High Holiness

Well, it happened again; I went back to singing for High Holy Days, although not in Deal this time.

Now that I have a Germanic last name, I figured I wouldn’t have to change it to something more semitic this time, but one of the first things the cantor brought up with me was the “problem” some people might have with me being a gentile. I foolishly told the cantor about how they changed my name to Montebini in Deal, and I think it gave him ideas; he other day he asked if he could call me Miriam in front of other people.

I told him that he could call me that…but I might not answer.

Anyway, the whole situation has made me start thinking about the role music plays in religion. Obviously, music and religion have been inexorably linked since the beginning of either. But more pertinent to a person in my line of work: when did religions start hiring ringers to “improve” their services?

I know the Catholic church (and later, the Protestants) has always been a great sponsor of music. The first music conservatories were orphanages run by the church. And how many great, monumental works were commissioned by the church? So I’m very, very grateful to organized religion in general for being such a consistent sponsor of the arts throughout the centuries. But sorry, folks, I’m not going to buy into your way of thinking just because you sign my check.

Many religious pieces have been (and continue to be) written by believers, from Palestrina to MacMillan, but some really beautiful sacred music has been written by composers leading decidedly secular lives, like Mozart or Schumann.  I personally don’t believe that a piece of music is only sacred when someone who believes what the listener believes writes it.  So what is the big deal when someone who doesn’t believe performs it, as long as they perform it well?

Being a gentile in the middle of High Holy Days certainly made me feel very much an outsider, especially considering the fact that most of the services were conducted in Hebrew. And the fact that I had to hide my religious affiliation to the point of changing my name also rubbed me the wrong way. Are appearances so important that you have to make everyone believe that the 4 singers you hired to be there also are Jews? Because if it’s THAT important, then you should just never hire gentiles at all.

The irony really struck me while rehearsing for Kol Nidre, when the cantor explained that this service started back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, when Jews went underground and had to pretend they were Christians.  Kol nidre is the prayer that renounces all false oaths those Jews made to their oppressors.  And yet I have to pretend to be Jewish.

And lest you think my frustration is only with the Jews, most churches require their choir members to bow or reverence the altar during procession to the choir stalls, and some higher forms of Episcopal and Catholic churches require you to bow to the cross on the altar whenever you pass by it.  It’s a part of the ritual, and I do it out of respect for the people worshiping around me. But I don’t take communion, nor does anyone expect me to, since communion is reserved for baptized Christians only (for Catholics, it’s reserved only for Catholics).

The problem may lie with me.  After all, if I didn’t want to do what the folks at the synagogue expected of me, I could have just not taken the job. And I’m sure some of you think that by running from synagogue to church in the same day I’m no better than a religious strumpet, stripping off my cotta and slipping on a kippah.  And certainly there is a meretricious element to what I’m doing, because this particular gig, by its very nature, is deceptive.

I’m not sure there is an easy answer to this, at least not one where I don’t offend somebody.  I am a working singer, and there are certain organizations of varying religions that feel they would benefit from my services.  If somebody feels closer to God when they hear me sing, then that makes me happy, and it brings me closer to God(dess).  Music is my church, and I am constantly worshipping there.

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Episode XX: Montebini Strikes Back

Hello, all you wild and zany people I call my friends!

I have been getting an alarming number of complaints from you people that my missives are “great, but way too long to read.” So, I’m trying to summarize as much as I possibly can while still delivering the pithy and entertaining content you have been enjoying thus far. As a result, my letters will probably be more frequent, so my apologies in advance to those of you who feel that these newsletters are glorified spam.

When last we left our beloved heroine, she was in the midst of the doldrums, with no job, no show, no money to speak of, and no self-confidence. You’ll be delighted to hear that she has pulled herself up by her bootstraps (does SuperMaren wear boots? Apparently, she does!), and has forged ahead in the spirit of superheroes all over the world. Let us take a closer look…

Yes, I have risen like the proverbial Phoenix, although not with quite as much panache. I think my turning point was a few weeks ago when I wrote a fairy tale entitled “The Fairy Who Could Not Fly,” inspired by a day of listlessness and frustration. I’m rather proud of my new story, and am preparing it to be sent to publishers as we speak.

