Devony Smith and Danny Zelibor

[Laughs] Some, someone once said that. [Laughs]

It was me.

Yeah, it is pretty crazy. It's a wild choice, but I love what I do. Um, yeah, I got my undergrad, my bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University, where I studied um, in their opera program, which at the time was led by the great tenor Henry Price, who used to sing a lot with Beverly Sills at New York City Opera. So he was sort of my, the person that pulled me into classical singing. I grew up in a really musical family, a family of pianists actually. My uncle's a jazz pianist. My mom is a pianist arranger and does a lot of work in church music. Um, so I was raised as a pianist and Henry plucked me out of that and now I'm a, I'm a singer. [Laughs] Um, and then I got my—

And also a very good pianist. It's quite, it's quite annoying. [Laughs]

Yeah, I keep my piano chops going when I can. But um, yeah, and then I got my master's degree at Bard College under the direction of the, the vocal arts program under the direction of Dawn Upshaw, who um, was a wonderful mentor to me.

I saw that! With, with uh, Harold Farberman.

Yeah. Who I worked with while I was there, which was—

[Laughs] He was. [Laughs]

Uh, my undergrad was um, at TCU in, in Fort Worth, where I'm from, and I studied with uh, Tamás Ungár there. Then I did um, a grad degree at UNT. And, I was actually thinking back on this um, earlier this morning. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but I remember Ungár, like, reaching up, after a couple years I'd worked with him, and he saw the writing on the wall. And he grabbed up this like dusty book off, off of his shelf and handed it to me. He's like, "I think you should look into this." And it was something like The Art of Accompanying. You know, this is back in the days of when we called it accompanying and not collaborative piano. And of course, at that point, highly resistant to the idea. Just like, viscerally, was not okay with, with the notion. And I, I, I don't know if I gave the book back to him or if I just, I don't know what I did, but I, I ignored him. And um, then years later, when I was at UNT, I had finished my grad degree in solo piano and was going to start a doctorate. And I, and I did. I had asked my teacher there about the, the notion of maybe go—veering more collaborative, and he grumbled, and mentioned how he like, played a violin recital in Europe, "And they didn't even put my name on the program". And um, [Laughs] so he, he—it was a, it was a no-go from him. But I knew the second that doctorate started that it was a mistake for me. And so under the cover of darkness, uh, later that, that year, I went and I auditioned at, at Juilliard and MSM. And um, thanks to just a really terrible sight-reading incident at Juilliard, did not get in there, [Laughs] but uh, but got into MSM and studied with Warren Jones, and it was one of the best decisions I've ever, ever made for myself.

[Laughs] The cold, cold heating-up world. Yeah. [Laughs]

Yes.

It's wild.

I do, I um, it gets, ends up getting sort of sprinkled in um, sort of, uh grab-bag concerts. Um, I mean, I couldn't tell you the last time I did a full solo recital. Most of, I mean, the lion's share of what I'm doing now is, is indeed um, collaborative. [Laughs]

And, and with Devony, most of, a, a whole lot of it with—

Um, all over. New York, Canada, um—

I'll brag on Danny, um—

We were just in Maine.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'll brag on Danny a little bit because we just, we just finished a week um, singing and playing at the Screen Door Festival with Bay Chamber in Camden, Maine. Um, and Danny, Danny and I had our own work there, but Danny did many incredible feats outside of our duo with um, what was the Ravel you played with, with, by—

Oh, Tzigane.

—the Tzigane with um, a fabulous violinist and, so he, he is—

That was a scary first play. [Laughs]

He knocked it out of the park. [Blows raspberry] Very accomplished chamber musician as well.

He liked miniature, he liked miniature things, right?

Really? [Laughs]

Well, now I have to go. [Laughs]

Yeah, yeah, it was not, it was, it was not the moving experience I was, I was hoping for. [Laughs]

Right, yeah. It's a metaphor.

I'm going to, I'll take that.

Yeah, I mean we can put it that way. [Laughs] Um,

I know, I was going to say, I think that's a through line. [Laughs]

That's one way to put it. Um, I, I do feel though, I, I think my standard more lies with, who do I want to be working with, and what kind of art do I want to be making? Um, I think that is the, for me, the standard that has risen to the top in this. Not necessarily like, I'm only doing this music, or I'm only doing this music. I, I enjoy having a versatile um, sort of, schedule throughout the year of doing, I have usually one or two more traditional shows, and then a lot of contemporary music and a lot of different kind of interesting concert work. And it keeps me on my toes, keeps me stimulated, and also keeps my, the technical sort of focus that I need to have in my, in my voice and my body and instrument sharp. So I feel like I'm figuring out that balance as through the diversity of repertoire.

