Claron McFadden on Human Expression

"The human voice: mysterious, spontaneous, primal; the vessel on which all emotions travel, except, perhaps, jealousy. And the breath, the breath is the captain of that vessel. A child is born, takes its first breath, and we behold the wondrous beauty of vocal expression: mysterious, spontaneous, and primal... When you're totally in the moment, the vessel of emotion is open. The emotions can flow...". 

Claron McFadden's message here is a very interesting one in the way to approach human expression. Having studied in Rochester, NY at the Eastman School of Music, McFadden is a world-renown soprano. As someone who knows very little about vocal pedagogy, I found myself captured by her sense of articulation, and her personal expression in her singing. McFadden closes her short lecture with a performance of John Cage's "Aria" for solo soprano, and walks the audience through this very non-traditional score before singing it live. This is a rather captivating performance, and could be used to get students thinking about expression in music, as well as to challenge what their conceptions about music really are. I am not normally a big fan of late 20th-century or early 21st-century music, but McFadden found a way to bring this piece to life for me. The TedTalks video came across my PLN this week, but I have embedded the video from YouTube below: