We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Seraphour a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Seraphour , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Professional classical singers train for years – learning the canon, digging into repertoire, building vocal technique and developing the skills of the craft of singing. If you are fortunate enough, all that work translates into a career that sees you through from contract to contract – slotting into what an opera company, choir or church might need.
Life for a working singer is project-to-project with a handful of favorites you get to repeat a few or many times. Aside from solo recitals (which are championed at the conservatory and are rarely well compensated in the real world), there is not a lot of artistic control in the life of a classical singer. If you are blessed and work regularly, you work to contribute your talents to someone else’s vision. Though, great singers work hard to connect to these contracts and bring a level of artistic integrity to all that they do, they don’t have much choice (aside from declining work) in what they will sing from season to season. If you are fortunate enough to be a busy singer, you rarely have time to focus on what you have to say and how you want to use your voice. Seraphour is a vocal quartet with four such singers – Heidi Vass, Melissa Birch, Emma Grace Roche and Dana Rouse.
The pandemic gave us the opportunity to stop and think about how we wanted to use our voices – to carve out this one area of our professional lives to create something that connected us to one another and to something beyond ourselves. Unlike other areas of our professional lives, singing with Seraphour is not in service to a contract or a job. The music we create is purely out of our joy in singing and our desire to connect with something greater.
In that sense the entire group and all that we do together is a meaningful project. We are dedicated to the preservation and proliferation of the sacred canon colored by the depth and complexity of the female voice. With every concert, every recording, every new commission, our focus is consistent. Seraphour is on a mission to spread light and beauty. By encouraging a connection to the sacred and divine, we aspire to create meaning not only in our lives, but to inspire it in others.
Seraphour , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Seraphour are Heidi Vass, Melissa Birch, Emma Grace Roche, and Dana Rouse. We are an all-female quartet dedicated to the preservation and proliferation of the sacred canon. We highlight unaccompanied classical sacred gems that celebrate the beauty of the female voice. Presenting pieces from the Renaissance to present day and commissioning new works, our music celebrates the tradition of beauty that spans centuries and inspires souls. Seraphour was named a winner in the 2022 Beverly Hills National Competition. Our debut album, “Angele Dei,” was released in October 2021 and has been featured on classical radio stations, syndicated NPR and PBS programs nationally. In addition to terrestrial radio, “Angele Dei” can be heard and downloaded on all streaming platforms including, but not limited to Amazon Music, iTunes, Spotify and Pandora. Along with a full 23-24 season of live performances, we are currently working on a series of audio/visual projects and a follow-up album.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
We are, at our core and in everything we do, a mission-based enesmble. Every piece of music Seraphour selects, every concert we perform, in every interaction on social media, we are focused on our core ideal and goals – the preservation and proliferation of the sacred canon. We want to inspire people to connect to something greater, something eternal, something sublime. In a world with so much desperation and anxiety, we want to be the light. Our goal is to create and cultivate beauty that is in service to the divine.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
At it’s core, singing can be a very self-centered pursuit. We stand in front of people, tell our story/perform and expect our audience to listen and validate us. We have something to say or something to show. To be successful, we need to believe that we are worthy of attention, that we are somehow special. There are truly great performers who ARE worthy of that praise, that admiration and that attention. That said, what Seraphour is doing when we sing, is totally different.
Given our mission, we are not usually focused on our personal rewards. Though we have to believe that what we are singing is meaningful and impactful, we are not in service to our own validation. With our music, we hope to point our audience elsewhere, deeper. In the highest ideal, we are a conduit between our audience and their connection to something greater and more meaningful. The greatest reward for us is the honor and privilege of service. To serve the music. To serve our audience, To serve history. If we meet this standard our reward is knowing that we were a part of something greater than each one of us. That we did our part to make the world a more beautiful place by inspiring others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.seraphour.com
- Instagram: @seraphour
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seraphour
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiQgAEJZJDWNct1hfYQszQw
Image Credits
GMR Media