“In My Room” by The Beach Boys, arranged by Batya MacAdam Somer

Bonnie Lander: Baltimore, MD

Meghann Welsh: San Diego, CA

Batya MacAdam Somer: San Diego, CA

Leslie Ann Leytham: San Diego, CA

“Mir ist so wunderbar,” from Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven

Malesha Jessie Taylor: Atlanda, GA

Mariya Kaganskaya: New York City, NY

Walter DuMelle: San Diego, CA

Jon Lee Keenan: Los Angeles, CA

“La ci darem la mano” from Don Giovanni by W.A. Mozart

Jonathan Nussman: San Diego, CA

Shiri Magar: Tel-Aviv, Israel

“Trouble in Mind” by Richard M. Jones

meghannwelsh.com

Ironically, being holed up during the pandemic has given me a shove towards overcoming some self-constraining pathologies. Two of these mental hurdles are knotted together: collaboration dependency and a fear of being heard (to be melodramatic, I'll call it vocal agoraphobia). When working with other people, my contribution adds a small piece to a bigger whole, and I'm buffered from the vulnerability of exposure. But when it comes down to it (in a socially-distanced era, for example), can I be a self-sufficient singer who enjoys the process and product? I'm still working on that, but I've found some help in the accordion.

The accordion is an ideal instrumental security blanket: it hugs you as you play it, and the air vibrating through the reeds creates a thick, enveloping support. I can hear and feel those vibrations, and am musically and psychologically buttressed by that soothing sensory feedback.

At my skill level, it's hard to be subtle with an accordion. It can overwhelm a voice, in volume and chordal chunkiness, and I also find it difficult to match a genre's style without sounding noticeably contrived or mawkish. Even so, I've been exploring accordion accompaniments to blues and early music. Funny enough, it lends itself to renaissance music pretty well, maybe because it congers up shawms and hurdy-gurdy drones. 

Here are a couple of voice & accordion works-in-progress: 

“Trouble In Mind,” a classic blues anthem for holding on to hope for the future, even in the most despairing times; and, Thomas Campion's, “What If A Day, Or A Month, Or A Year,” which I find thematically apt for our human condition. 

“Somewhere” from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein

musesalon.org

There is a collective need for Hope right now and I
chose this song for that reason. The lyrics say all the right things.

Emily Dickinson Songs by Kate Porter

bonnielander.com

“Your Thoughts,” “The Heart Has Narrow Banks,” “I Can Wade Grief,” and “At Leisure is the Soul” are excerpted from a song cycle Kate Porter composed between 2010-2014 using poetry by Emily Dickinson. Kate and I are longtime friends and currently live in a shared group arts space together in Baltimore, MD. We first recorded the full song cycle in 2014 and, since the lockdown, we have been eager to revisit them.

We feel that Emily Dickinson, with her reputation for introversion, reclusion, and deep imagination is a very relevant artist to present for Project Blank’s Sofa Series. Her writing explores the depths of self understanding. Her knotty, twisting metaphor challenges our perception of our world and ourselves, a challenge that many of us are currently facing during this global existential crisis. We hope that you enjoy these songs speak to you and that you enjoy them. Thank you for listening.  

“Palomita,” Vocal Improvisation

alianadelaguardia.com

Palomita is an original improvisation, the longest in duration thus far, and the first utilizing my own poetry. During quarantine I spent about a month and a half in a creative rut. No ideas and no inspiration, then all of the sudden a fog started to lift. My head was full and I was in desperate need to get it all out. I'm always considering my moniker "Dirty Paloma" and what it means in the context of my life and being. As I I started to write poetry I thought on doves and what it means to truly have freedom. This piece combined two of my recent poems, and a folk melody with a Latin "clave," which is always in my body stemming from my Cuban heritage. 

Bonnie Lander and Jonathan Nussman’s CLAUSTRUM is a micro-opera for two improvising singers. It’s a claustrophobic soundscape of textless vocal sounds, densely layered to suggest inner voices in conflict, monsters screaming in the corner, and celestial harmonies (real or imagined?). We first performed CLAUSTRUM live in 2017, inside a windowless closet for small audiences of three people or less. The new version heard here is a stereo remix of some of that original material. 

Our current situation makes it a good time to engage with CLAUSTRUM’s themes of isolation, anxiety, and the desire to escape confinement. Turn off your lights, put on headphones, and embrace your quarantine.