Yeah, I, I'm, I'm pretty game to try things. Um, I think as a mezzo, I run into less, I think, I, I did, I was a soprano ever so long ago and was doing um, new music at that time, and I would say I had to be more choosy as a soprano picking new music repertoire than I have to be as a mezzo. Because typically, you're not dealing with um, as a mezzo you're dealing with really singable stuff, and I'm always down to, down to try what people have written. I think as a soprano, sometimes there are so many variations of soprano, sometimes you get a piece that is not necessarily written for you. Um, but I like, I like trying on new composer and musical languages, and seeing what fits and seeing what inspires me, and deciding if I want to continue working with this person's music. Um, and yeah, I think that's sort of how I try it. I, I, I try something on and see if it's a fit, if it, if the collaboration is a fit, if the music is a fit, and we go from there.

I think we, we have a, uh vibrant text thread, [Laughs] where frequently stuff will, you know, will come across things and we will fire it away at each other. Um, so it is, it's kind of, part of our usual um, interaction, finding, finding new rep or things that we might be interested in down the road. Um, and I think, to an earlier point of hers, I, it's one thing that I think we've learned together is, we can have very visceral reactions to certain kinds of music or certain songs or certain composers. But one thing that we've found is that some of the stuff, whether it's like in a set and we have to learn the whole set, or we're assigned certain things for a concert, and several times we have started with, like, "Oh god, we hate this." It gets our absolutely favorite. We hate it, we talk trash about it, the whole process, and then like two-thirds of the way through, somehow that one that we hated so deeply ends up becoming one of our favorites in the end. So I think we've learned to kind of, [Laughs] um, be patient and wait it out and see, [Laughs] and see what we, what we enjoy and, and what works for us and, yeah, we go through.

Ah! Yeah.

Huh!

That— [Laughs]

Mhm. Mhm.

Yes.

Mhm.

Yeah, it's not—in the genre of art song, I think you can have a collection of songs that lean more into the theatrical narrative and the theatrical arc, and others that do not. I think, I think the music that we chose for our album reflects that, because we have really strong narrative sets, and others that live in the world of each poem that is set. Um, and I'm, I'm really interested in both at, in, in the sort of medium of art song.

Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, it's, the um, the Mark Adamo set is one of the most intriguing in this regard, because like, you know, Mark being a, a man of the theater, uh he took, uh it's, the, this, the piece is The Racer's Widow, and it's one of the ones that's uh piano, or voice, piano, cello. And um, mezzo specifically. And he took five completely unrelated poems from five different poets, and he crafted this narrative arc that, that tells the tale of, of a love story, essentially. But it is incredible how he made this unit, this cohesive unit, out of five unrelated um, portions of poetry. It's quite um, it's quite effective what he does.

I, this would have been pre-COVID, um, just before, and it was um, through American Composers Orchestra. Mark was, had been commissioned by them to write a cello concerto. And, so as part of the celebration of that, they, they had a um, a recital in honor of the concerto as, and it was myself, um a mezzo and a cellist, and they put this, this piece on, on a concert that night. So that was um, my first introduction to it.

Correct, yeah. It's actually, it's been performed— Was that in, was that the one in Chicago?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh! [Laughs]

This is a, one of my favorite stories, and this is a okay one, but they, they talk about one of their friends saying, you know, once they originally met, saying, "Oh, John's boyfriend has written an opera". [Laughs] Which of course was Little Women and became a huge deal, but I just love that.

Oh!

She is. I love them.

Oh, which one?

Yeah! He does. So he, I, he, I think started sort of making his arrangements and compositions public during the pandemic. Uh, and I had heard, he has a strong sort of gospel piano background which I think both Danny and I related culturally immensely to, because we were both, we both were raised in gospel churches and played gospel piano and have those chops ourselves. Um, so we had heard Will's arrangements um, on videos popping up during the pandemic. So we, I've sort of had my eye on that part of his artistic world for a while, and he, it goes without saying, his singing is incredible. Um, but he, he just has put out two albums um, of the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar um, and so we, we knew that we wanted to ask him to do one of the commissions on our record, and so he wrote two of those songs.

Yeah.

Oh, sure. [Laughs]

Oh, yeah. [Laughs]

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I mean, I think there are obvious, obvious answers to that. There are obvious issues in text setting and incorrect beats on significant or insignificant words. All of those things present issues. But I think that beneath the obvious things, um, I think a lack of understanding of how a voice works can result in poor text setting. I think as a singer, that is, that is the most frustrating one for me um, because a composer can be—I can even be passionate about the way that a composition sounds, but if, if there is not an understanding of the function of the voice, then the text is going to be obscured.

Um, and that's, that is where I start advocating for a change in what I'm, I'm singing. [Laughs] Um,

She does it really— It's one of my favorite things. Oops.

No, go ahead.