You will also be glad to know that this is the first month in my singing career that I will be making more money singing than being a secretary. Not that I’m getting paid that much either way, but it’s a start! Not only am I singing with Kim Breden’s group, Spring Sisters, but I’m also making a repeat performance as Maren Montebini at the Jewish Congregation in Deal, NJ for the High Holy Days. I know, I know, after my traumatic experience last year, I swore to you all that the only way I was going back was if they paid me twice as much.

But I got poor, and I needed the money. So I settled for 20% more. I know, I have to work on my negotiation tactics. But when I settled on a price, I thought I wasn’t going back to that wretched congregation with Rabbi Napoleon. Somehow, Leon Berger (the guy who sends the choirs out to different synagogues) sweet-talked me into going back to Deal - I’m still not sure how he did it - and my end of the agreement has been getting worse and worse with each rehearsal. Well, I’ve made my bed now, and at least I’m getting enough money so that I don’t have to work full-time this month.

Looking back at the past few months, I realize that I’ve had quite a few adventures; from working on the new musical “Last Legs” with my friends Pete Couchman and Sarah Nadeau (from New England Conservatory), to spending weekends at the PA Renaissance Faire, to a VERY short stint as a backup singer somewhere in Crown Heights (a story on which I will elaborate in the next episode).

Because I don’t want to make this letter too dense, I think I will sign off for now.

It seems like a whole bunch of you are moving this fall, and I wish you well in your new endeavors. For those of you who are trucking along in the same place, I also wish you well in your own adventures. As always, I’m very happy to hear from all of you, and I miss you very much.

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Episode XVIII: The Best of Times

Hello, all you wild and zany friends of mine!

I’m sure you are all wondering why I am writing so soon after my last missive. After all, Maren (I hear you pointing out to me), wasn’t this supposed to be a QUARTERLY newsletter, not a bimonthly newsletter? Yes, this is true; the last thing I want to do is fill your already full mailboxes with unnecessary musings on the meaning of life, the existence of non-existence, and things that go “bump” in the night (not to mention the things that go “aachhmph!” in the mid-afternoon). No, no, although I will attempt to regale you once again with my Adventures, I have a much more practical reason to write to you all, and that is the purely selfish reason called The Shameless Plug. (Don’t worry, though, you’ll get plenty of stories before The Shameless Plug interferes.)

When I last wrote, I was embarking on several different avenues of my craft: Josh Feltman and I were starting to write our opera, I was going to attend a voice-over class, and Dave Bickle and I were thinking about doing a cabaret together. Well, as the performer’s life is rather a fluid one, the plans I originally had made for myself ended up being put on the wayside as other opportunities came my way.

I did, indeed, take a voice-over class through Wiest-Barron School for Acting, and I learned quite a bit from the teacher, Glen Holzer, who has been doing voice-overs for the past 20 years. For those of you who think it would be a fun thing for you to do: it’s not easy. Especially for women. I found out that only about 20-30% of commercial voice-overs are women, and breaking into the business is REALLY hard, especially in New York, because most people who are in the business are fighting to keep the spots they have. Nice work, if you can get it…you know the rest. I shall certainly try, though.

