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Kinneret Ely
138 Plays3 years ago
Soprano Kinneret Ely is a freelance opera singer based in New York City and Tel Aviv.
Kinneret covered the roles of Anna in Catalani’s Loreley and the Fata Azzurra in Respighi’s La Bella Dormente nel Bosco in Teatro Grattacielo’s 25th Anniversary Concert in September 2019. She sang the role of Violetta in La Traviata in July 2018 at the Jerusalem International Opera Masterclass (JIOM), and at their gala concert with the Israel Netanya Kibbutz Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Tiberiu Soare.
Kinneret then rejoined Teatro Grattacielo for their film production of Giordano’s Fedora as Un Piccolo Savoiardo, and covering the role of Dimitri. She also sang in their virtual concert with the Camerata Bardi Vocal Academy in April 2020. She was a semifinalist in both the Premiere Opera Foundation + NYIOP International Vocal Competition, and the Rochester International Vocal Competition in 2020. She also competed in the Bolshoi Young Artists Opera Program Auditions in 2019, the Montserrat Caballé International Competition in Zaragoza in 2014, and was a semifinalist in the 2013 Jenny Lind Competition. Her YouTube channel has more than 29,000 views.
She studied Italian at the Società Dante Alighieri in Siena, French at the Alliance Française in Paris, German at the Goethe Institut in Berlin, and Russian at the Derzhavin Institute in St. Petersburg.
https://www.youtube.com/user/KinneretEly
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Transcript
From NY to Tel Aviv: Life During the Pandemic
00:00:17
Speaker
So normally I'm based between New York City and Tel Aviv, so I divide my time between the two.
00:00:24
Speaker
As it so happened from the start of the pandemic, I was actually already in Tel Aviv. So then everything that I had that I was going to have in New York got cancelled, you know, as far as gigs and whatnot. So it didn't make sense for me to travel back there, especially since New York was one of the and possibly the worst place to be in the world in that moment as far as COVID goes.
00:00:48
Speaker
And so I have been here quarantined in Tel Aviv with my family. We've been living as a COVID unit or a COVID bubble. And that's been one of the silver linings of this period. I mean, it's been rough, but that's definitely been a silver lining. And so I've been here in Tel Aviv most of the time with the exception of about a month in which I did need to go back for the one gig I had this past year that wasn't canceled.
Opera Amid COVID: Performing in Giordano's Fedora
00:01:14
Speaker
And that was actually a film production that was done, a filmed opera production with all of the COVID safety precautions in place. And it was with a company called Aterra Grazachello. So they do what are called a verismo opera. So that's like late 19th century, early 20th century Italian opera, you know, operas that are not as well known. So one of the things that's really appealing to opera audiences is that through that company, they get to hear rarities.
00:01:44
Speaker
that they wouldn't normally get to hear in a normal opera-going experience. So these are precisely the kinds of offers that Teatro Grazachello put on. So this one gig that I had that did not get canceled and that they were able to do safely, I mean, with the safety precautions, was a production of this, again, rarely done opera called Giordano's Fedora. I mean, Giordano was the composer. And it was really beautiful. And having one gig, one, was a godsend in this past year.
00:02:14
Speaker
So I'm really grateful that that one, that one special one, I know in talking to a lot of guests, you know, remember in that show, whether they were participants in the show or outside of it.
The Universal Creativity: A Picasso-Inspired Reflection
00:02:27
Speaker
We're talking with Canaret Ealy, soprano, opera singer. It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. And again, from Tel Aviv and your work based in Tel Aviv and New York City, it's a
00:02:43
Speaker
Great privilege to have you on here, Kenyarit, and thanks for joining something rather than nothing. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on. I want to know, I want to know you're an artist, you're a trained artist, you work hard every day at doing it. Were you an artist when you were born?
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, I think the interesting thing there is that I think every person has a creative bent when they're born. You know, there's actually there was actually Pablo Picasso, a quote that came to mind when thinking about this.
00:03:22
Speaker
which was, and I'll have to paraphrase. I'm not kind of putting words in Picasso's mouth. That's what we do here, paraphrase. Everybody. I will paraphrase away. So anyway, there's something that Pablo Picasso once said, and I apologize for the Tel Aviv traffic in the background.
00:03:40
Speaker
In any case, he said something to the effect of all children are born artists. The question is making sure to remain an artist when you get older. So I really think that everybody has some kind of creative bent and a need
Why Arts Matter: Expression and Society
00:03:53
Speaker
to express themselves creatively. Now, whether people decide to take that and build a career around that or not, or whether that's something they want to do as a whole other question, or whether it's something they're passionate about. But I think
00:04:07
Speaker
that everybody has a creative side to them. And that's also why the arts are so relevant to society because even if somebody isn't necessarily a painter or they don't necessarily relate to opera specifically or theater specifically, ballet specifically or what have you, people do have a need to create in some sort of capacity and to experience creativity from others.
00:04:32
Speaker
So I really think that Picasso was onto something when he said that. Yeah, I've had many interviews on the show. And I've got to say, this is one of the formative questions. And it fascinates me because I do really agree and move along towards the line of whatever art abilities or art ideas or ways of expression, I think there's a universal aspect to it. And I think that there's something
00:05:01
Speaker
There's something about an adult unlearning, too, for folks who have been out of it.
Singing Beginnings: From Childhood to Opera Stage
00:05:06
Speaker
I started art formally in my life. I'm 48 at 45. So I like to imagine in thinking back that there were things there. And it's just the environment that you move through, whether that's
00:05:23
Speaker
accentuated. You gave the conceptual answer there, which is obviously what I want. But will you will you sing in when you're a little baby? I mean, were you singing when you're a little baby? Were you always singing?
00:05:34
Speaker
I have such a funny story to tell about that. Okay, so first of all, one of the things that we opera singers do frequently is we'll do what are called opera outreach performances. So we'll go to places like schools and hospitals and whatnot and sing with the purpose of bringing our art to people who wouldn't be able to experience opera
00:05:59
Speaker
in a theater in the quote unquote conventional format. So in any case, the reason I say all of this is because I actually did an outreach performance at my old elementary school about a couple of years ago. So I see my old second grade teacher there. She was still teaching there. And she says to me, I remember you back when you were seven years old.
00:06:20
Speaker
you were a fireball who would lead your classmates and singing songs all together. And the funny thing is I have no recollection of that. But I will say that given that I ended up growing up to become a professional opera singer, clearly nothing has changed since since I was seven years old, based on her description of me then. So from that, I think that yeah, I did have an artistic back then, even if I don't have no recollection of that.
00:06:48
Speaker
It was such a natural. It's one of those things. Sometimes there's something like a natural outcropping of behavior. You don't remember it because it's so natural. So I want to I want to I want to I want to just pose the next question just with a just a tiny bit of background. You know, it has to do about like the impact of of art. And if so, you know, and I want to be just specific about, you know, getting
00:07:17
Speaker
you as an opera soprano singer on here and as a point of fascination for me and also for the variety of the show. I'm trying to learn about opera, I'm trying to study and listen to it and there's so many components to it, it's a little bit intimidating. Oh yes. Multiple languages, the regular 21st century viewer says
00:07:44
Speaker
who's bad, who's good, and just trying to figure all that out. But one of the things that seems to be a very lofty, very incredible art form, and that brings my question about art.
The Sublime in Opera: Emotion and Drama
00:07:57
Speaker
One of the things that really impacts me as a viewer of art is when things seem to be sublime, seem to be bigger than us.
00:08:06
Speaker
Is the presence of sublimity, say an opera or that experience, are there certain forms of art that are sublime?
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, I really think that every art form has the potential to be sublime or, you know, there's the potential to create a sublime work within that art form, whether an opera or ballet or, you know, visual art like painting. And at least for me, first of all, art is very subjective, of course. For me, something that's really sublime is when you're able to have a really honest and direct expression of something, of some kind of emotion, especially.
00:08:49
Speaker
And also when it's able, it's honest and yet it's also made beautiful somehow because a lot of these great works of art deal oftentimes with topics that are ugly or that are difficult to talk about, especially opera, which at least 90 percent of the time they have tragic endings.
00:09:08
Speaker
So they're able to take topics that are really difficult and make them really beautiful. And, you know, they're able to take a really honest and vulnerable and direct topics and also really condense them into what, three hour operas. A lot of these operas are about topics that we spend our entire lives thinking about.
00:09:29
Speaker
love, anger, hatred, jealousy. I will also say, you know, lighthearted is in the case of comedies and opera, you know, but a lot of these things that we spend our entire lives thinking about and they're being condensed into three hours or let's say even five hours, which for an opera would be considered on the longer side. But as far as a topic that we spend a lot of time thinking about all throughout our lives, that's a very short time, actually.
00:09:58
Speaker
And then it's given this really beautiful expression through the power and the vulnerability of the human voice and also by the orchestra. And then a whole bunch of these powerful, vulnerable voices coming together as a chorus. So that is really the sort of thing that can make an art form sublime and opera sublime specifically. So honesty and directness combined with beauty for me is what the recipe is for something that's really incredible.
00:10:28
Speaker
Thank you for that description. I really appreciate your indulgence on that answer because part of it is exploratory for me because I experienced the sublime as a viewer of art mostly with painting, which of course is a particular experience of
00:10:50
Speaker
Like how does a painting, how there's a regular size painting that doesn't overwhelm you with like the sheer scope of it, you know, the experience of the sublime, which is a very unique experience compared to the more visceral emotive work that you do. I find it fascinating that both can produce the sublime, even though their methods couldn't be more different.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, all of the methods couldn't be more different, absolutely couldn't be more different. And I do remember some of my own visual art viewing experiences that did really hit me so powerfully when I saw them. And one that comes to mind immediately as we're speaking now is when I first saw, and I have to admit I'm not totally solid about the pronunciation of the painting, which is embarrassing because it's a famous one, but Pablo Picasso's Guernica,
00:11:41
Speaker
I believe that's the pronunciation of it. I think it's Guernica. Guernica, excuse me. The Spanish Civil War, right? Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. I mean, it was just devastating. I mean, in the best way, seeing this painting by him was absolutely devastating.
00:12:00
Speaker
because you really get a sense of how contorted and twisted all of the fingers are in the painting and through that you really get a feeling of the devastation of the Spanish Civil War.
00:12:12
Speaker
And I mean, my god, the ability for a canvas to be able to do that is, and to do it in really a second, because how long does it take to look at a painting and get experience? It's the whole experience. You can study it for a while, and you'd
First Opera Experience: The Art of Open Minds
00:12:28
Speaker
be studying it over time. But that immediate impact of seeing it would be in that second. And actually, to that point, there was actually a really wonderful piece of advice as far as how this applies to opera.
00:12:40
Speaker
that one of my coaches gave. So I'm giving Jorge a shout out. Hi. So he said once, you know, when he was asked to once, oh, you know, what advice would you give to somebody attending the operative for the first time? Do we have to prepare anything, do any reading and whatnot? And he said, no, don't do any preparation before you go to the opera because you have one time in your life
00:13:06
Speaker
in which you can watch it without knowing what's going to happen next, and being at the edge of your seat following the story, there's only one time in your life in which you'll get to have that experience, and then you'll never get to have it again. You can watch an opera over and over and get to enjoy multiple layers in the story and in the composition of the music, but that kind of immediate first impression of it is something that you'll only get to experience once, so to really take advantage of that.
00:13:35
Speaker
Not the advice I expected, right? I hear that advice, though. It's kind of being thrown into the world and make your way around for once, right, within it. Yeah, exactly. And also not to go into, and I fully, fully agree with this. And there are a lot of the, sorry, I'll just let that car go.
00:13:59
Speaker
So anyway, there are a lot of the operas that I would love to have that kind of first experience watching it again. And as much as I love being able to see them for, let's say, the 30th time or the 40th time or what have you, and getting to enjoy even more layers in it, I do also really wish I could have that experience again of watching it for the very first time and experiencing it as a brand new thing.
00:14:27
Speaker
So I would really embrace that. And there's another thing I really love about that advice that Jorge gave, which is that it really kind of throws out the idea that you have to have read a dissertation before you even set foot into an opera house. And I totally don't think that's true.
00:14:49
Speaker
There's certainly very academic components to what makes up an opera, but at the end of the day, it's a very visceral art form, and it's powers in the primal expression of that human voice, unamplified human voice, kind of hitting you inside a theater, you know, experiencing that human voice inside a theater.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah, just fundamental, powerful. Thank you for your thoughts on that. And don't worry about the traffic in Tel Aviv, my cat. Who you've seen in the background for listeners, we're recording this interview. We're able to see each other in Tel Aviv and from Oregon. My cat has bitten me twice since this interview began. Oh, no.
