Maggie McLellan directs the chorus.
Liza Ketchum photo.
Dec 31, 1969 --
Maggie McClellan is on a quest to find her voice.
The quest hasn't been easy. Take the recital she endured years 15 ago while studying music in Kecskemet, Hungary. In the chapel of a former Franciscan monastery, McClellan waited in terror for her turn to come. She could hardly hear the applause for the preceding singer over the ringing in her ears. In the hush that followed, she joined the piano accompanist and turned to face the crowd.
"If you're that frightened," McClellan says, "you're in an altered state of mind. My heart was racing. I felt thick and tingly." She scanned the audience--her gifted classmates, accomplished teachers, and the Hungarian citizens known for their excellent musical schooling--and began to sing. Her loud, oboe-timbred voice joined the piano and echoed off the white stucco walls, tall windows, and curved ceiling. Halfway through the song, her voice cracked, and then shattered. "I turned into a frog. It sounded vile."
For much of McClellan's life, solo vocal performance has been a terrible risk, which she likened to "jumping off a diving board" into unknown waters, where her voice could either swim or founder. Over the years, she's enlisted 13 voice teachers. She's now a confident, skilled singer, but McClellan believes her quest to find her voice is a life-long process. "One of the reasons I've stayed in Seattle is that I have a voice teacher here who has the same confidence in me that I have," she says.
Meanwhile, McClellan, who has wavy dark hair, pale skin, and the fluid gestures of a dancer, has developed another musical talent, which she'll display at the Folklife Festival on Saturday, May 25--not as a singer, but as the beloved leader of the Phinney Neighborhood Community Chorus.
McClellan began struggling with her voice as a child. Born in Boston in 1959, she grew up surrounded by music, and learned to both love and fear singing in her elementary school chorus. "I remember my chorus teacher taking us in this little room and everybody singing for her, and she looked perplexed that I couldn't sing higher."
McClellan cultivated her passion for music in college, majoring in music composition and dance, and then moved to New York to work for several postmodern dance choreographers. But she never abandoned her belief that she might one day find her hidden voice. Then one summer, she took a course based on the innovative teaching methods of Hungarian composer and educator Zolt.n Kod.ly. McClellan liked his approach to studying music, despite the emphasis on singing. She enrolled in the Kod.ly Pedagogical Institute of Music, and, after pawning her wardrobe on a Manhattan street corner, she flew to Hungary.
The singing recitals that punctuated each semester proved to be torturous, but McClellan emerged from the two-year program with an excellent education in conducting, ear training, and music pedagogy. She returned to the states and discovered her gift for helping other singers, particularly young children. She now spends most of her time teaching music to preschoolers and is producing an album of original children's music.
She'd never taught music to adults when she moved to Seattle four years ago, but shortly after her arrival, she had an epiphany. "Suddenly I knew that I had to start a chorus here at the Phinney Center. It was one of the few times I hadn't had hesitation or huge reservations about something in my life. The first night, forty people showed up." The chorus' popularity has continued: Of the 45 closet divas and car radio accompanists who now comprise the chorus, 20 have been members since the beginning.
Normally, the chorus performs free shows at retirement homes. Now it's preparing for its largest venue yet, a 20-minute performance at the Northwest Folklife Festival. The chorus' repertoire is ambitious, including four-part harmony songs from the Republic of Georgia, Mozambique, and the Balkans.
How does McClellan teach such challenging music to singers whose prior experience is limited to singing show tunes into a showerhead? Her approach is guided by the belief that singing is an innate gift that all people can enjoy. "The goal is self-expression," she says, "a sense of unity with each other and, through experiencing music from other cultures, with people all over the world." Indeed, in the spirit of inclusiveness, there are no try-outs for the Phinney chorus.
McClellan emphasizes that, to a large extent, learning to sing is a process of unlearning shyness. "I have to trick everybody into having a lot of fun. I make them laugh, entertain them, get their mind off being self-conscious."
To inspire confidence in her students, McClellan also points to imagery in songs' lyrics or the descriptions provided in the sheet music. As an example, McClellan cites "Tsmindao Ghmerto," a Georgian liturgical song and a favorite of many of the chorus members. "It literally says, 'This is sung by the bold mountain people of the Svaneti region of Georgia.' Boldness is such a great word for singing."
Boldness drives climbers to scale mountains. It inspires singers to cry their songs from mountaintops. It has sustained Maggie McClellan's quest to find her voice, and gathered her students to her side. Though you won't hear McClellan's voice this Saturday, much of the boldness you'll hear in the voice of her chorus will be her own.
The Phinney Neighborhood Community Chorus will perform at 8:20 p.m. on Saturday, May 25, in the Charlotte Martin Theater.
