Science Practitioner, and she and "Grandpa" ran an antique store, which still stands in Hamburg, NY. I would love to go visit and spend the night at their house. I still remember the time Grandpa took me fishing. I didn't catch anything, and I was complaining about it. She looked me in the eye and said, "If your attitude doesn't improve you can go home right now!" Well, that turned me right around! I still think about her every time I go fishing and don't catch anything!

She was very special to me, and seeing her at her facility, I could tell she was special to lots of people. She was a tiny woman (there is a picture in my photos section. She was about as tall standing up as I am on my knees) but she had a presence and power that were unmistakeable. She lived through the depression and two world wars. She faced untold adversity and persevered. She helped make me what I am today.

She will be missed.

So, as I try to get "back in the game" (the opera "game", that is), I am having to do something I hadn't had to do in about twenty years: audition. Of course, lots of internet traffic has been generated about auditions, and I don't wish to duplicate what is already out there. (Such as Darren Woods' excellent "Ten Commandments of Auditions".)

Auditions, of course, are not the same thing as competitions, and are not the same thing as performing. Some people who are great performers are not so great at auditioning. I'm sure the reverse is also true. Auditions are a "necessary evil" and everybody has to do them at some point in their career. My manager told his roster recently, "A singer unheard is a singer unhired." One of our alums who is doing very well right now told me that at the beginning of his career (when he was "uinmanaged") "I sang for everyone who would hear me."

I hear lots of complaints right now about singers not even getting heard. There is nothing you can do about that except be persistent. When they do get auditions, they are not hired. There are a lot of singers out there!

So, what to do? First of all, I would make a few suggestions:

Look at your repertoire. Is it REALLY the best stuff for you? Are they arias you feel passionate about? Can you be compelling in your presentation?

Set yourself apart. What about YOU is different from all the other lyric sopranos? Is it the beauty of your voice? Your communication? Your dramatic presence? Does your "package" let you show that?

Look at what you are auditioning for. Is it the right level? Are the others singers older/younger than you are? What kind of audition is it? Do you REALLY need to do another "pay to sing" at this point in your career? At some point you need to stop "training" and start "doing"!

Examine your motives. Why do you sing? Do you love opera? Can they tell that based on your presentation? What if this was the last audition you would ever do? How would you sing?

Don't be reckless, but don't be "too careful", either. I guarantee you, not everyone will approve of everything you sing. Don't worry about the "critics". Sing what you feel you sing best, and what you feel passionate about. If somebody thinks it's too high, too big, too "different", oh well. Trust me, you can't please everyone!

If you still have auditions this "season", IN BOCCA AL LUPO!

As the tributes continue to pour out for Luciano Pavarotti, I hesitate to add mine, but I want to share a few of my thoughts about the great tenor.

I only heard him in person once, and that was sadly well past his prime, and I was in the very back of the American Airlines Center in Dallas, where I could barely see him. I did, however, see him live on television countless times. The first time was the first televised opera from the Met, "La Boheme" in 1977. I had no idea what I was witnessing at the time. I later heard that more people saw that broadcast than all the people who had ever seen La Boheme in person put together.

By the time I saw his live recital at the Met, I had begun to take voice lessons and had decided to pursue opera as my field. I still have a very bad cassette recording of that performance. I remember being spellbound. Not only was it such a great voice, but the ease with which he carried himself was amazing. He was completely committed to every phrase. When he held his arms open wide to receive the thundering ovation, it was as if he were embracing the audience.

The televised performance of Un Ballo in Maschera in 1980 was very special to me for a personal reason, as it led to my first significant romantic relationship in college. Oh, yeah, he was great in that, too. I listened to his recordings of the Verdi Requiem, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, and countless aria albums again and again and again. I remember one aria album that had Nessun Dorma on it. I remember thinking, "That is the best tenor aria EVER." Then followed "Di Quella Pira" and I thought, "Except maybe for THIS."

What made him so special? He was not the greatest actor. I am the proud owner of his one "Hollywood" Film, "Yes, Giorgio." Deliciously bad, really, but fun nonetheless. His French was terrible. His style for anything other than 19th-century Italian opera was suspect. He sang with anybody and everybody, from Bocelli, to Sting, to Loretta Lynn and the Spice Girls. (It actually reminds me of that period in Muhammed Ali's career when he seemed to be on TV every week fighting some random person or other.)

