A Conversion with Tami Petty
By Natasha Barbieri
Soprano Tami Petty is one of those special people who enter your life like a burst of sunshine. I was first introduced to her while at Westchester Community College perusing my Associate’s degree in Performance. My teacher at the time, Rosemarie Serrano, felt that it was time for me to move on to a new teacher who would further develop my talent and recommended that I study with Tami. I really loved Ms. Serrano and had misgivings about a change – and then I met Tami.
The first thing you notice about Tami is her smile and a warm friendly laugh that puts you at ease. Her easy going, welcoming manner is unique and then you hear her sing… More than one student would stop in the hall at our community college and listen in amazement to the gorgeous lush sound that poured out of the practice rooms. Her soprano voice is clear but also powerful, commanding attention. We immediately hit it off and I was very blessed to have had the experience to learn from her. Through the years we have kept in touch and I have watched from afar as her career goes from strength to strength, and honestly few people deserve it as she does. It was a pleasure to reconnect with her and once again be inspired.
“It’s been forever,” she acknowledges as we speak we both try to decide how many years but quickly give up. I tell her how I’ve been watching the amazing thing she’s been doing and Tami says, “I’ve been having fun.” For sure.
So how did her journey begin? “Everyone talks about when they were tiny, tiny people but I won’t bore you with that. I was very shy, I’ll tell you that. I started singing in church because I was practically forced to do it. And my family always sang together. Every holiday we got together the guitars would come out. I have a lot of good memories like that.” Tami’s father would sing bass, her mother tenor, her brother soprano, while she sang alto in quartets for their local church. Music has retained an important role not only in her life but also in that of her brother Billy. “Billy is now the music director at a huge Presbyterian church in Livonia, Michigan. He and I sang together in a really neat concert, probably 2009, with the Manchester Choral Society. It was the first time and last time so far, that we’ve ever been able to sing at a classical concert together. It was a huge highlight for me to sing with my brother.”
From singing in church in the cold of Michigan to performing at Lincoln Center… how did that come about? “Well I was at Eastman at the time, studying a degree in early music and just sort of doing a performance major and I was working there and when I began my doctorates degree my teacher said, ‘ You actually have a larger instrument than you were using,’” she chuckles. “So it was a revelatory process that was slow, and I realized I had a larger instrument that I just wasn’t using. I started singing opera there as a mezzo-soprano and then went on to do some young artist programs. You know you audition for things as a student, you go to New York and sing for 5 or 6 companies and hope, cross your fingers that one of them will invite you to go to their program. I’m very fortunate I got to go to several programs as a mezzo-soprano, and they knew I was going to be transitioning to soprano eventually but that it was going to be a slow process.” At certain programs, Central City Opera and Cincinnati Opera, for example, Tami was given the chance to sing a mezzo role and cover or understudy a soprano one. She describes the experience as a “real transition.” She says, “I didn’t just go up right away. I went up to soprano then came down to mezzo and went up to soprano again. I sort of landed in soprano territory.”
For the benefit of singers like myself who are interested in vocal fach, I ask Tami a little more about the process. “I didn’t like singing high it didn’t feel good. Not that I could evaluate your sound even, cause it’s hard to evaluate your sound as a singer but it just didn’t feel good. And I couldn’t hand up there – I didn’t have the stamina to stay above the staff. It was because I was using so much color and weigh in the voice to manufacture a more ‘mezzo’ sound and I was very happy in that land,” she laughs. “The truth is when I go back and listen to recordings from that time, it was like oh my gosh lyric mezzo there I was! But I couldn’t do anything more, make any more sound the sound, couldn’t make it any deeper or richer than it was that was the max. I think I was right on track on where I was supposed to be. From lyric to fuller lyric to dramatic voices, they tend to take that trajectory they sing mezzo and they go up, or they will sing big lyric repertoire or just not get hired for a while.”
She offers this bit of advice to singers on the journey. “My advice is, follow the careers of people who have had similar experiences. You can’t just sit in the bushes and hope for the little tulip to pop out of the grass, you can’t be Cinderella waiting for your prince to show up on the doorstep with your glass slipper, you have to really take time and evaluate how are you making steps towards achieving your goal. And do you have the people in your corner who are going to help support you along your journey.” She breaks it down. “This means working with a teacher on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, working with a coach every week and you may ask yourself, ‘What the heck for? Why would I be preparing myself if I’m not going to be performing’ but if you will work diligently over the period of 6-12 months you’ll find that there are changes you’ll be making. And my advice is just to stick with it and to keep exposing yourself to great art. Find singers that you love and go and hear them sing live and be inspired. And watch the careers of people you love, see where they came from and how long it took them to get where they are and just be a good student.”
Some of the singers who inspired Tami are; Christine Brewer, Birgit Nilsson, and Jane Abrams. “These are all bigger voices and dramatic. But I think one thing that stands out to me is that they all sing lyrically and that’s a big thing that you have to try and remember to do no matter what voice type you are is to sing lyrically and to sing healthily. So I listen to them for inspiration and to be reminded that you can come out with a fabulous product as long as you think of singing more efficiently and more healthily.”
