Ravinia 2023 Issue 5

Nicole Cabell last appeared at Ravinia in 2015 singing highlights from the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Bobby McFerrin. PREVIOUS SPREAD: MAX BARRETT; THIS PAGE: PATRICK GIPSON/RAVINIA “You know, before I started singing in the early part of my life, my goal was to be a fiction writer. I remem- ber being 18 and my mother sitting me down and saying, ‘Okay, now that you’re deciding what you want to do in terms of schooling and how you want to pursue the future, you have to choose: writing or singing?’ I remember thinking, ‘Well, when I’m old and gray, and I look back on my life, which of these avenues would I have regretted not pursuing?’ And I thought, singing. It’s so unusual to have the talent to do it, and it’s so dependent in some ways on your age, your development in life. You can always go back to writing. But you have this window of time that you can study and work hard and do this kind of weird thing. See the world and all these perks that would come along with having a singing career, as opposed to the wonderfully authentic and fulfilling—but rather solitary— life of a fiction author.” One of the challenges for Cabell, she admits, was which keys to per- form these songs in. “We are premiering these in keys that are comfortable for me,” Cabell clarifies. “We had to change the keys for a lot of them because they went from extremely high tessitura that you’d think was coloratura repertoire to low contralto. And so that was my main concern, finding what worked for my voice—I don’t have the octave accessibility that Lara does! She was always the most supportive colleague: ‘Whatever key works.’ ” Downes also had a close ally in her recovery of these songs. “When it comes to Margaret Bonds and Florence Price,” says Downes, “I’ve been really fortunate to work with musicologist Dr. John Michael Cooper of Southwestern University in Texas. He was retrieving manu- scripts and sharing them with me. These songs felt to me really suited to Nicole’s voice and vision, so I enlisted her to record those. I just think she’s done beautiful things with them. One of the songs, ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed,’ has a complicated text. The writing is quirky. You [need] a col- laborator who you know can address specific moments like this.” “ ‘What Lips My Lips Have Kissed’ was the first song that we did,” Cabell recalls. “It was such interesting music. It has a modern flavor but is anchored in melodic sensibility, which is great for the ears of a modern audience. So we recorded this piece, and we did it in a way that was quite jazzy: we went really low in the key. Through the last few years, Lara and I have talked more, collaborated more—she came to Eastman, where I teach, to present a conversation that was part of a diversi- ty program but also did a master class on collaborative singer-pianist duos. “ The poetry touches on really universal themes ; all the songs have this kind of thread going through them: the natural world, the natural sleep and dream cycle. … It has a modern flavor but is anchored in melodic sensibility. ” RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 15 – AUGUST 27, 2023 8