Yet, he was a great ambassador for opera. He made it real, and fun. Not the stuffy "highbrow" form it had been for so long. He was instantly recognizable. He was lovable. Women I know who met him said his sex appeal was almost irresistable. When he walked onstage, the energy was palpable.

He will be missed, and I can't imagine we will see another like him in our lifetime.

 I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail
Yes I would, if I could, I surely would
I'd rather be a hammer than a nail
Yes I would, if I only could, I surely would

-from "El Cóndor Pasa", words by Paul Simon


Here are a few things about me I think you might like to know. I am in no way making a value judgement about people who might feel differently. These are my feelings about singing and life...

I would rather be singing than not singing.

I would rather be singing in a podunk city in the middle of nowhere than be in the greatest city in the world and not singing.

I would rather sing a leading role with a "D" house than a "Who were you again?" role in an "A" house.

I would rather sing concerts and recitals than sing crappy roles in crappy houses.

I would rather sing a crappy role than sit in the audience.

I would rather teach at an American university than have a "Fest" contract in a German opera house.

I would rather teach somebody with marginal vocal talent who really felt they had something to learn from me than work with "stars" who act like I am wasting their time.

I would rather have a root canal than sit in most committee meetings. (Having had to make that choice once, I swear this is true!)

I would rather cook dinner than eat in a restaurant. (Most days, anyway!)

I would rather spend time talking with students than doing just about any other aspect of my position as chair.

I would rather sing for 20 people who really wanted to hear me than sing for thousands who would rather be somewhere else.

I would rather work with "nobodies" who are great colleagues than sing with "luminaries" who are a pain you know where!

I would rather be remembered as somebody who loved to sing than be remembered as a great singer who viewed singing as a chore.


I don't expect everybody to agree with these choices, indeed a few are probably rather unpopular. But hey, that's life!

The subject line is a quotation from the English translation of Rigoletto by Andrew Porter that we used when I was a student at Indiana. The original line is:


Which Rigoletto says to himself after hearing from Gilda that she had been seduced by the Duke.

Every so often we have those moments in our lives. Those moments when, for better or worse, everything changes. Well, friends, I had one this week.

Thursday, I was a voice teacher and singer, who happened to serve as Chair of the Division of Vocal Studies. Friday, I became a full-time administrator with minimal teaching responsibilities.

What changed? In an effort to make the compensation of chairs consistent across campus, the UNT administration offered chairs the option of 12-month appointments. I didn't have to accept the new plan, mind you, but I felt that it accurately reflected the realities of my position. Being a "chair" is a difficult thing. Are you a faculty member? An administrator? Some of each? This answers that question. I am a member of the administration. 12 months a year, 40 hours a week. Teaching should make up no more that 20-40% of my workload.

How do I feel about that? Lousy. I don't mind the 40 hour work week, I do that anyway. I don't mind the 12 month appointment., I do that anyway, too. What concerns me most is that I had hoped to move out of the position soon to focus on doing more singing. Under the new plan, which will not be optional in the future, I can't imagine ANYBODY else willing to take over. I fear I may be "chair for life."

I can still sing. In fact, I feel like I am singing better than ever. And now, I am going to have to devote most of my energy to "pushing paper". I feel like I have a day job that has nothing to do with music. I might as well go work for a business.

Sigh... Life will go on. I just won't enjoy it...

and that is not singing! (Apologies to Oscar Wilde...)

There are time when I ask myself before a performance, "Why do you put yourself through this?" Then I answer myself, "Because, Snides, this is what you wanted to do with your life, remember?"

Singing is work. That's why we get paid to do it. I had a colleague some years ago who told me I had a "workmanlike" approach to singing. I took it as a compliment. I try not to "freak out" every time I sing. I volunteer to sing when I don't need to. Just over a week ago at the Masterworks Festival, I offered to sing on a Faculty Recital on a day off. Why? If there is a chance to sing, I will take it.

Many, many years ago now, when Bill Parcells was coach of the New York Giants, Lawrence Taylor (one of the great linebackers of all time) sustained a season-ending injury late in a game that the Giants had well in hand. When Parcells was questioned as to why his star defensive player was still in the game at that point, he said something like, "Look, Lawrence Taylor is a football player. As long as the game is still going on, that's where he belongs."

That's how I look at singing. If there is singing to be done, I want to do it. I would rather sing in church than sit in the pew. I'd rather be singing on a concert than listening to one. In a way, I am not a "fan". I would rather participate. That's what I do. That's who I am.

Jeffrey Snider, SINGER