00:15:37
Speaker
I
Opera's Emotional Power: Music and Voice
00:15:38
Speaker
think the Tel Aviv horns, it's very friendly, she loves me. I think the Tel Aviv horns are much less of a problem than her behavior at present. And she's yelling out to you, singing, so. Ah, I love it. It's like a duet. The cat duet by Rosini. I'm just kidding. She would fart at me. So, Kanerit, I have another question that was based on
00:16:04
Speaker
So in order to prep for this interview and my general interest in opera I listened some lectures and kind of here's a piece and learn about this history just kind of heavy You know intro a piece and then the instructor on that Robert Greenberg done a lot of lectures on great courses as a composes stuff on his own really smart guy and
00:16:28
Speaker
I wanted to get your reaction to this quote because I was trying to understand fundamentally maybe what opera is for the experience and its relation to emotions. He said,
00:16:40
Speaker
Opera is posited on the simple idea that music has the power to distill, crystallize, and intensify the meaning of words. And I'm just going to read that again for listeners. Opera is posited on the simple idea that music has the power to distill, crystallize, and intensify the meaning of words. Is he right?
00:17:04
Speaker
Well, that's another thing that's very subjective and I would both agree and disagree with that quote. I agree in the sense that things like chord progressions or whatever musical markings are written with a certain word can certainly give it a lot more dramatic of a power.
00:17:22
Speaker
And as a matter of fact, earlier this week, I had a rehearsal for this opera, I'm getting ready for this July, Mozart's Idomeneo, more on that in just a moment. But in any case, the rehearsal was really all about those details and really emphasizing things like taking advantage of a certain chord progression that there is under a word to really give it a lot more dramatic weight. So in that sense, I fully agree.
00:17:47
Speaker
with Greenberg's quote. I disagree in the sense that, again, for me, the fundamental power of opera is in experiencing the unamplified human voice in a theater. And for me, that's the reason that somebody can attend a performance of, let's say, Verdi's La Praviata or Puccini's La Boheme, just as a couple examples of some of the, I guess, cornerstone operas.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so somebody can go into the theater and listen to those works and be absolutely blown away by them without even knowing a single word of Italian and experiencing that impact of the human voice is why. And then of course, the opera-going experience becomes even richer in the sense of kind of like experiencing layers in an onion. You know, in that sense, it becomes even richer the more you know about it, but that impact
00:18:44
Speaker
Is not something that necessarily hangs on whether you understand every single word or not Yeah, and and what I was interested in most and thank you for your thoughts on that too because i'm going to continue thinking about it I was interested primarily again, like studied opera a bit on my own experience some watch some newer to it of Emotion like for me like going into it.
Personal Art Connections: Emotion and Intellect
00:19:09
Speaker
I was like really I'm really intellectually connected to
00:19:13
Speaker
the feeling in the story that's conveyed and connecting to voice, you say the unamplified voice, telling that story. Yes, yes. A thousand percent, yes. Okay, so here's the thing. Whenever I have a guest who performs, I want the listeners to hear like your performance. And I have a recording that, you know, I was going to play and we can come back to and talk about it, but I was wondering,
00:19:43
Speaker
If you can do a little bit of a set up, it's a song to the moon. Yes. Can you give a little bit of just to help us place us here before we enter that song?
00:19:56
Speaker
Absolutely. So this is an opera aria from an opera called Rusalka, which is by Dvorak. So this opera is in Czech. And it's basically the way I would describe it is as the Czech version of the Little Mermaid story, except this being an opera.
00:20:15
Speaker
It doesn't end well. Spoiler alert, sorry. But anyway, this is the aria that Arusalka, the title character, sings in act one. This is when she's singing to the moon, as the title of the aria suggests. And she's asking the moon to tell the prince. And this character is simply named The Prince. This is very archetypal. And she's asking the moon to tell the prince that she loves him. And this aria is in check.
00:20:46
Speaker
Wonderful. And, uh, my check is limited, but I do recall Dobre Den is, uh, hello to our check listeners Dobre Den. Um, I know a little bit of check. I've been taking lessons during the quarantine. I did notice that. I did notice that. Okay. Everybody, um, song to the moon, uh, by a Canadian. Here we go.
00:21:27
Speaker
Vese tú nuálímí hú nuálímí. Svei tú tú tú tú tú tú tú tú tú tú.
00:21:47
Speaker
O spirit of glory, O spirit of glory, O spirit of glory, O spirit of glory,
00:22:16
Speaker
They are safe in a limited way.
00:22:33
Speaker
Es es un nous, oi, v'ilie. D'chagni, g'ilie.
00:22:57
Speaker
Oh.
00:23:34
Speaker
Fachmulos chebir meis etu
00:23:47
Speaker
Mejia, ami, maria, ami, sei, ami, sui, no, trii.
00:24:30
Speaker
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
00:24:34
Speaker
O mí, mí, mí, mí, mí, mí.
00:24:42
Speaker
So, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free
00:25:26
Speaker
I am the only one.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:26:27
Speaker
So people clap in that video. I don't know what to say or do after I hear that. Thank you so much. The good vibes are all that I need. Thanks. Yeah, so that was taken at a live concert and hence the applause at the also the beginning and the end. So that was actually done in February 2020. So the timing of that
00:26:55
Speaker
couldn't have been better. This was a concert, a series of three concerts that I did actually here in Israel with two of my friends. One of them is tenor Pavel Sulyanzaga and the other is a baritone of Suchan Kim. So Pavel is from Russian, Suchan
00:27:15
Speaker
is from South Korea. And so we did three concerts here in Israel. So this was recorded in one of those concerts. And to have been able to do those concerts right before COVID hit is really just a miracle of timing that we couldn't even have known ahead of time when we originally started planning the concerts. So it's really amazing how that turns out.
00:27:38
Speaker
So yeah, I'm really glad that we have those clips as evidence that we did actually do something in 2020. Because theaters all over the world had to close down. Yeah. Well, yeah, and I'm happy for you that you were able to have that, right? And of course, in retrospect to it.
00:28:01
Speaker
And talking about the art of the opera and your experiences, and I mentioned to you, a lot of it feels new to me, and I have a deep amount of curiosity about certain aspects of it. So I wanted to know if you could talk a bit about your
Training in Transition: Opera in the Pandemic
00:28:25
Speaker
your career, your training, for many of us, how does a soprano train? Where do you go? But also, and related to the pandemic, which is just for live performers and the impact of that, I mean, one of the things, I'm gonna let you talk, but one of the things you had mentioned about even doing your additions, I'm thinking high-level additions,
00:28:54
Speaker
for an opera singer, for soprano, and you're doing it remotely. The idea is fascinating. So tell us about you as an opera singer, what's going on, how you arrived, where you are.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah, so first of all, how much time do you have? No, but seriously. So growing up, actually both in America and also in Israel. So first of all, just for clarity's sake, I spent the vast majority of my childhood in the United States, in Williamsburg, Virginia. So the land of powdered wigs and buckled shoes. I also lived in Jerusalem here.
