We recently connected with Renee Macdonald and have shared our conversation below.

Renee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I was the weird midwest millenial Walmart-goth nerd of my high school and undergraduate programs – and to have found my way into opera of all things was pretty unexpected from almost everyone I knew. Music was always all around me, both of my parents raised me pretty solidly in the sci-fi/fantasy folk scenes, and conventions and renaissance faires – but even in those areas, opera wasn’t anywhere in my field of vision. Unsurprisingly, I was never particularly popular in the era of Abercrombie vs Hollister. I didn’t grow up wealthy, my single mom raised myself and my brothers with my dad on the every other weekend schedule. Opera was for the wealthy, opera was for the upper class, opera was for anyone that wasn’t me.

In the 5th grade on the recommendation of my elementary school Vice Principal after braving a solo for the school concert, I auditioned for the Kalamazoo Children’s Chorus – where I proceeded to make music MY life, not just the life of my parents. KCC introduced me to classical music in an approachable way, we went to Europe on tours and did very high level music making – I recorded my first album with KCC when I was in high school. This didn’t win me any cool points at school, I remember distinctly being made fun of for being in a “Children’s” chorus as a teenager – but KCC was my home. KCC was my safe place, KCC was the first place I could really be myself – free from the stresses of home, school, and work.

I decided to go into music for college because the very thought of losing any of that freedom was unbearable, the idea of joining the workforce and dropping music was not an option for me. I had to find a way to make it work and be a part of my life permanently.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Time and time again, it’s been proven that if humans had no other things to do – no worries about shelter or food or providing for themselves and their families, we all turn to the arts. We all wish to create and communicate the human condition to feel less alone – I ran to music for community.

I believe in treating the practice of art and music in the same holistic manner you would treat your day to day life, everything is connected, and much is intuitive if you stop to listen.

As a teacher, using that foundation has helped me help students find their voices, their stories, their confidence, their musical purpose, their footing. It sounds hokey, but many voice teachers would agree, you can hear how your student’s week was based on how they open their mouth in their lesson. You can tell if they’re feeling closed off and shut down, or if they’re feeling bright and ready to shine. Singing is taking your breath, applying it to your folds, and delivering messages from your person to another direct. There’s nothing filtering it, there’s no translation through an instrument, it’s just you. While of course a lot of singing is technical, most of singing I would say is a mental and emotional balance. The physical movements of singing are simple, not easy, but simple. I’m sure many voice scientists would disagree on that statement, but we’ve been singing for as long as we’ve been human – arguably longer. There are multiple groups of voice teachers on social media, and the concept of being part-therapist comes up all the time, because if you’re not mentally ready you will not be physically ready, and we as teachers can hear that in your sound.

One of my other philosophies is that you shouldn’t necessarily feel like you have to conform to your community, but you should wish to contribute to it – and that is how I view my performing. Being a part of your community is to contribute to it, not to only go with the flow. As a performer it is my job to ensure everyone in the audience feels seen even if I’m not looking at them. The onus is on my colleagues and I to work together to cultivate a presence for the audience to be enveloped. What is the story we’re telling? What is the narrative? How is this relatable? Sometimes we’re there to provide escape, sometimes we’re there to provide something emotionally moving, sometimes we provide something to think about, but we are there to provide.

Practicing the arts in this way mimics life – how much do you give for others while still holding your own ground? You cannot pour from an empty glass, so the way we live must be filling as much as we are giving.

Some of the ways I work to enact this philosophy include advocating for American-English work that is comfortably singable. My favorite trifecta of composers I have studied include Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, and Lee Hoiby – much of my work that is of my own creation has at least one of these three composers filling in a slot. From there, I ask my friends who compose what they have that they want done – nothing need be specifically tailored to me or written for me, simply works they already have in-process that should see an audience. Opera singers do a lot of work on older literature, of which I hold no complaint for, but it does leave a lot of the possibilities of the “now” by the wayside. Our favorite singers and our favorite composers were working with each other when things were written then. Somehow over time, we have lost that sense of connection from singer to composer, devalued it to favor the same top 10 operas that will sell. This mentality has seeped into recitals, and even open mic nights. Current music is simply not done and celebrated in the operatic world with ease – it’s a chore and a fiscal risk for opera companies to do new works. While I may not presently have any sway over that, I can do the diligence of putting on recitals with my friends’ works. I then ask whoever I am collaborating with on piano if there’s anything they wish to play. A pianist’s taste in music is not the same as a singer’s, but both are on the recital and historically only the singer makes choices in repertoire. Pianists regularly feel as though singers take them for granted, and quite frankly, that feeling is not unfounded. Pianists take whole orchestral reductions meant for multiple people to play, and figure out how to get the same thing across with 10 fingers – and many many singers will still yet see them as hired help rather than collaborators. I find it challenging to cultivate a sense of community and collaboration in performance if there wasn’t one from the conception of the project – and if that is missing between the performers, it will be missing to the audience.

It is simple, but as stated earlier, simple does not mean easy. All of this advice and everything I have built my platform on immediately crumbles as soon as you take away acting in good faith – and that’s the risk I run. I don’t profess to have been a perfect practitioner, but I struggle to see how to approach this career path in any other meaningful way. Music and the arts have much to teach us about ourselves and about each other, I do my best to ensure the audience found something worth listening for.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My career in opera almost stopped as soon as it began.

Upon leaving high school, I was determined to continue music professionally – it was my safe space, and losing it was not an option for me.