Well, she's, Devony's very good at, when we, the three of us are in a room with a composer, let's say, um watching her, to use her word, advocate for a different text setting or a different inflection. Um, you know, she, she does it with an incredible amount of tact, and uh, and where was it that you um, where were you teaching? You were helping composers with their new songs. Was that mostly modern, or where was that?

Yeah.

I think that's really cool work that she's done is um, if you want to talk about that real quick.

Yeah, I, I sometimes have worked with younger composers on writing for voice, which I, I'm almost more passionate about than working with young singers. [Laughs] Um, because I do so much work with really fine composers and really wonderful up-and-coming composers, I, I find it really fulfilling to work with younger composers and talk about the voice and the possibilities of the voice. I think composers, younger composers or composers who are less familiar writing for the voice can, can get frustrated at the vocal medium because it, it is complicated and when things are not right, nobody's happy. Like the composer isn't happy with how it's coming across, and I am not happy singing it. [Laughs] So I find, I find that work, working with people who are developing their skills as vocal writers and text setters really, really fulfilling.

I know, I'm— [Laughs] I'm trying to figure out how to tread carefully here. [Laughs] Um, I'm sort of mentally going through a, you know, a catalog of people we've worked with.

I think, I will, I will say that Danny and I are drawn to tunesmiths, as I, I think, I think a lot of the composers that we've compiled on this album are strong melodic writers. Um, and—

Why are we drawn to them?

Well, it takes on, I mean, it's what represents the character of the, you know, the poetry.

Yeah.

Yeah, what is next for me? Um, I head into a fall of concert-making and uh, premiering new works with companies in New York. So that's sort of my next chapter. I, um, I have an ongoing relationship with the Albany Symphony, who has me back a couple times every year, um and they're a symphony that does uh, a lot of, that commissions a lot of music. So I get to premiere a lot of things with them and have built a relationship with their conductor, David Alan Miller. Uh yeah, they're really incredible. So I, I'm really interested in these longer-term collaborative ventures that I am on in the development of music. And, and while we're on the topic of it, not every piece that I premiere I love, but I do believe that it's my job to find something in it and communicate it. [Laughs] But I think that that's the beauty of, of this line of work, of championing um, championing new work and figuring out the value in, in things that come across my plate.

Um, I'm work, next thing up, I, I head back to Maine uh, to workshop um, a new opera there. Um, I don't know, uh our, both our friend Jordan Piti, he um, also sings um, in drag as Creatine Price, um is, is, his, uh uh stage name. And so, um, um, ICA out of Boston has commissioned uh, a big work that'll be like a one um, one-person opera from him. So, going to head to Maine and work on that. Um, I'll, I'm starting uh, working in the opera department at Mannes this fall, which will be, which will be fun.

Um, and right, you, yeah. And uh—

Oh, wow!

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Um, and just a bunch of, you know, one-off concerts sprinkled here and there, both classical and cabaret stuff. Keep uh, keep the variety up.

We have, we have a, we have another recording idea kind of waiting in the wings um, that we're, that you know, we'll keep close to our chest for now. [Laughs] And uh, and uh—

I will say it has to do with one of the composers on our current, on the album that was released in June, that we want to dig into their rep a little bit more. We didn't, we have one of their songs on our current album, and we want to do a whole album of their stuff. Um, so that's coming up. And we have concerts with Brooklyn Art Song Society this season coming up and—

—yeah.

Oh, yes!

Oh, we just, uh, we were just at Scott's place after one of the last, one of the last concerts.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, very cool.

So much. Yes.

100%. Um, I think I'm not afraid as an opera singer to make all kinds of sounds. Um, obviously I want to be audible. That is very important. It's awkward when you're not audible in opera, I, I do understand that. Um, [Laughs] but I think that my, the colors that I am able to sing with and um, just sort of vo— a, a vocal fearlessness that I bring from art song greatly greatly enriches what I do operatically. Um, and some people like that and some people don't, and I don't really care. Um, but I, [Laughs] I am grateful that, [Laughs] I am grateful for the versatility that I can bring across these sorts of categories of classical singing and I, yeah, I like what that makes me, so.

And I think it's a two-way street, too. I think the opera informs the art song.

Yeah, I mean it's all, it all is sharpening your ear and your color palette. I mean, you're just constantly having to, to draw from different aspects of your playing. It was interesting, because again, I, I, most of my playing is with, with singers, and being back at Bay Chamber, um, in, in Maine, last week, I, I caught myself, uh, in rehearsal, we're premiering um, a song cycle by Matthew Ricketts, with uh string quintet, piano, and baritone. And I caught myself playing like a, like a vocal pianist. I was like, "Well, [Laughs] hold up." I had to like, switch gears and, and that was a nice um, it was nice to inhabit that part of my, my playing again.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you for having us. This is wonderful.

Thank you, it's been a treat.