00:29:32
Speaker
So in both places, I actually ended up doing musicals in schools, you know, so in both countries, I was the musical theater kid. And then I started taking voice lessons because apparently I would just keep singing around the house and I didn't think anything of it. I didn't have any
00:29:51
Speaker
kind of ambitions or anything at the time about it. So at the time I was 13 years old, my mother said, well, you know, she sings around the house. Why not put her in voice lessons? And this wasn't with any sort of thought of saying, oh, she'll have a career in musical theater. She'll have a career in opera. It was just more like an outlet of some kind of doing something that I was doing all over the house anyway, you know, like an after school activity. And so I had my first voice lesson when I was 13.
00:30:21
Speaker
And I remember singing my favorite things at that first voice lesson and kind of cowering behind a music stand because I was very shy. And so that was how that began. And then as I took voice lessons and the more my voice developed, the more I started developing high notes and my voice started evolving in a more operatic direction.
00:30:47
Speaker
And then at the time, this was when I was 15, you know, 15, 16. My voice teacher then asked me, have you ever thought about becoming an opera singer? And a little confessions that after he asked me that I kind of went home and cried because at that time the opera performances I had seen up until that point, which was not that many.
00:31:09
Speaker
But they weren't especially well done. So in my conception, that was like what opera was. So the idea of kind of being asked, would you like to be an opera singer, was not the most appealing prospect at that time. But then what completely changed things, yeah, what completely changed things is that then when I was 16, there's an opera program that was taking place here in Israel.
00:31:35
Speaker
And actually, so practically in my own one of my backyards, I should say, you know, the U.S. is my backyard and Israel is my backyard. So practically in my backyard, a program called the International Vocal Arts Institute or IVAI for short. And it was run by Joan Dornaman, the who was one of the coaches at the Metropolitan Opera. So an incredibly high level program.
00:32:01
Speaker
And the faculty that she brought there were some of the greatest singers and teachers in the world. And also the students that were chosen for it were phenomenal. And remember the first event that I went to there, I went with my mother.
00:32:16
Speaker
And it was a master class with Cheryl Mills, you know, the great baritone who had sung with, you know, all the greatest singers and who'd had an incredible opera career. You know, it was one of the best rigolectos, you know, in Verdi's opera, rigolecto, you know, like Louisa Miller, another Verdi opera. I mean, his, I mean, the list, his illustrious list just goes on and on and on. So the first event we attended was a master class with him.
00:32:44
Speaker
So you can imagine how singing a masterclass given by him with also with incredible singers there would really kind of light a fire as far as opera would go and then the more he attended things like masterclasses and concerts and opera productions there the more
00:33:00
Speaker
I really fell in love with it. And then the rest is history. And then the following year when I was 17, something quite freakish happened in which my parents tried to contact Joan Dornemann saying, and this was really on a lark. This was with no expectation of anything happening. They just said, hi, we absolutely loved the opera workshop.
00:33:25
Speaker
And in any case, I have a daughter who's very interested in pursuing opera. Do you happen to have any advice for, you know, a high schooler who's interested in opera? And, you know, months and months and months passed and there was no reply. And again, there was no expectation of a reply even. Then we hear back.
00:33:44
Speaker
And then there's a phone call, and on the caller ID, you see International Vocal Arts Institute, and we all look at each other like, and then she says, we say, well, we're actually going to be going up to New York in a short time anyway. And she says, would you like to meet me there? We went, yeah.
00:34:08
Speaker
And then I sang for her. And granted, I was a 17-year-old singer. I was really, really, really young. But she took me into the program for the following year, which was incredible. I know. I still can't believe it. So the thing about that program is it's a multi-tier program. So you had someone like me who was a high schooler, super, super young, totally green. And then you had people who were in their 30s already having opera careers.
00:34:37
Speaker
and, you know, people doing their bachelor's degree, master's degree. So you had all different levels. And so there was really something for every level to learn there. And then the beauty was being able to learn from the older singers as well as from the faculty. And so that experience was absolutely incredible. And I would say a pretty good start in the world of opera. So pretty decent. No, that's incredible.
00:35:07
Speaker
Oh gosh, I didn't even get to talking about the pandemic. So anyway. No, no, there's more to it. But one of the things, let's go to the pandemic next. But outside view, opera, young singer, talented, pressure. What's it like? What's it like? What's it like being that?
00:35:32
Speaker
The person on the stage, the weights on you, the performance, all that. Like, what's that like?
00:35:39
Speaker
You know, I have to tell you that one of the things I really had to learn because I do have sort of a perfectionistic event in my personality as well. So first of all, you're totally right that something like that can be compounded in a field like opera in which there's so many things you have to get just right. The way the voice is placed with the musicality, with the languages, which you have to sound like a native speaker of, you know, Italian and French and German.
00:36:05
Speaker
And we opera singers frequently, you know, speak these languages as well. So you have to get that right. You have to get the acting right. And you have to put all of that together. And it really is kind of being asked to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time or like walk and chew gum or kind of a more extreme version of that. So some of the things that I've actually done for myself is really look for examples within other sort of perfectionistic worlds.
00:36:34
Speaker
of people who are really able to find healthy ways to do that. And one of the articles that I read that really kind of struck my soul in this respect was something that I read in a magazine called Point Magazine.
00:36:49
Speaker
So this is actually a ballet magazine. And this was an article with Abby Stafford, who is a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. And she talked about her first experience dancing, I believe it was 48 nutcrackers, but over 40 nutcrackers.
00:37:06
Speaker
in the holiday season because that's one of the most, if not the most intense period for New York City Ballet as far as performances. So she talked about her experience doing that. And she said that she came to the conclusion after that first season that as soon as and here's the thing that really hit my soul. She said, as soon as I was able to stop, as soon as I stopped trying to dance perfectly, I was able to start dancing well.
00:37:35
Speaker
I was like, whoa. So really, and also too, when in my practice sessions, I'm always stressing to myself that my goal is progress because perfection is impossible. You can never be perfect. You can aim for higher levels in your singing, in your musicality, in your languages.
00:37:55
Speaker
But you're never going to be perfect. Even the greatest singers in the world are not perfect. They're amazing, but they're not perfect. And one of the things I actually started doing was listening to live performances of Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, not studio recordings in which you can fix a little thing. And in live performances, there are little mistakes and whatnot. And you go, oh, wait, it is actually OK to be human. It's like there's a little more breathing room.
