Arts

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The Michigan Daily

Tuesday, August 11, 1981

Poge 5


Constance Barron, a classical.

singer
By GAIL NEGBAUR
Daily arts writer
MYTH: Classical singers will not and
cannot perform any other kinds of
music._
FACT: There are a few versatile per-
formers, like University doctoral can-
didate Constance Barron, who can and
do sing in a variety of different styles.
Singing gospel music from the time
she was four years old, Barron toured
extensively in the United States before
getting her own radio show in her earl3
20s in Quito, Ecuador. It was here,
when filling in for a disc jockey, that
Barron was first exposed to classical
music.
"I went to the record library and I
thumbed through the record jackets
and picked records with women's faces
or names on them ... The thing that
was just cataclysmic for me was the
Elizabeth Schwarzkoph recording of
the Strauss "Veir Letzte Lieder" (Four
Lost Songs) ... It just changed my
life; it was singing and a sound that I
had never before really
heard ... Gospel became instantly
dull."
BARRON SOON came to the Univer-
sity School of Music on a scholarship.
The difference between the work that
she had been used to and what was ex-
pected of her here was immediately
apparent. "I just always perfor-
med ... It wasn't a matter of prac-
ticing . . I just performed constan-
tly.'4With this desire to perform and a
lucky chance meeting in a chorus
group, Barron got the le4d in the
Musket production of West Side Story.
ifAlthough the production was the start
of a career for Barron, the reaction of
the music school was not favorable.
"Because it was not a recognized music
school activity, my scholarship was
reviewed and given to people involved
in an accepted program."
Last year, however, the music school
officially opened a department for

. .and so
musical theater and made Barron a
teacher in the program. Her philosophy
as an instructor is that "the training
has to be congruent with the
professional world or it's wor-
thless.. . I don't want a singer/dan-
cer/waitress. I don't want people to
leave and run into a brick wall. That's
my goal: to train people to work."
WORK IS something Barron has done
a lot of since that first performance
with Musket. Today she is occupied
with teaching musical theater and!
performing modern music. She often
works with new composers like Ann
Arbor artist Laura Clayton, who-in
collaboration with- Barron-won the
National Composers' Competition in
1979 with "Cree Songs to the Newborn."
Barron enjoys singing modern music
because "it is unpredictable. Even the
sounds, the instrumentation, the meter,
where it's going, is not cadenced in the
same standard ways. In the sense of
being experimental, I don't think there
are any serious musicians going
out ... and flushing toilets-whether
or not this is music I'm not going to get -
into."
"I think (for) anybody who wants to
be a part of the generation that's living,
to not be involved in new music or com-
posers of our age is an anachronism."
BECAUSE HER early training was
not in classical teaching but perfor-
ming, it has taken some time for the
idea of being a singer to sink in. "I
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Connie Barron relaxes in her studio in downtown Ann Arbor.


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