A few days after I sent out my last episode to you all, I received a phone call from a woman with whom I had worked during one of the Jewish Nightmare Services (not the main ones in Deal, NJ, but an earlier Slichot service in Ft. Lee, which wasn’t nearly that bad, although we did have the misfortune of performing in a freshly-painted, badly-ventilated basement of a Catholic parish). This woman, Karen Geer, had noticed my voice (and my sight-reading ability, since I was thrown in at the last minute), and wanted me to join her and another woman from the choir in a trio singing Jewish folk music. After talking with her and getting her assurances that there would be very little (if any at all) performances at actual services, that she merely wanted to form a singing group for concerts and CD’s, I agreed to join. The three of us (Karen, Mary Hurlbut, and I) have named this group “Miriam’s Well,” and we now meet every Thursday night at a Unitarian church in Brooklyn; all three of us are big music nerds, so we are happily arranging Jewish songs (some Yiddish, some Sephardic, etc.) to fit our voices. Surprisingly enough, we three work and sing very well together, and I can tell that this group has some real potential. The plan is to get a demo CD cut this summer and have our first concert in the fall, but don’t worry; I’ll keep you posted on all our updates.

Silly side note: Glen Holzer, my voice-over teacher, is also a comedian, and was always cracking jokes during class. Strangely enough, I was the only one who laughed at the Jewish jokes (must be all those Jewish boys I’ve dated), so he started calling me “Maren Montalbano: Gentile Extraordinaire” whenever I got up to do a spot. I think that what with last year’s stint with the High Holy Days and now Miriam’s Well, I might as well be Montebini: Gentile Extraordinaire. All in all, I still like just being SuperMaren.

Some of you might remember the on-going story of my involvement with the musical version of A Tale of Two Cities. For those of you who haven’t, here is the condensed version: In February of 1999, I answered an ad in Backstage calling for “Legit Sopranos for Demo CD.” When I auditioned, the composer, Rob Hoover, said, “that’s the voice I imagined when I wrote this music!” He subsequently asked me to sing the role of Lucie Manette on the demo CD for the musical that he was writing with Joe McDonald, based on Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities. I was extremely excited, but due to miscommunication with telephone messages, I ended up in one place for the rehearsal, while everyone else was in another building across town. I arrived at the right place 5 minutes before they left, and they had found someone else to sing the part. Devastated, I thought I would never hear from them again. Then, one spring day in March of 2000, I was sitting in a diner when my cell phone rang, and lo and behold, it was Rob Hoover! He asked me to sing the part of Lucie in their backers’ auditions (basically scenes and songs from the play performed as a reading for possible financial backers), which I performed four or five times in the spring and summer. As a result of those backers’ auditions, the Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center in Nyack, NY offered to produce the show; the folks at Two Cities Productions promised that all the people who had been involved in previous incarnations of the show would be given an audition appointment for this next production.

Well, in the middle of February 2001, the auditions for the production were printed in Backstage and posted in the Equity building, but I got no calls from anyone at Two Cities Productions or the casting director’s office. Determined to get myself seen, I called the producer and asked her why I hadn’t gotten any appointments. She was very sorry that I had been overlooked, and offered to do something for me if I came to the open call. I showed up at the open call, and she got me in to audition (not an easy feat, seeing as how over 200 women came to the Non-Equity call alone), and made sure I got called back. The rest, of course, was up to me. Imagine my surprise when I actually got the call from the Artistic Director, offering me a part in the show!

That week I was bombarded with all sorts of mixed feelings. I wasn’t cast as the lead, which I had expected, but they didn’t even cast me as an understudy to the lead (definite blow to the ego); no roles at all, just a chorus part…I haven’t done that for a very long time. The non-equity scale was a pittance compared to what I am getting paid at HSBC, although I found out later that there is a chance for me to get my Equity card. The biggest down side was that rehearsals are during the day, and I would have to take a significant amount of time off work. The last guy who worked at my job was an actor, so I thought there would be no conflict if I told them I needed to take some time off for rehearsals. Unfortunately, what I found out later was that the actor ended up leaving because Leslie (the Big Cheese) was fed up with all the time he was taking off for rehearsals. Now what was I going to tell them? I told Christine (the executive secretary with whom I work) everything, and she said that it might be possible, but I’d have to wait for an answer from my manager (not Leslie). The theater then emailed me and told me I would have to give them an answer by noon the next day.

