//Field Notes

New recordings!

A very big thank you to collaborative pianist, Kristen Kiekel, for playing so wonderfully!  A fantastic colleague, a great pianist, an even better friend—she’s on to great things!

I’m most excited to add Batter my heart from John Adam’s masterpiece, Doctor Atomic.  I have always loved new music, and I am very​ excited interpret Adam’s aria.  Hearing new music excites me much like the Florentines were probably excited to hear L’Orfeo, a fresh perspective of the world told from a contemporary voice!

​Is it just me, or does the musical language remind anyone else of Purcell?  

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Der Vogelfänger bin ich, ja!

I’m studying up on my German for Papageno for Opera New Jersey in a few weeks, and it never felt better!  There’s something I love about this character, and I discovered that it’s the same thing I love about Samwise Gamgee: their utter simplicity.  I’ve discovered that the more possessions I keep, the more they begin keeping me​.  Papageno only needs a wife (and maybe some wine), but simple pleasures please him the most.  I find that in singing the role, Papageno’s simplicity spills over into my life, and I too begin to relish uncomplicated. 

Also, more photos on the website courtesy of my good friend and artist, David Schrott!​

The Black Cat begins to take form!

We did a photo shoot for the world premiere of Revak’s The Black Cat ​today—I can’t wait to see how they turn out.  A huge velour wingback chair, torn pages, an accordion, a tupperware full of blood—fake blood, that is.  Brenna Geffers, the director from Philadelphia Opera Collective’s The Consul ​last year, gave excellent direction the entire time, which keeps the energy moving.  With her on board, the excellent music, this should really be a special production!

Ever since working with Brenna, I’ve been dying for another chance to appear in one of her shows.  Then I discovered that she’s returning to direct the world premiere of Revak’s The Black Cat, and I performed approximately one million backflips!  My excitement keeps building!  Look for more information on the Philadelphia Fringe Festival website!

New Photos!

A very big thank you to David Schrott for new photos for both the website and a new headshot!  We had a blast shooting around Lancaster, viewing pine forests, a farmers market, train stations—oh my!  All artist and part farmer, this gentleman knows how to snap a picture! 

(I meant to post this yesterday!)

Here I sit at Johnny B’s Diner after our 50th performance of the blessed children’s opera, Pinocchio. If I have a smile on my face, it’s from the three egg western omelet I just devoured and the hot coffee sitting in front of me. We have three more performances in front of me before I return home (but by the time I post this, probably two!). Home! My girlfriend! My roommates! Wow—I’m excited! I dearly miss these people.

Singing with Opera Saratoga has been nothing but a great experience. It’s the kind of place, where when we walk into the office, everyone stops to talk for a few minutes. It was before I even knew the names of the staff that thy were waving at me, saying, “Hey Chad! How is everything going?” So kind, and of course, very supportive and appreciative. They came to many performances, complimenting every one as if it was their first time seeing it. The artistic director and his wife have hosted us many times, feeding us incredible food, and then of course, Debbie, who has consistently cooked us large brekkies that not even I could finish. What an accomplishment. Even this week, she had us over three times for breakfast and once for dinner (mmm!), and even to have us between shows so that we wouldn’t have to sit at a Starbucks. Her grandchildren kept us company and acted like pet therapy for us… children therapy.

That said, I can’t wait to get back to home, to the faces I know so well and the coffee I drain so quickly.

My brother Benjamin has had no easy life. Most of this comes from two things: being the only introvert in a family of gregarious extroverts, and the second because he has invested his life in a vigorous search for truth and beauty (to which we would reply, they are the same). All of my closest friends know Benjamin, if not personally, then definitely by name, as I doubt I have ever had any person continually in my thoughts as my brother. In fact, that’s the opinion of all my friends as well—he makes such a strong impression, you can’t help but be pulled into his ideas, a visionary of society without which many (myself included) would have ignored their conscience to callousness.

Today is his 31st birthday, and he only looks to the future. A man who struggled to find truth, a lifelong wrestling match with philosophy, almost losing, until and he finally rose victorious. A fan of the underdog, a champion of the weak. A man who only wants people to be themselves, and loves them for it—it’s why Ben is one of my best friends and closest confidant.

Happy birthday to my only brother, Benjamin Bruce Somers, who bears the name like a tailored suit. To many more years of struggle, and then, resurrection!

An introduction to Pulitzer prize winning, A Death in the Family by James Agee.  This could have very easily been about my childhood (but 80 years too early!).  

May God bless my people, my good mother and my good father.  My brother, my sister and her husband.  Remember them kindly in their hour of trouble and in the hour of their taking away.  My people, who are so dear to me and who live so far away.

———

We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child. 

…It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt: a loud auto: a quiet auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squaring with clowns in hueless amber. A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew. 

Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose. 

Low in the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes… 

Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces. 

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there.…They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine,…with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am. 

SNOW DAY!!!

Yesterday at this time, it was 45 degrees and sunny, but as I’m coming to discover, snow is a way of life in upstate NY.  The weather seems to change in a cycle: heavy snowfall, cold days, warmer temperatures, complete melt, balmy two-three days, chilly day or two*, snowfall.  As I type this, I’m inches from the oven in the kitchen, which serves as our heater for the south wing of the 18th Century house.  It’s like this until May, meaning that there is virtually no Spring north of NYC, meaning everything is like Narnia—all winter and no Christmas.  This is no country for a man who enjoys the progress from the hold of winter to the relaxed days of summer.

Two performances cancelled, a concert postponed until next week… what am I to do?  Why sleep, of course!  Drink lots of coffee and make as much French Toast for breakfast as possible!  Take a walk (posting pictures later?)!  A foot of snow covers the area I glanced yesterday afternoon to admire a garden, and it’s still falling!  Reports say that it’s going to get worse! 

I guess this is to say that we now have ample time to plan the dinner at our house for the staff (and family!) of Opera Saratoga, to think about meals we’re having throughout the week at our director’s house and with our dear Debbie—all things we want to do before we leave.  Leaving.  It’s getting close!  Soon, I’ll bike through Rittenhouse Square in a tank top and sunglasses on my way to the Schukyll River Trail to sit by the river with Ashley on my right and friends on my left!

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Hello, World Wide Web!

It’s a great pleasure for me to announce that chadwicksomers.com is up and running (as you’re aware by now!).  This website will offer media, featuring both video and audio,  announcements and reviews.  Please continue to keep an eye on the website as things are bound to change as new opportunities open in the future!  What an exciting life it is!

Drop me a note in the contact section to say hello!​