GC Graduate Rebecca Martin performs at annual music gala by Anne Horst "You look the audience in the eye and feel like you could actually move someone," said Rebecca Martin ('88), acclaimed mezzo-soprano soloist, on how she decided to sing as a vocation. The GC audience's standing ovation Friday night in the Union auditorium affirmed Martin's ability to touch the soul. After graduating from GC with a music major, Martin moved to Munich, Germany, where she studied voice with Julia Faulkner of the Bavarian and Vienna State Operas and Hanna Ludwig of Salzburg's Mozartuem. Since 1995 she has built a successful opera career as a soloist for the Anhaltisches Theater of Dessau, Germany. The music department originally drew Martin to GC. "At first I was not really into going to a Mennonite college," she said. She visited her older brother when he was a GC student and was impressed in talking with professors. Growing up in Allentown, PA, she was a serious piano student, but singing was "just a thing on the side." In fact, Martin did not begin voice lessons until her first year at GC. She studied voice with former GC vocal instructor Kay Montgomery and piano with Professor of Music Marvin Blickenstaff. She also sang in chamber choir for three years under Professor of Music Doyle Preheim. As a junior, Martin played Beethovan's C minor piano concerto in the Concerto-Aria competition and also performed a lead mezzo role in the opera Ballad of Baby Do. Martin gave full senior recitals on both voice and piano, though the opera helped her realize that singing was becoming more important. Montgomery's charisma especially affected Martin. "In addition to teaching me so much technically and knowing how to start someone off, she taught me what it means to be a singer, to have a stage personality and to project something," she said. Montgomery has stayed in touch with Martin and heard her perform in Germany last June. Martin's interest in Germany began when her high school chamber choir went to Zarbrucken on a tour. She enjoyed her host family and decided to take an intensive German course the summer after her high school graduation. Martin spent a college semester in Germany with an Indiana University of South Bend program. After graduation, she planned to move to Munich for a year with two of her college classmates. She has remained in Germany for 10 years. Martin's current opera job can be very demanding when the theater works on new pieces in addition to rehearsing already-running performances. She said they may work with up to three operas each day. Martin feels she could sing for up to eight hours a day, but has found that it is not always necessary. "I try to do more mental work and less singing so that I don't tire myself as much," she explained. Standing in blocking rehearsals can be tiring without the emotional release of singing, she said. "With all its quirks, it can be as tedious as fun," Martin said of the opera. However, Martin enjoys opera because the music demands different things than concert repertoire. "There is more emotional involvement," she said. She also enjoys the diverse roles she is able to perform as a mezzo and has portrayed characters including pants, old women and young girls. "There are few people who really have it all together like Rebecca does," said Blickenstaff of his former student. "Talent, heart, a genuinely nice person, hard work: I mean she's got it all." |