After giving myself several ulcers over the issue, I decided to let my heart choose what to do. Without another thought, I called the theater and told them I would take the job, and I instantly felt better. I heard from my boss several days later telling me that it was okay for me to take the time off just this once, but I couldn’t tell anyone at work what I was doing, otherwise Leslie would have a hissy fit. Fine with me, especially since I had made the decision to do the show no matter what, and I wasn’t really relishing the idea of quitting my well-paying job.

So now rehearsals have started, I have opted to get my Equity card out of all of this, and I haven’t been this happy in a very long time. The people in the cast are absolutely amazing…some of them have been on Broadway in different shows, and it’s such an honor to be working with them, making jokes with them, and learning from them. All of a sudden, I feel like such a dolt for thinking that I was too good for a chorus role. Now, I’m just so thankful that I have this wonderful opportunity, and I hope that I can use it to my advantage in the future. The score and the script are being fleshed out in ways that I never thought about, and I have a good feeling about where this show is going.

So what happened to all the other stuff I was going to do? Well, it kind of fell by the wayside, although I am picking it up, slowly…Josh Feltman and I ARE still writing the opera. He’s been waiting for a month for me to come up with an opening sequence for Act I, but I’ve been a slacker. I think that when everyone else was coming down with the flu, I caught a similar bug called Procrastinitis. The only cure, I have heard, is to kick your own ass and start doing what you’re supposed to be doing. I’m having some trouble making my leg bend so that I can kick my own ass, but I’ve been doing some stretching exercises, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before I start working (sorry, Josh).

Dave Bickle, within his first month of being in the Big Apple, got into not one but TWO shows, so he is rather busy. That’s just fine with me, because I have had my own things to do (Q.E.D.). We still plan on doing a cabaret together, but it’s kind of on the back burner for now.

For those of you who keep asking me about my better half, he is doing just fine, living in his 4-bachelor house in South Jersey which is more than 8 times larger than my dinky Astoria apartment. If the commute weren’t 2 hours one way, and if there were any closet space in his room, I’d move in with him in a heartbeat; as it is, I’ll have to wait until my lease ends in Nov. 2002. I’m sure I will be embroiled in more Adventures between now and then, so don’t fret; you’ll be hearing more about him in the future.

And now, just when you thought it was safe, I give to you The Shameless Plug. Come see me in my awesome schmawesome production of A Tale of Two Cities: Dickens’ immortal tale of love, betrayal, sacrifice, and decapitation is now gracing the stage as a musical! Details below:

A Tale of Two Cities
Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center
117 Main St.
Nyack, NY 10960
Performances: Mar. 17 - Apr. 1 (Mondays dark; there are various
matinees as well, but you’ll have to contact the box office)
Tickets: $32.50 - $42.50
Box Office: (845) 358-6333
www.ataleoftwocities.org
www.helenhayespac.org

I know a lot of you are in New York City and don’t have cars, so you might have a hard time getting to the theater. If you need a ride, you can hitch one with me on the actor’s shuttle; just let me know when you’ll be coming, ‘cuz there’s not a lot of room and I have to ask everyone else.

Well, now that the plugs are out there, I suppose I should get back to having my adventures. I love hearing from you, so please don’t be shy if you want to tell me all about YOUR adventures!

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Episode XVI: The Singing Wonder

Hello, all you wild and zany friends of mine!

Yes, it is time for another installation of the Adventures of SuperMaren, the collection of true stories about my life.

When last we left our heroine, she was leaping tall buildings with a single bound…well, okay, mostly GAZING at tall buildings from high atop her perch on the 26th floor of the HSBC Tower. What is she doing now? Is she still singing, or has she fallen prey to the evil machinations of her nemesis, Imelda Indolence (who tries to lure superheros into a state of lethargy and sloth so that they no longer want do what they were meant to do)? Let us take a closer look…

Yes, yes, I’m fine. I have been singing here and there at gigs around town. My most recent adventure was singing for the High Holy Days at a synagogue in Deal, NJ. I thought it would be a pretty simple gig…two rehearsals and five performances, no big woop. As many of you already know, sight reading comes very easily to me, and singing in Hebrew is like singing in any other language…it’s all written out phonetically, so I just match the syllable to the note.