When it comes to repertoire how does Tami decide? Does it need to appeal to her on some emotional level? “Sure it does need to appeal,” she says, “But I think for me a lot of times I take the opportunities when they are presented. I don’t just say ‘I’d like to sing Tannhauser now. Poof! I have a role as Elisabeth’ singing the role I want to sing. The opportunities, you have to be ready for them when they do appear that’s the catch. But there are things I can choose to do that are my own preparation and my own will.” She shares about a recent performance of songs with a group of young musicians done solely for the ‘joy of reading through this music.’ “It was fun and it was rewarding but the reality is I probably will never perform with them with an octet again. But I may perform them with an orchestra. So for me doing that project was good because it made me realize ‘Oh yeah, I’ve really go to sing this stuff’ if I really want it to come my way I need to be in the moment and sing it. That’s why a lot of opera singers practice arias all the time because they want to stay in shape and be ready if they are hired to perform a role, they need to be athletically able to do it. But in terms of projects that I like or things that I like to prepare yeah I have some things. But right now I’m really working contract to contract or engagement to engagement. Things like that that need to be prepared ahead of time and it just takes a lot of my brain cells away. So right now I’m not electively doing a lot of things that I want to do myself. Those things are easier to do when you have some downtime.”
Part of the preparation process includes the assistance form a good teacher. Easier said than done of course. A good teacher, like Tami herself, is a valued and rare commodity. “I think you have to do a little research. Having a lesson is expensive sometimes if you are just going to have the first lesson and never go back. But sometimes it’s the only way to go, ‘Do I like this person? Do I understand the lingo they are using? The other thing is to find out what their reputation is in the business. Find out who their students are and if they work with other coaches or colleagues in the business that could recommend them. It’s hard when you go to somebody and you sense that there’s something there and there’s value there but you’re not really sure how to evaluate it, so I would record my lessons and play them back and you could have an honest reaction after you’ve gone through the lesson and then are evaluating on the playback and seeing how things progressed or were addressed. And then going back for that second lesson is sort of a clincher for me, if it works out great I sort of know by the second lesson for me.”
Maintaining a positive attitude in the midst of rejection and competition is another important aspect of a career in music. Tami always seems to take things in her stride. “Well, I guess maybe it’s different for everyone but for me, I am reminded of the fact that I need to be a good steward of my talent or my gift if I can call it that and the other big, big part of it is gratitude. I have such a feeling of gratitude for every chance I get to make music, for working at such a high level, for being in the path of making all these connections with people which then lead to other opportunities.” Tami says she’s “ashamed” to admit she doesn’t really audition anymore. At this point in her career, she is getting enough work simply by referrals and being re-hired to work at the same places. “It is important to me, and it doesn’t cost me anything, and I get energy from developing relationships with the people I work with. And if I don’t have a joy in that, if it doesn’t bring me joy, Honey I don’t try to go down that road anymore! I sort of say well, I’m not going to work with that conductor anymore. That’s ok it’s not for me. The people that bring me joy and help me be a better musician, and I rise to a higher level than I knew I was capable of, Oh I want t continue those relationships! So for me, it’s about gratitude and perusing these kinds of relationships with people.”
Speaking of Joy, Tami made her solo debut in Merkin Hall in 2014, after winning the ‘Joy in Singing Award.’ “‘The’ Joy of Singing’ competition goes back to 1958 and it’s a competition that celebrates the joy in singing and the connection that the artist can manifest and develop with the audience through art song. This competition you submit a recording, and then they invite you to come into a master class with Paul Sperry who is an incredible musician, historian and amazing person who knows a lot about song and they will hear about 30 people in these master classes and then they have finals. I was invited to the finals. There were three sopranos and a mezzo in my final round and when they announced my name it was almost like I didn’t hear it,” she says laughing. “I just kind of was smiling and they said my name and I thought surely I won a runner-up or something like that but they said, ‘No you won the prize!’ and I was like ‘What?! I couldn’t believe it, I was in shock. But I’ve just had a devil of the good time doing the performances there.” As a result of winning the competition, Tami has sung in several recitals last year and this year, including her solo debut in Merkin Hall. “That was a lot of fun.” She sang Charles Griffiths ‘Four Impressions’ Joseph Mark songs, and a cycle by John Green among others and was called a “True ‘recitalist’” by the Opera Insider.
When it comes to preparation for an event like this Tami says she does a lot of work “in my head. I do use the mirror, I do use a paper and pen to write out the lyrics like a crazy person, and I recite, I carry little note cards around with my text when I’m memorizing. The other thing is I spend a lot of time in my head and I do. I envision connecting through the words viscerally so I have a very strong physical memory of the poem and of my reaction to it and harmonically what is happening while the words are being said.” She believes in the method of visualizing yourself doing something – everything from the opening of the stage door to walking out on stage and thanking the audience for coming to the concert. “Even though I don’t say, I think it in my mind and feel it in my heart. And I walk out in a spirit of gratitude and rehearsing in my mind what I’m going to do for the whole night. So when I create a program I try to create an arch or who it begins, the climax and how it ends. So I’m envisioning the songs I’m singing and the whole arch… that helps me prepare.”
Of course, Tami also listens to other singers but as references only. “I don’t use them to learn the song. I think that’s a huge mistake because then you are copying someone else’s interpretation which may or may not be the composer’s intention and it also doesn’t help you understand your own artistry along the way. You can’t form your own opinion that way.” Sometimes she even draws pictures to remember harder words. “We do what we can.”
I ask about her plans for the future and she jokes good-naturedly about her five-year plan before sharing her dreams. “I have a wish list of repertoire that I would really love to be hired to sing somewhere. On that list in the Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’, and I would really love to sing Britten’s ‘War Requiem.’ I would love to sing with some friends of mine in different capacities. The great thing about being friends with professional musicians is that sometimes you are able to find opportunities to work together where everyone shines in their best way and so those kinds of things are important and fun to me. I love collaborating with new pianists on art songs so that’s exciting! What else,” she thinks. “I dunno I just really love singing. I’ll sing the phonebook I don’t care. I’ll just enjoy it.” Enjoy it she doubtlessly will and in turn, her singing will continue to bring joy to new audiences around the world.
Visit Tami’s official website: tamipetty.com