00:38:25
Speaker
So, and frankly, you need that breathing room because, again, perfection is impossible. And I think the second that you try and strive for that is the second you shoot yourself in the foot. So progress, progress, progress. And that's something that I stress both myself and I would stress to anybody else as well.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, I really appreciate your comments there and it just kind of, you know, again, like looking at it and seeing, you know, there's different art forms and there's different roles with whatever you're producing and there's different ways to
00:38:59
Speaker
hide, remove yourself, never be present, you know, when it comes to the art and you're, you're the opposite, your role is the opposite of that. We're very out in the open. You are pretty much out in open. Okay, so pandemic stuff, what I had mentioned, all right, so you're over there, you're in Tel Aviv, pandemic, your soprano, your
Innovations in Opera: Adapting to Restrictions
00:39:26
Speaker
looking to work on different projects and auditions. How do you pop on the computer and audition for the part?
00:39:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So this is a first of all, so this has been a very fascinating learning curve all throughout the pandemic, you know, both for me and I know for the opera world at large. So first of all, just to set the stage a little bit, opera is such an inherently interactive art form. I mean, you have probably the biggest gathering of people on stage of any art form in that you have soloists and a chorus.
00:40:04
Speaker
and offer in times of what are called super numeraries. So people who kind of fill in the stage, let's say holding a spear or whatnot, aren't necessarily singing.
00:40:21
Speaker
but their presence is very important. You have dancers. So you have all of these people who need to be together and you have the orchestra, you know, the orchestra pit, all of these people who need to be together in order for the art form to work. And, you know, that it's also backstage crew and then, of course, the audience. And then, of course, with COVID, none of those things were possible. And so seasons, opera seasons all over the world had to be canceled for that reason, for health precautions.
00:40:50
Speaker
So then, necessity is the mother of invention. So we had to move a lot of what we could do in all of this span of everything we couldn't do. We had to focus on what we could do and really maximize the internet for that or socially distanced environments. I know several opera companies are doing drive-through performances, which has been fantastic. I know English National Opera just did that with their production of La Boheme.
00:41:18
Speaker
And but we've also been doing things like live streaming concerts and live streaming masterclasses. So again, this would all be done over Zoom. And and we would all be singing our part at home and you see there's a piano in the background. So you'd be someone be playing the piano.
00:41:38
Speaker
in the background, I'd be singing next to my bookshelf or what have you for potentially one of the greatest singers or teachers in the world for a master class. It's been really something. So we've all been adjusting to these new formats of doing opera and many people have been doing opera films. So people using green screen at home
00:42:05
Speaker
and also Adobe Premiere Pro and being able to create really incredible productions using this technology and people recording their performances on their iPhones and then uploading that and then the products of those recordings are able to become a really beautiful artistic product.
00:42:23
Speaker
again with equipment you have at home and in a way if this pandemic had to happen I mean that's a really awful sentence I don't think it had to but in a more philosophical sense if it had to happen it's good that it happened now rather than 20-30 years ago because we have so much technology at our disposal that we're really able to harness to create such incredible
00:42:47
Speaker
beauty in the sense of art and then to really improve people's lives all across the board collectively. So we really have been able to use all these different tools at our disposal. Disposal, goodness, I don't know what it is today, disposal and create things that are absolutely spectacular. And again, with equipment that we have at home,
00:43:11
Speaker
So there are many things that the pandemic limited as far as opera, but it also opened so many new doors that I know are going to continue even after the pandemic is over as far as the possibilities of our art form. And so that is really exciting and I'm really eager to see what develops.
00:43:35
Speaker
And we're speaking with Kenarith Elie here and some great discussion regarding technology and around
00:43:44
Speaker
The pandemic, maybe the time of the pandemic to be able to communicate still and in your experiences of auditioning from afar. I'd even mentioned to you about a documentary that I'm working on. And what's interesting with the piece I didn't mention to you is that it's all on an iPhone. The entire documentary is to be shot, edited, uploaded, et cetera, on an iPhone. And this is the second one I've done of this nature and having the tech to be able to pull off
00:44:15
Speaker
a five minute film on the phone. It's a nice time to be able to try art that's like that, right? To have that capacity.
00:44:28
Speaker
I was just going to say that's the technology that we have now. As you said, people are creating films on their iPhones and I just took a class about a week and a half ago in which they were addressing just that very fact. That's where technology has gone.
00:44:46
Speaker
as much as life performances are essential and I know people the globe over are clamoring to be back in the same room again and to have an experience of catharsis and of experiencing the same art form altogether in the same room I mean as much as the live aspect of it has really been shown to us throughout this whole pandemic
00:45:08
Speaker
I will also say that the pandemic has also revealed all of the possibilities of the technology that we have, such as being able to shoot whole films on our iPhones. And I think that taking advantage of the technology will be essential even after the pandemic.
00:45:26
Speaker
even after we returned to life performance. Those that process or the possibilities were mean or whatever the possibilities be. I have a question for you and I gotta admit, I actually don't like the question, but I'm gonna try to tell you what I was trying to get at.
Opera's Modern Relevance: Themes and Issues
00:45:45
Speaker
So in thinking about opera and thinking about questions for you, particularly to your art, one of the questions I had posed or was thinking about was,
00:45:56
Speaker
about whether opera is in a position to kind of tell modern stories. I don't even like my statement. I don't like the question because I think the quick answer is like any art form in opera. I mean, these are universals. This is love. This is killing. This is murder. This is death. This is treachery. These are all these heavy type of things. And I don't expect right now to say that opera, post-pandemic, it can't do all that. I think those stories are the stories that they are.
00:46:26
Speaker
But, but operas tied historically to this, how do I get to see an opera? Where is an opera? How long it is? What are they saying? It's like an accessibility question. So it's 2021, pandemic, you're a soprano singer. What's the opera do for us right now and into the future?
00:46:48
Speaker
Yes, so first of all, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, there absolutely is room for opera to tell modern stories. And this is really plugging back into what I said earlier about the power and the vulnerability of the unamplified human voice being the superpower here. And as far as a modern opera, and I'll say a 21st century opera, a
00:47:10
Speaker
perfect example of that would be Jake Heggy's Dead Man Walking. So that's the opera that Jake Heggy composed based on the movie with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. And in close collaboration with Sister Helen Prejean.