Unfortunately, several things went wrong with this gig. First, the soprano they hired (I was singing alto in the quartet) was not very good. When she sang, she was tentative at best, which didn’t really do very well for group tuning (It’s hard to sing harmony when you don’t have a melody). Besides that, the guy who hired us all claimed that he did not want to lead us, but then sat in on rehearsals and constantly interrupted our tenor/conductor with redundant nitpicking. Needless to say, rehearsals were not productive at all, and by the time the first performance came around, even after two extra rehearsals, I did not feel at all prepared…especially after the soprano was fired right before the last rehearsal.

The synagogue in Deal has a conservative congregation, and they didn’t want any gentiles singing at their services. I found this out after I was introduced as Maren Montebini, the Sephardic non-practicing Jew. They questioned the authenticity of our bass, Hillel Dolgenes, whose father was a rabbi, but the Chinese/English/Scots-Irish/Italian Wiccan sailed right by their scrutiny. Having my name changed actually bothered me more than I thought it would; I didn’t realize how important it is that people know it is ME singing, and not some made-up person.

The first part of the service went alright, but then the rabbi (who looked and acted like Napoleon) wanted to sing along with every song…even the songs that were specially arranged for our quartet! It didn’t matter that he was singing slower than us or had his face in the microphone or that it was just plain rude…he was in charge, and that’s what made it okay. Then of course, there were the congregational hymns, the music to which I did not know because it had not been given to me. I figured I could just look in the book and sing along, but the book was all in Hebrew, and although I can fake pronunciation of the Romance languages, I start stumbling when I read different alphabets. The other singers assured me that it was okay, but the intense humiliation of having to mouth “peas and carrots” in front of 200 people for a professional performance was enough for me to become indignant at the audacity of the person who hired me. If he expected the singers to know the music without being
taught, then he should have hired Jewish singers who have grown up with the music!

…alright, that’s enough ranting and raving. Suffice to say, if I get a call for this gig next year (and from what I can tell, they
were very pleased with me), I will charge AT LEAST double what I was paid this year. And they’re not changing my name.

This week I just recorded a couple of songs for a CD which will be played at the show “Independence” by Lee Blessing. For those of you in New York, you should definitely go see it. I’m not singing live, but you will hear my voice at intermission, and the show itself is wonderful. Karma Tiffany and Sonda Staley, whom some of you know, are both in it and producing the show.

If you do want to go, here’s the info:
Independence by Lee Blessing
Nov. 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 at 8 PM
Nov. 11, 18 at 2 PM
Nov. 12 at 5 PM
American Theater of Actors
314 West 54th Street (between 8th & 9th Aves.), 4th floor
Reservations: 212-946-5554
Tickets: $12; Groups of 5 or more - $8; Groups of 10 or more - $5; $10 with donation of canned goods; $5 with gently used coat for NY Cares.

In other news, my cousin Dave just got married and I sang at his beautiful wedding. It was great to see some relatives I haven’t seen for years. And of course, there was an open bar…everyone loves an open bar…not that I got drunk because the bartender was watering the drinks down, but it’s the IDEA of the open bar that’s good.

Other than that, I’m keeping myself busy with work and singing and wonderful boyfriend and trying to keep my room clean. For those of you who keep track and want to send me gifts, cards, or large sums of money, my 26th birthday is on November 19, which is very soon, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I hope you don’t mind my egotistical ramblings. I am more than happy to hear from you, and I hope that all is well in your life. Take care, and watch out for Imelda Indolence…she could be anywhere.

Love,
Maren

P.S. - Don’t forget: November 19. My birthday. Just in case you forgot.

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