#187 - Martha Eason - Opera, Endurance, and the Art of Intention

Professional operatic soprano Martha Eason joins me for a crossover conversation on music, endurance sport, and the mindset that powers both. We go from Appalachia bluegrass roots to Germany’s “fest” system, where the same resident cast performs night after night—often on tired vocal cords and tighter schedules. Martha breaks down why opera is an athletic event, how recovery, breath work, and nervous-system regulation protect those “two tiny muscles,” and what her Garmin reveals during rehearsals.

We talk technique vs. emotion (and why clear text and intention beat perfect high notes), naming the inner critic (“Hi, Brenda”), and practical ways singers taper, avoid burnout, and come back from overuse injuries. Martha shares role milestones—from Violetta in La Traviata to Missy Mazzoli’s gritty Breaking the Waves—and how faith, doubt, and real life feed performance without derailing it. Plus: the Via Francigena run, why second performances often outshine premieres, Germany’s public funding for opera, and how her “Rehearsal Notes” newsletter blends vocal pedagogy with athlete habits.

Martha’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/marthaeasonsoprano/

Episode #200 Survey: https://forms.gle/s72MemFFdHuL7g8DA
SQ Socks: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch⁠ 

SQ Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup⁠

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to the Stupid Questions podcast, everyone.
So today, a new type of interviewee or guest on the
show, Martha ISON. She is a professional singer.
She is an operatic singer in a number of different disciplines
that honestly, I cannot even pronounce.
I'm not going to pretend to, butI'll make sure to link her
Instagram in the show notes so you can go check out the

(00:20):
different types of or the different repertoire that she
sings in. Is a really amazing singer on
top of just being a really all around cool person.
It's really awesome to get to hear her story.
So make sure to check out the show notes for her newsletter,
for her Instagram, those other things.
And then also check out the shownotes for ways you can support
the show. And jump in on my newsletter
where I give 3 takeaways from 2 episodes of the past week in a

(00:43):
condensed format so that you guys can hopefully learn
something and find some value there.
So yeah, thank you guys so much for being here.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Martha and
myself. And yeah, that's it.
Without further ado, I want to introduce you to Martha Yisan on
podcasts in the past. A couple I have to say this is
my first one in English. Strangely enough, all of them

(01:05):
have been in German, so I'm verythankful to speak like my own
language. Yeah, I was going to say, are
you fluent in German and what other languages do you speak?
All the opera singer languages like German, Italian, my French
is terrible but most of the workis done in Germany so pretty
much all of us are decently fluent in German, although it's
the worst language to learn so. Yeah, that's super awesome.

(01:28):
Yeah. How's your day going so far?
It's good. It's been a really good day.
We're having like really good weather, not too much work.
I'm just like working on some really nice projects right now.
So yeah, it's like a good time for a little podcast action.
Yeah, bring it on. What?
Where are you from? Like where are you at right now?
You said good weather because we're having some here too.
I'm curious where you are. I'm in Karlsruhe, which is down

(01:50):
South, kind of near Stuttgart. Like I'm about half an hour
drive from the French border, solike in a southern Germany.
And yeah, I mean, I'm from Virginia originally, and it's a
little bit of that, but gets colder a little earlier in terms
of winter, a little earlier. Where are you coming from?
Yeah. So I'm in Redding, CA, So it's
like 11 AM here. Is it like 7:00 PM there?

(02:12):
8:00 PM Eight. PM Yeah.
Wow, you are a trooper. Yeah, I would have tried to help
schedule a different hour. I'm like usually in getting
ready for bed at 8:00 PM. Oh, no worries.
We work like opera singers. We work from like 1:50 and then
again another block from 6 to 10.
So these are my work hours. OK, right on.
That's awesome. Well, there's tons of questions

(02:32):
I have, but First off, I just want to say thank you for making
the time, especially because it's 8:00 PM for coming on.
And yeah, I look forward to diving in and get to know you a
bit, but thank you for making ithappen.
One thing I will say really quick, when I originally started
this podcast, I knew that it would have some triathletes in
it just because that was a big piece of who I am.

(02:53):
But the other two big pieces aremusic and just like business
people who have done business entrepreneurship and things like
that. And this area of music is what
I'm trying to like figure out how to dive into.
So you are doing me a huge favorby being on.
So thank you for. Oh, absolutely.
I feel just like such a nerd getting to talk about, talk to
like an actual athlete because I'm such a, you know, like

(03:15):
hobby. Yeah, I'm opera singer is my
profession, but I've been running all my life and I'm like
obsessed with professional, you know, endurance athletes because
of their mindset and like what it brings to music.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, one inreal life.
Yeah. Oh, thanks.
I'm not that big of a deal honestly, but I really

(03:35):
appreciate that. That makes me feel good for you.
Like with the endurance stuff, because obviously you've been
singing for a while. I'd love to hear where those two
paths started to cross like in your journey.
Oh man, super young. So for me, I started running
when I was 12 or 13. I started cross country.
I grew up in Appalachia and so like my the house I grew up in

(03:58):
is like 10 minute drive from thestart of the Yeti 100 race, for
example. So like, I grew up trail running
with my high school friends and that's also around the time that
I started singing. And it was just like in choir
and it was like my way of socializing, having an activity
to do in a group and like becamemy friend base, both running and

(04:21):
singing. And yeah, I think that's when I
kind of like got bitten by the bug and it just stayed with me.
I got away from running an undergrad and then it's just
always, I've always come back toit the same as music.
And they've always gone togethersomehow and they've always like
informed each other. And, and it wasn't until I

(04:42):
started when I got back in touchwith Caitlin, who you've
interviewed, Caitlin Alexander. And I just said, I want to run
my first marathon, train me for it.
And I like started just like making all these connections
between what I was doing in Opera and running, like so many

(05:03):
connections. And it changed my work life for
the better. Like, it definitely helped me
understand how to train my own voice in a way that like opera
singing is like an athletic event.
And we train these tiny little muscles to sing over an
orchestra with no amplification,like in a huge room.
And it's like learning about recovery and like all these

(05:26):
different things super helped mysinging.
So going at technique like singing technique from a aspect
of like endurance sport training.
Game changer. Yeah.
Yeah, that's so neat. I love whenever I've gotten into
something new and spent a considerable amount of time in
it, more than just kind of a quick couple weeks.
It's really cool how you start to see the different parallels.

(05:48):
And I like analogous things you can draw between these different
practices, whether they're, yeah, fields of study or hobbies
or things like that. I think that's one of the
beauties of life, just to see like how connected everything
is, what you're saying. For sure, yeah.
So when you, when you started getting into opera singing and
then you are obviously doing theendurance side you mentioned

(06:10):
like the recovery aspect. I'm just before I ask some of
these other deeper questions, I'm just curious, what is a
recovery process or protocol look like for when you're doing
your job and you need to like bring it in for a second, get
your heart rate down or whateverthat looks like?
Oh yeah. So I'm, I'm a fest singer.
And what that means is like, we're basically a repertory
theatre in Germany. It's the only country where this

(06:32):
exists for opera singers. It's the same team of singers
and we perform everything the whole season.
Everywhere else in the world, it's freelance, so you have a
different group of singers. It's kind of like baseball, like
we're the same team and we play every night and we play
different games and we play in different places.
So we, we're on stage a lot and then we're rehearsing 7 to 8

(06:53):
hours a day with these two tiny,tiny little muscles.
And there are tons of overuse injuries happening and our
contracts are really old. So we're working.
I work with the union to like reflect that.
Because if you were singing, I would say if you're singing nine
days a row with orchestra, like you're going to run the risk of

(07:16):
getting like a vocal edema or like kind of one of these
overuse injuries. So we need specific amount of
time off. Like we are not allowed to be
called within 12 hours of each other because it's dangerous
physically. So all of these kind of things.
And then, yeah, like, basically rehab for the voice.

(07:36):
You know, it's a lot of voice science and communication and
breathing techniques and like how you're using the voice
similar to like, like when I started running into injuries,
when I started training for my first marathon, it was like
going to APT and being like helpSammy's like going to a voice
therapist when you're injured and figured like troubleshooting

(07:58):
that and like learning how to come back from an injury, like a
vocal injury, sort of that that sort of thing.
Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.
Thanks for sharing that. So the first question I'd love
to like actually dive into. That's when I ask.
You may have heard me ask this to of other people, but this
first question is who is Martha according to you?

(08:19):
Oh. That's such a hard question,
actually. What a rough question to start
people out on. I really think.
Yeah, take. All the time you need.
Identity is so tricky. I think like when we we are
speaking to a lot of endurance athletes and like me as a artist

(08:42):
or an opera singer, my identity is like, I want to say my
identity as an opera singer, butthat's so contingent on external
things, like somebody allowing me on stage, somebody choosing
me in an audition. And then my identity has changed
so much over the years. So yeah, like I would say I'm a

(09:06):
musician, I love writing, I'm a writer, I like creating things
and I like communicating with people.
I think whatever form that takes.
And I like movement. I would say like moving, singing
and creating things, especially with text.
I think that would be my defining characteristics.