00:47:27
Speaker
And so we're talking about the death penalty, which is a very real topic that is affecting us in day to day life. We're not talking about, you know, courtesans in 19th century Paris, which even though there are universal themes in that, it's understandable that a topic like that would necessarily be the most relevant thing to us.
00:47:50
Speaker
now in 2021 experiencing the modern-day pandemic, and I get that. And I say that as somebody who loves Verdi's La Traviata. That's one of my favorite operas. And that's the one I was referring to when talking about the courtesans. But in any case, about Dead Man Walking, that is about a topic that is affecting us on a day-to-day basis when we go to the voting polls,
00:48:11
Speaker
Maybe people know others who've been touched personally by it. And so you're experiencing this issue through the lens of expression through the human voice. And so that gives a different perspective to it.
00:48:27
Speaker
And it's one that's absolutely devastating in the best sense in the way that art has the capacity to be, absolutely devastating. And so that really speaks to its place in the modern day world. And even though I'm using Dead Man Walking as a clear example of that, that's true of opera all across the board right now, contemporary opera.
00:48:52
Speaker
So seeing the different stories that emerged during this period and what is going to be set, how it's going to be set, what topics are going to be chosen, that's going to be a very interesting thing to see. We're still in the early part of the century, so it'll be very fascinating to see what emerges and then which of those operas kind of stand the test of time.
00:49:13
Speaker
and whatnot, because that's the other thing. There were actually a lot more operas composed in let's say the 19th century and the 20th century and then also the 18th century. And a lot of those we don't necessarily know about because for whatever reason, likely historical reasons, they didn't necessarily last. And so the ones that are the most frequently performed ones
00:49:34
Speaker
are the ones we most know about, but there are probably many other stories, really beautiful stories that have sort of collected dust over the years for whatever reason that need to be told. And there was actually, there were actually initiatives on that.
00:49:51
Speaker
on that front about degenerate artists. You know, so composers of the 1930s and also I believe early 1940s as well during the period of the Third Reich. And a lot of these composers composed a really incredible music, but those voices were put out for, you know, obvious reasons and it's such a tragedy. So there are initiatives to bring those
00:50:17
Speaker
works back and to bring new life to those modern stories. And so the more that we can give new life to those, new life in the sense of performing them.
00:50:32
Speaker
the more that opera will continue to evolve and be the incredibly flexible art form that it is, because it is flexible. It's over 400 years old. It has lasted, outlasted two world wars, you know, the Great Depression. It's an outlasting COVID. It's outlasted so many disasters.
00:50:55
Speaker
that I think that any time that I heard, and even before the pandemic, that, oh, opera is a dying art form, oh, it's collecting dust and it's all mothballs, I say, wait, no, it's not. It's so relevant because, and it's so powerful and it's outlasted so many world calamities in a way that they didn't last. I mean, those calamities didn't last. So that speaks to the staying power of the art form.
00:51:22
Speaker
and also to its ability to fit into the modern world. Yeah, and I appreciate your comments there. And I didn't want it to be a hackneyed type of question, you know, what's it say for us now? I just, what I found, what I found is just my personal impression.
00:51:39
Speaker
is that, you know, you hear these kind of large statements around like video versus audio and movies versus TV and, you know, classical forms of art. And, you know, I think it's cute to always make like dire predictions about the death of, you know, movies, right? The death of the movie theater. And all I see is kind of strange adaptations. And I'll give you an example, right? So like there's this TV show that was just put out, it's called Calls. It's on Apple TV and I watched it.
00:52:08
Speaker
And what I found so fascinating in the pandemic and what art will come out now, why it's so fascinating, this is basically using a TV medium to squish in audio content and audio storytelling. There's no
00:52:25
Speaker
people there's no actors there's a voice file and you see movement of the voice file you hear voices in an interwoven story is being told you're watching the thing on a tv and it's a radio program it's not a it's not really i mean it's not really you know what i mean it's not really a tv program so i guess my main point is you start to see this conflation of
00:52:47
Speaker
video, is it audio, or you see with opera, or classical forms and how they're presented.
00:52:56
Speaker
I think the answer to this question all the time is they're going to be around, they've been around, and it'll look different as we go ahead. You know, that's, I mean, absolutely. And that's exactly how opera is evolved. I mean, at the beginning, it was, you know, the style of composers like Monteverdi, who composed, you know, operas such as Lincoronazione di Popea, the coronation of Popea.
00:53:20
Speaker
and also Orfeo, so that was one of the many versions of the Orpheus story, Orpheus and the Underworld that were set to opera, one of them is by Monteverdi. So in any case, what I'm saying is that if the art form of opera did not evolve, we would still be performing music like that, and everything you'd be hearing in an opera house would be in the Baroque style, but of course that's not the case.
00:53:45
Speaker
You know, we have evolved through, you know, Moz, Handel, Mozart, and, you know, Beethoven, we have the Bel Canto opera, Rossini, Donizetti, and, I mean, I'm not going to rehash all 400 years here, but in any case, it has definitely gone through an evolution.
00:54:08
Speaker
And it will continue to do so, and that's the beauty of it. I mean, I remember in one of my music history classes, people talking about how Debussy was going to be the death of the art form of opera. Clearly that didn't happen. And he ended up composing of one of the greatest operas in the repertoire, called a Peleas Emelizant.
00:54:32
Speaker
So it's a Pelias and Melizant. And then the art form evolved further from that point. So it's always going to evolve. And that's the beauty of a living, breathing art form. It's going to evolve and it's going to evolve with the times. And so that is what's really exciting. And the thing that ties all of those periods, those time periods of opera together and those styles is, and I know I keep coming back to this, but it's such a key point for me, the unamplified human voice.
00:55:01
Speaker
That's always going to be what ties all of those periods together and what's going to keep opera, at least in my view. And I know that there will be people who will debate me even on that, and that's totally fine. But for me, that's really the key element as far as the evolution of this art form and kind of keeping it within the
00:55:23
Speaker
Within the boundaries. I hate that word, but I'll use it anyway within the boundaries of opera Well, but what about so so in appreciate your comments connect that to connect that to the big question about What is art you're talking about a living form of ours? So the question is what is art?
Art's Role: Discussing Life's Complexities
00:55:42
Speaker
Yes, and that's a really, really huge question. I love it. So I think that art is all of these parts in our lives that we can't clearly compartmentalize and that we can't simply express just in our day-to-day lives in a conversation or in a class. It has to be sung. It has to be painted. It has to be danced. It has to be composed into a symphony. It can't simply be spoken.
00:56:10
Speaker
And so art is really kind of a distillation of those parts of our lives and it being put into something really beautiful. I mean, for me, that beauty component is really important because that's going to be the thing that makes it possible for people to talk about difficult topics. Art really distills difficult topics.
