A Conversation with Sherrill Milnes
2009; Routledge; Volume: 66; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2769-4046
Autores Tópico(s)Hospital Admissions and Outcomes
ResumoLeslie Holmes: [Talking with Milnes at the NATS National Conference in Nashville (both start pronouncing Nashville and Louisville correctly).] You just gave one of the most meaningful and important, I think, keynote speeches I've ever heard, to a room full of voice teachers, coaches, voice therapists. You dealt with every issue, and it makes me feel as if I should just have you read your talk into the microphone and be done with it. [laughter] In high school, you wanted to be an anesthesiologist. Why? Milnes: You ask questions that have long answers. LH: We have plenty of time. SM: [I wanted to be an anesthesiologist] for a variety of reasons. Music was not something that I had thought about as an occupation. I suppose teaching was in the back of my mind, but that was about all. The specific answer is that a very good family friend was an MD. He was the family doctor in a town before Downer's Grove, from which I have come. He became an anesthesiologist, on top of being a practicing doctor. I don't know how old he was, but he was a very good friend of my parents, and I respected him very much. It seemed a natural thing to do. He looked like a role model. That was the reason. Out of high school I went to North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. You might say that I was pre-med, but it was just [studying] science, as a freshman in college. It was during first year, because of the tough courses I was taking, that I really didn't have time for the musical things I was used to doing. I was a fiddle player. I had been concertmaster of the high school orchestra, and played in a west suburban orchestra. I sang in my mother's choir. And, I realized that science wasn't really what I wanted to do. It wasn't that I hated it, or fainted when I saw blood. It was just that I couldn't do the things that I mentioned before. I realized that music was what I really wanted to do. So, I changed schools. LH: You are often painted as a farm boy . . . even on the cover of The Classical Singer magazine, where it says Sherrill Milnes: From Farm Boy to Opera Star. Now, you only lived thirty miles west of Chicago. It was a suburban area, where you were surrounded by music. But, there was this dairy farm. How did that affect you-being on a dairy farm? And, I'm sure that there were things expected of you. SM: Yes. But let me back up. It was a farm outside a Chicago suburb. I think there may only have been one other farm family's kids in high school, besides my brother and me. It was suburbia. But ours wasn't. It was down and dirty. Small family. Manure. Everything. Milking cows. Dairy is tougher than grain or beef. Twice a day the cows have to be milked. You're sick? Too bad. You have to do it. You sprained your ankle and it's swollen? Too bad. You have to do it. In answer to, What did it create or serve? I suppose it created a certain work ethic that was undeniable. You didn't do it because you read it in the Bible, or in some manual. Farm work-getting the crops in, milking the cows-is governed by the sun going down. If there was going to be a storm, you worked 'til midnight to get the hay in, so that it wouldn't get wet. You just did it. It wasn't a matter of logic. It was there to do. I didn't think so much differently, even though I knew that most of my high school cohorts didn't live on farms. That's where I lived, and my brother, my dad, and I did the work because it was there to do. You had to do it. Every Thursday evening and Sunday morning you did church choir. Kids' choir was once a month, but I went into the adult choir fairly early, although my voice didn't change early. I think, when I was in the eighth grade, my mother asked me to come into the adult choir. I loved it, because it was more challenging, with harmonies and such. I hated the unison in which we sang in the kids' choir. I thought unison was boring. LH: You said in your keynote speech that you taught junior high school band. …
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