I spent a lot of time on the campus that would become my Alma Mater when I was in high school, Western Michigan University. I did their summer music camp SEMINAR, I recorded my first album with the Kalamazoo Children’s Chorus in their recital hall, I got to know the faculty and quickly fell in love with WMU.

Many universities hold policies about the number of times a student is permitted to audition for their programs. This might seem incredibly callous to people who believe the arts are for everyone (as they are,) but colleges as they stand now need funding, and their funding is partly tied to who they graduate and what their alums do post-graduation, and theoretically they are training you for a professional career – so as cold as it is, if they do not believe you will be successful post graduation, many universities will turn you down. It’s not a great feeling, but it is part of the business – and this particular form of rejection doesn’t disappear when you leave school either. WMU held a policy that prospective students were only allowed to audition twice before they would not be heard again. After my second rejection/waitlist (in full disclosure, I do not remember if I was outright rejected or wait listed each time) I figured that that was that. I was studying with a member of the faculty, and she pulled some strings for me to get me a third audition – the semester before that I had auditioned there was only one opening, and that spot did not go to me. My voice was large, loud, unwieldy, strident in the highs, and frequently flat in pitch. Not to any level any worse than your average mid-west 18 year old singing classical music, I placed well at solo/ensemble competitions in high school, but the bar was higher for college. I didn’t sing with much stage presence either, so all of that together put me at “not first pick.” I cried at the opportunity to have the third audition, I took extra lessons as was advised to me, put myself as front and center as I could in the college choir, and truly gave the best audition I knew how to at that third chance.

I was waitlisted.

Truthfully, at this point I had given up. If I couldn’t get into my local state school that I had spent so much time investing in, then a career in music wasn’t in the cards for me. Looking back, that’s absolutely untrue, and I should have applied to more universities, but that was my do-or-die mentality. I changed my major to chemistry and tried to move forward.

A week later my teacher called me, someone had decided to go somewhere different, I had actually gotten moved up the waitlist – I wasn’t that far down!

I spent the rest of my undergraduate degree knowing I was the underdog – while I was not verbally accosted to feel that way, the lack of opportunity that was granted to me until I proved myself spoke volumes on its own. When the time came for me to apply for graduate schools, the narrative had flipped. Instead of struggling to get into one local state school, I had gotten in to all 7 universities/conservatories I had applied for – ultimately I chose the one that wanted me the most, Wichita State. The night and day difference of how I was received by faculty and peers fully encapsulated the vastness of my growth during my bachelors, and I couldn’t even be fully aware of it until I had left and looked back.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn doing what I was told simply because it was told to me by an authority figure – but to do so with grace.

I was the straight A student desperate for attention and validation, not an uncommon story (and easy to see how I fell into the performing arts) – I would do anything an authority figure would tell me to do for such a long time, as I fully believed that’s how I was going to make something of myself, to be “worthy.” This of course, got me pretty far in a school setting, but in an artistic setting? Sure, I got far enough, but the audience wants to feel cared for, and a performer can not provide that if they are merely parroting what they’ve been told to say. This hindered me in being free to make bold choices on stage, everything was always wrong, nothing was ever right, someone always hated what I was doing. This made me stand smaller, do less, and try to be out of the way – which is the exact opposite of what the stage demands of you.

I started un-doing that learning my senior year of high school, when as co-editor of the school paper, our new principal attempted to censor an opinion article by one of the staff writers about the new suspension policy. This started a butting of heads between my team on the paper and the principal that lasted the rest of the year, eventually being quelled only after the principal had found out I had spoken to two ACLU lawyers for legal advice as to how to proceed. We managed to come to an agreement, some editing for preciseness of language that at the time I believed (and hopefully still is true) that the original author was comfortable with, and the article published. This was my first clash with authority. That continued in college as I advocated for appropriate learning environments in some of my non-music classes, but it took until I had completed my masters that I started figuring out that questioning and legitimately advocating for myself and others in music spaces was equally valid and necessary.

Opera doesn’t have to be in a large quiet room, opera doesn’t have to be all the old classics, opera can be comedic, opera can be current, opera can be inclusive, opera doesn’t necessitate a jewel-toned tea-length audition dress in 2.5 inch heels and soft feminine features as a soprano, opera can have modern staging and modern interpretation and modern acting, opera can be anything it wants to be, it does not have to be just for large fancy houses that everyone must wear a three piece suit to see. The magic of an un-amplified human voice is for everyone, because everyone has one.

While I am on an eternal journey for grace, I’m glad to have finally figured out that the only person’s opinion that matters about my performances are mine, because no one else is on that stage for me. The personal responsibility and self confidence it takes to own your own performance is something that is learned but not taught, and keeping that in balance with everyone else’s right for the same keeps life fascinating, and keeps the work coming – both on and off stage.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.reneemacdonald.org (not yet live, but should be by the end of june)
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fachthis023/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rmacdo/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/

Image Credits
Red Dress/Fur: Wichita Symphony Orchestra
Blue Dress: Sunflower Newspaper – Wichita State University
Red Dress/Organ Hall: Wichita State University, photo by Joshua Klinger
White Jumpsuit: Wichita State University, Photo by Joshua Klinger. Others pictured, Dr. Dean Roush (composer, Bridget Hille (piano), and Christopher Agnew (saxophone).
Headshot by K. Photography https://www.facebook.com/K.photography55