00:56:35
Speaker
into something that's manageable, something that you could attend an opera or a ballet or what have you for three hours and and have a full emotional experience going to it. It's that kind of really powerful distillation and economy of a certain topic. And then art is the expression of that. And about how art can really sort of beautify a really horrific topic.
00:57:03
Speaker
One of my favorite operas is the dialogues of the Carmelites by Francis Poulenc. And it's an absolutely phenomenal and also devastating opera that is about an order of Carmelite nuns who were guillotined during the French Revolution. I mean, they were martyred, so this is their story. And as you can imagine, it really is a horrific story, but the beauty that Poulenc is able to give to it in depicting this sisterhood of nuns.
00:57:32
Speaker
who pulls together during such a horrific time is really what makes this topic bearable, I think. And even though that's one of the most powerful examples of this concept that I can think of, I think this is a concept all across the board. I mean, if you're talking about the topic of death in opera, you know, a certain character dying by the end of it.
00:57:56
Speaker
beauty is what helps make this is what helps make it possible to express these things and what helps make it bearable because I think otherwise people you know we would be going our day-to-day lives without talking about those topics and instead something like an opera or a symphony or a play is saying here's the topic we're giving it in a way that's more
00:58:21
Speaker
palatable, if you will, that's a beautiful now let's talk about it. It's a safe space of sorts that opens the floor to talking about what otherwise do you do you create art to create beauty? I mean, is that what compels you is that you go down like you don't have to perform on stage, but you are and when you are
00:58:42
Speaker
Are you trying to create that beauty, that sublime, that piece of art that makes it feel different?
00:58:52
Speaker
I would say yes, absolutely. And even more than the beauty, and I would say in addition to that, the vulnerability, you know, the honesty, the empathy. And I think that is some, I don't know a single person who says, oh, I have too much empathy in my life enough. You know, we all want more empathy and being able to create a space in which that's able to happen is something that's really, that's really critical in a superpower of the arts.
00:59:21
Speaker
One of the most special moments in any given time that I'm performing is that moment in which I feel a communion or a communication of some sort with the audience in which we know we are experiencing something with each other.
00:59:36
Speaker
And not necessarily in the form of applause. This often happens in silences. Let's say in the silences in the music when you can feel that, like, you know, like that pin drop moment. And you know that you're sort of in communication with the audience at that moment. And that is the form of vulnerability that I'm talking about that is so palpable in a performance. And that is so meaningful.
01:00:05
Speaker
That's a profound thought. And I think it's interesting because I didn't expect you to say that, right? I mean, because we always want to have it. The vulnerability is the quality that is the human quality, but it's not the one to be like, hey, we go into a situation like I work as a union rep and like I go into a situation and say, hey, I feel really vulnerable. They're like, we don't need you to feel vulnerable right now.
01:00:27
Speaker
Exactly. So, you know, there are spaces in which you in which that's not necessarily, let's say, the desirable quote, unquote, that's in very strict quotation marks thing. But the arts give you permit or, you know, they give people permission to do that. And that's so important.
01:00:46
Speaker
And it really opens the floor for discussion with, I mean, if you're going to a performance, you might be in an auditorium that sees 4,000 people and you're guaranteed to have all people with all kinds of different viewpoints and backgrounds.
01:01:00
Speaker
I mean, the likelihood of that being the case is very strong if you're attending a performance of any given kind. And and yet all of these very different people are experiencing the same thing together and that same sense of empathy. And that is such a powerful thing and a very such an important function of art in society.
01:01:21
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, I'm going to do something a little bit out or got a couple questions for you, Canara. But I wanted because the song was so special to me and how I ended up connecting to you and for the listeners.
01:01:38
Speaker
I just encountered Canara, a version of a song called Dodi Lee, which I've been working on a video project and unfamiliar with the song. And it was so beautiful and it made me like, it just moved me in, you know, to tears and just beautiful.
01:02:00
Speaker
This is a traditional Jewish song, Dodi Lee, a love song. I wanted to play it, but another set up here. What is Dodi Lee?
01:02:14
Speaker
Absolutely. And by the way, I'll actually kind of set up a couple of things. First of all, that this song is called Dodilis. So the text is taken from the Old Testament from the Song of Song. And, you know, the text is saying, you know, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. And this text is especially poetic.
01:02:35
Speaker
And this arrangement of it is by a composer named Menachem Wiesenberg, and he composed arrangements of Israeli songs for a really great Israeli singer who passed away about a couple of years ago. Her name is Mira Bakai. And not only was she one of the greatest singers here in Israel, and she sung with some of the greatest conductors in the world like Sir Georg Schulte, and I mean really
01:03:04
Speaker
phenomenal career, and she was also one of my mentors. And so I'm singing one of those arrangements that was originally composed for her and did it with her blessing. So I know. And so it was one thing. And then I know. And then the other thing is that this is a song along with other Israeli songs that I really love to program when I give recitals. And in recitals, as opposed to opera,
01:03:33
Speaker
you can program all kinds of different songs and kind of arrange them as a menu of sorts, you know, for your audience. And that is an environment in which an artist is able to express a lot more individuality, because if you're performing in a full-length opera like, you know, La Traviata, La Boheme, Dialogues of the Carmelites, you're singing the pieces from that opera, you know, the arias from, you know, La Traviata, or like if you were performing in musical theater,
01:03:59
Speaker
you're not going to be singing a phantom of the opera. You're singing only the pieces of My Fair Lady. So with the art song recital as opposed to an opera production, you can put together pieces that run just about the full gamut. So an artist has a lot more individuality in this respect, in this particular medium.
01:04:21
Speaker
And so in these, I always love to program a few Israeli songs, and oftentimes the audience falls in love with them, even without knowing a single word in Hebrew, because again, the beauty of the music, the beauty of a human and unamplified human voice singing them is really something special. So Dodiri has been a very good friend to me in recitals. Yeah, and thank you for going into it. Just to remind the
01:04:49
Speaker
the how it sounds, right, without the language. I mean, you're into, I find, just an idea, I find you in such an interesting position as far as the level of the language acquisition that you gain in order to be able to sing and sound like somebody who's from there, at the same time where you're communicating and saying, well, I know nobody's saying, knowing exactly the what,
01:05:15
Speaker
the what I'm spending a lot of time as it's going on. It's a very curious way for you to have to communicate in that realm.