With Kenton Youngstrom, guitarist

“Flow My Tears” by John Dowland

jonleekeenan.com

“O Zittre Nicht, mein lieber Sohn,” from Die Zauberflöte by W.A. Mozart

haileyfuqua.com

This is a piece near and dear to my heart, one of the Queen of the Night's arias "O Zittre Nicht". While she's a terrible mother, I find her character fascinating and sometimes reminiscent of my own qualities. She's fiercely loyal, strong-willed, and a passionate person. In this she's working to convince Tamino to go rescue her daughter Pamina, promising her to him if she's brought back safely. Amidst quarantine I've found this piece resonating with me as we all work to do whatever we can to protect ourselves and our families. She's a mother willing to do whatever it takes. Singing and finding creative inspiration during quarantine has been challenging but I've been looking for silver linings in each day, the blooming flowers, sunshine, and that tomorrow's another day. 

with Paul Miller, clarinettist

"Wiegenlied," from Sechs deutsche Lieder by Louis Spohr

A few months ago, I didn’t expect to be playing accompaniment for clarinet trios with my fiancé, but when you share a home with another musician during a pandemic lockdown, you’ll venture into all sorts of new musical territories to stay active. We chose Louis Spohr’s “Wiegenlied,” a lullaby written for voice, clarinet, and piano mostly because lullabies always have easier piano parts!

“All is still in sweet repose, Therefore, my child, you, too, must sleep. Outside is but the rustle of the wind, Sh, sh, sh, go to sleep, my child. Close your little eyes, Let them be two little buds. Tomorrow when the sun shines, They will blossom like flowers. And I gaze at the little flowers, And I kiss the little eyes, And a mother's heart forgets, That it is spring outside.”

"Pause" from Die Schöne Müllerin by Franz Schubert

LESLIELEYTHAM.COM

I was originally booked to perform this and several more Schubert lieder with Bodhi Tree Concerts on May 17th, but of course, the performance was cancelled due to COVID. The organizers of the concert were quick to adapt the performance into something that was streamable, and I am so grateful to have had the chance to get to record it for them. I wanted to include this song here as well because it asks so many questions about why we sing at all. In the context of the song cycle, our hero has realized that all his singing has been in vain. The eponymous miller’s daughter (Schöne Müllerin) doesn’t love him back. I’ve been pondering the loss of public performance space, and keep coming back to this art song. Why sing anymore? Is this all for naught? Do I sing for myself? For others? Does it matter? I’m still grappling with these questions, and I’m sorry I don’t have any answers. Maybe you can answer them for me.

“Me voglio fa 'na casa” by Gaetano Donizetti

mariyakaganskaya.com

It took me quite a while to decide what I wanted to record for this project, maybe because I was in that oh-god-what-do-I-even-have-to-say-and-why-bother-to-say-it place I think all artists have been at one point or another during this time. I lost some gigs that I was really looking forward to, but I did gain the opportunity to participate in this, and it really helped me push myself to create something. I ultimately decided to take the “sofa” thing literally and just go from there. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on this sofa, since my fiancé, our dog, and I currently live in a studio apartment in Manhattan. He (not the dog) is an architect, and we were watching those Architectural Digest videos where the rich and famous invite AD into their homes, and I thought it would be kind of funny to do a similar “tour” of our not-so-vast space. This brought me to this little Donizetti song about a very fancy dream home. I recorded the audio in the doorway of our bathroom (or is it the recording studio of our mansion…?), and we filmed the non-sofa footage on a socially distanced dog walk by the East River. No pigeons were harmed in the process (although Eddie tried).

Opera Characters in Quarantine

shirimagar.com

COVID-19 caught me in Europe (Liège, Belgium) while I was singing in a production of La sonnambula by Bellini at the Opera Royal de Wallonie. After an intense month of rehearsals, on the night before our premiere, the Belgian government decided to cancel all sports and culture events. I found myself on the last direct flight from Brussels to Tel-Aviv, without a real chance to say goodbye to my colleagues and friends from the production.

Two years ago I started documenting my musical journey in a video blog called the "GoodDeeds Diva". My quest with this project is to SPREAD GOODNESS on my operatic path, while striving to sing on the world's biggest opera stages. 

Now, at home, during corona times I am continuing to create more videos. One of my most successful videos during this time has been: "Opera Characters in Quarantine", where I am portraying famous opera characters, singing their corona story from the living room or kitchen. Carmen is learning to cook, while Norina is learning to clean her house and holds a broom for the very first time. I hope this video will make you smile, and that we will return from our kitchens and living rooms to sing on the big stages.