Music Notes 5-12-24

This week, we will be enjoying the dulcet tones of our own Kylie Smith.  Kylie graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz in summer of 2021 with a Bachelor's degree in Vocal Performance and Environmental Studies. Before falling in love with classical music, Kylie was convinced she was going to be a musical theater superstar (She's honestly relieved she didn't stay on that path). She studied for 5 years under Dr. Emily Sinclair, and Kylie is forever thankful that she had such an amazing teacher to introduce her to this artform. Kylie was extremely active in her university’s opera program. She has sung a variety of operatic roles including but not limited to Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Adina in L'Elisir D'Amore, and the title role in Handel's Semele.  Kylie is quite active in the choir community. Before coming to Encino Presbyterian, she had the privilege of being a section leader and soloist in her university choir and in choirs across the Santa Cruz community. She has been singing in choirs since she was sixteen years old and has never grown tired of the intrigue, challenge, and striking beauty choral music presents her. 

While Kylie enjoys all elements of singing and performing, she has a special place in her heart for all of the action that happens behind a stage. In past years, she worked as an assistant stage manager for Pacific Opera Project's Into the Woods at the Descanso Gardens and as a Production Coordinator for LA Opera's Simulcast. Before moving to LA, Kylie also gained experience in stage managing operas through her University's opera program.  Currently, Kylie is working in the Development Department at the LA Opera learning all she can about Arts Administration. Her current goal in the arts is to introduce opera back into her community through community engagement and education. She has not stopped singing, however. She is currently studying with baritone and composer Joel Balzun and preparing a recital with some colleagues from this very community! She is so thankful to get to serve Encino Presbyterian each Sunday through her favorite way to express herself. 

Kylie is going to be singing a Celine Dion tune called Because You Loved Me.  Celine recorded the song on her fourth English-language studio album, Falling Into You (1996). It was released on 19 February 1996 as the first single in North America, and as the second single in the United Kingdom on 20 May 1996. Because You Loved Me was written by Diane Warren and produced by David Foster, and served as the theme song from the 1996 film Up Close & Personal, starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Billboard ranked it as the 14th "Top Love Song of All Time".  Diane Warren says she wrote it for her father, but it works very well for Mother’s Day, too.

“Temperament” is the word used to describe the way a musical scale is tuned – specifically, how many wavelengths apart are the notes C and G, for example.  Over the centuries, there have been many ways to tune a scale, many different temperaments, including Meantone, Werkmeister, Pythagorian, and so on.  Each temperament produces a unique sound when played, because not all the scales are perfectly “in tune”.  For reasons that are too technical to talk about here, in Meantone temperament, the scales of D major and E major are brilliantly in tune, whereas the scales of Eb and Gb are extremely out of tune.  Furthermore, every organ builder had a different theory about how the instrument should be tuned once built.  So, an organ tuned to Meantone couldn’t play pieces of music in Eb or Gb.  For years, composers yearned for a temperament that would allow them to write in any key without tuning issues.  “Equal temperament” is a temperament that is generally accepted to have been designed by Zhu Zaiyu, a prince in the Chinese Ming court, who solved the tuning mathematically in 1584.  Equal temperament became more and more accepted over the years, with composer Girolamo Frescobaldi being a strong advocate.  In essence, all the scales can be played, due to the compromise that all the scales are equally slightly out of tune.  In 1722, J.S. Bach wrote a book of keyboard music titled Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, or The Well-Tempered Clavier (“clavier” being a word used to describe pretty much any keyboard instrument), designed to show off the flexibility of the scale.  The first piece in that book was the Prelude and Fugue in C Major.  The prelude is a delightful piece that most young pianists learn because it’s relatively easy to play.  In 1853, French composer Charles Gounod improvised a melody overtop of the prelude, and his future father-in-law, Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman, wrote it down, then created an arrangement for violin with piano and harmonium (pump organ).  In 1859, Jacques Leopold Heugel published a version with the familiar Latin Ave Maria text, which is the version we all know today.