01:05:24
Speaker
Oh, that said, though, you often do have native speakers of those operas in the audience. So watch out. I mean, first of all, there's a quality component in that you do want to deliver these great works, you know, to the best of the best that they can possibly be. You know, so if you're performing something like Shakespeare's, you know, Hamlet, you don't you want to make sure that the English, you know, the Shakespearean English is as crisp and beautiful as possible to convey the play in all of its power. And so in that respect,
01:05:54
Speaker
Opera is no different. You want to convey, you know, Italian opera in all of its power, a French opera or, you know, songs that are in Hebrew, you know, Israeli songs. So, or, you know, Czech in the case of Rusalka, you know, you really want to deliver that to the best of your ability. And so in this respect, it's really no difference than a Shakespearean actor or I think of, let's say, Jane
01:06:17
Speaker
Dame Judy Dench, you know, performing a Shakespeare play. So we're kind of, I guess, Shakespearean actors of opera. That's where we got to. Okay, so we're going to cut to the track right now, Dodi Lee with Canara Ealy. And after that, Canara, I'm going to ask you why there is something rather than nothing. So let's listen to the song first, though.
01:06:46
Speaker
V'a ani lo ha'o ei, v'y shoshanim. Todilim, v'a ani lo ha'o ei, v'y shoshanim. M'izan to l'hamin hamid pal, m'izan to l'hamin hamid pal, m'izan to l'hamin hamid pal, m'izan to l'hamin
01:07:15
Speaker
Todilim, v'aniloharoe, v'esoshanim. Todilim, v'aniloharoe, v'esoshanim. Mivavtiri, achotikalah, mivavtiri, acholikalah. Mivavtiri, achotikalah, mivavtiri, acholikalah.
01:07:53
Speaker
O, O, O, O
01:08:33
Speaker
I'm left in the similar circumstance. So the last song we play, the last performance, the last performance, very beautiful. Thank you so much. Very beautiful song. There's something I want to tell you that I picked out and that I connected for myself one time when I was lucky enough to see It's Jack Perlman in Portland for the Oregon Symphony.
01:08:34
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh.
01:09:03
Speaker
In his violin, in this song, somewhere is longing. It's just there's longing in there. And I don't know how to describe it any other way, but I can just always hear it. I can hear it in there. It's somewhere in there.
01:09:21
Speaker
So it's beautiful. That's the only word I got right now. It's beautiful. Thank you so much. And I'm also joining in the Itzhak Perlman love. I mean, there are no words. He's so incredible.
01:09:37
Speaker
He picked up the violin, I never, look, so here's the thing. I started going to the Oregon Symphony because it was actually affordable through discounts a few years back. And of course, last year was last year, a pandemic. But when you check him out, he had the violin and he had it and it was set up and he's slow getting around because of his ability to move right now. And
01:10:08
Speaker
he played the instrument and what he was doing. And the world was created in an instant. There was a complete other world, a complete other like change in place in time, in geography. And then I knew, then I knew I'm like, that's okay. That's Perlman. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's him harnessing those things that you can't simply express in words or in your day to day life. I mean, that's,
01:10:36
Speaker
His superpower, you know? Yeah. All right. All right. The big question. I'm really interested in your thoughts. Why is there something rather than nothing?
01:10:48
Speaker
Because, okay, because I think that something can also be, can always be created out of something that doesn't look like it's much or unassuming looking. And a really incredible art exhibit that I saw to that point was, it was out five years ago, if I remember the exact timing correctly. This was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it was of Matisse's cutouts.
01:11:13
Speaker
And so there were pieces of colored paper, which were really sort of the leftover scraps that an artist would have in their studio. And Matisse arranged them in the most beautiful ways and just created wonder. I mean, wonder to be displayed at MoMA and other galleries all over the world.
01:11:36
Speaker
And it was made out of things that many people would have dismissed as scraps that a five-year-old would have, you know, cutting things out of construction paper. And that's not to say Matisse used construction paper, but it is to say he used very unassuming materials and he used them to create wonders. And actually artists, a lot of the time, use
01:11:57
Speaker
resources that on the surface wouldn't necessarily look like there much. Let's say a rehearsal studio, which looking from the outside, it's not the most remarkable space. It could be a black box, you know, theater. It's quite simply a
01:12:13
Speaker
a more or less empty room, a blank canvas. And yet wonders are able to be created in there. These artistic wonders are able to be created in there. And that's true of rehearsal rooms. It's true of art studios. So in that sense, art is really wonderful in the sense that you can create something out of
01:12:35
Speaker
I won't say nothing, I will say almost nothing. Because you always need a little bit of something. But for the most part, it's the creativity of people that helps make these into the most incredible some things.
01:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Some, some things that's, I mean, I did something plural. Well, and the thing is too, with vocabulary and like in philosophy, a lot of time it comes to like things, right? Like, I mean, we can elevate our vocabulary. It's like, is this a thing? Is this a different thing than, you know, and then you start laughing and then like, okay, that's, it's kind of all, you know, um, well, thank you so much. Uh, thank you so much for that. Um, one of the things I want to do, um,
01:13:16
Speaker
And again, as you know, I feel particularly blessed by having you on this show. But one of the things that I like to do is connect you to the listeners and kind of like your art and what you do and how that happens. So where do folks go as they want to learn about more about Kenyatta Ili? Where do they go?
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, so you can go to my website, canaryili.com, and there you'll find my social media handles as well. So you'll find my Instagram and my YouTube, my Facebook, my Twitter. I use all of it. I love social media. So please connect with me there. I would love to see you. So yeah, canaryili.com.
01:14:02
Speaker
And I'm gonna have you spell it just to... Oh, of course, yes. So that is K-I-N-N-E-R-E-T-E-L-Y. Alright, that's so wonderful. I want folks to be able to
01:14:22
Speaker
to hear your stuff like the happenstance that I encountered you and able to talk to you. It's been a great pleasure.
01:14:35
Speaker
I've loved hearing your answers to these questions and I mentioned to a lot of guests, I like my own personal thought to be propelled. So there's always a self-serving part of this show, just in the sense that I want to learn more and I want to be able to understand the tremendous art that I've encountered from the artists themselves.
01:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for spending time with us. It's been a real great, great pleasure. I don't know what else to say. Oh, the feeling is mutual. Thank you so much again for having me. This has been wonderful and getting to talk about art. We don't typically get to speak about art quite at this level. So, and certainly not for an extended time like this. So this has been wonderful and such a blessing. Thanks so much again for having us. I'm gonna keep doing it and I'm sure we're gonna talk again.
01:15:29
Speaker
I would love that. Thank you so much. This is something rather than nothing.