(09:28):
Yeah, you said with text. Yeah, with text, I think like
opera is really movement and physical activity mixed with
literature and text and having that added meaning.
That's why I started as a pianist and I was like, there
are no words. I want words.
I want poetry, I want, like, theater, something visual and

(09:51):
something. Yeah, with that added element of
meaning to it. Yeah.
Did when you were growing up, was like, were there other
musicians in your family? And was it pretty early on that
you found, like this love for music and performance and.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, my grandfather

(10:11):
died before I was born, but he was like pretty much the only
musician in the family. Bluegrass, of course, 'cause I
grew up in Appalachia, so and welike didn't have a piano growing
up, but he made one. He had one of these old player
pianos that was like from a Speakeasy bar and he rebuilt the
whole thing and it was horribly out of tune.

(10:33):
But I literally I still rememberlike how it sounds and that like
graininess and like falling in love with this kind of out of
tune piano where each key was like a different color, which
helped me learn the piano because I was like, there's
middle C, there's G like it's the one that's like chipped and
it it's not quite AG. It's.

(10:55):
Like in between? It's yeah, it's like, and I was
just obsessed with it from like when I was like super young.
And that's what really got me into music.
And my mom, she doesn't realize she's like one of those people
who's she can sit down at the piano and look at a piece of
music and be like blah, blah, blah, and doesn't realize that's
not normal. Oh wow, yeah.

(11:16):
But neither of my parents are are trained musicians at all.
But they're always singing, always making noise.
There was always music around. I also grew up in a Southern
Baptist church, so like, there, there's music all the time.
And Appalachia, we have a huge bluegrass tradition.
So I was just kind of surroundedby it a lot.

(11:36):
Never opera, never orchestra music.
That was a new thing for me, butI sort of love that.
That's my musical history, and that's what I bring to like
Mozart. Yeah.
Like, yeah, I was going to say, do you have that?
Is that influence? How does that influence present
itself in the art form that you currently are in with opera,
singing and? Performance and things like

(11:57):
that. I definitely think I brought
like some of my own musical ideas from that tradition into
classical music. And I've also done a lot of
modern music, like modern composed music, especially
modern American opera, I think because of that kind of
connection to American Music history being kind of like

(12:19):
something that's something I grew up with.
Yeah. But you know, Mozart can be
pretty boring unless you add something to it.
We've been singing that stuff for a long time.
It's like maybe. It's amazing how long it's
actually stuck around, like in terms of like the popular
conversation, like everyone thinks Beethoven, Mozart, Bach,

(12:40):
all of those. Yeah, they they just have
standed the test of time, which I don't know if you can say the
same for other artists, which isinteresting.
Yeah, for sure. Do you have siblings?
I'm an only child, but I come from a huge family, so yeah,
it's never felt like. It yeah.
So do you feel like because you were an only child, you had more

(13:01):
connection with your parents than you think, just because you
were there kind of with them more constantly?
A little bit both both my parents were working parents, my
dad as an accountant, my mom's ahigh school teacher, high school
science and math teacher. And so I honestly think this is
a little bit of why I became a musician.
It was because often they're off, you know, working, doing

(13:21):
their things. And I was like, I have time to
practice and it takes like a lotof practice and I just kind of
got obsessed at an early age andwas like, great, I have hours
and hours to myself. I can sit and, like, learn
music. I can learn things on the piano.
And then when I started singing,I could just sit for hours and
listen to recordings of, like, famous singers and try to figure

(13:43):
out how they're, like singing sohigh or singing so fast and,
like, how does a human make thatnoise?
Yeah. So I think it was like a little
left to my own devices helped mebecome a musician.
Yeah. So whenever I started learning
to want to play piano, it was driven from very much of like an
emotional, like, I want to figure out how to express this

(14:05):
or like I would hear a certain piece and it would make me feel
a certain thing and I would wantto evoke that again in myself
and then maybe in others, but more of it myself.
But for you, it seems like it was more like curiosity driven,
at least early on. Is that accurate to say, like
understanding the analytics of how this actually works?
And has it changed over time? Yeah.
Oh, I love that that's your first connection with music,

(14:26):
because I think that's a really mature connection with music and
a pure connection that I didn't have until later.
Actually, this emotional connection came for me later.
It was like the sport of it, Thesport of making music is what
drew me to it. It was like the technique, how
it was composed, how it was put together.

(14:47):
And then with singing it was like, physically, how do you do
it? And it's like there's a little
bit of endurance involved and like growing your breath and
understanding how to do that. But it wasn't until later that
I, when I started actually performing and then having a
connection with an audience thatI saw, like how much music can

(15:09):
affect people. And then my, I never went to the
opera until I was 19. And I went, it was on a date and
you took me to the Metropolitan Opera to see Renee Fleming and
Tais. And it was such an overwhelming
experience because I'd never heard a live orchestra before.
And like, when you hear a live orchestra for the first time and

(15:31):
you hear a human voice, like, smashing it over like a 75 piece
orchestra, and it's one of the best voices of our time.
I just lost it. I just, like, burst into tears.
It was completely overwhelming. Yeah.
And that's when I was like, oh, man, this is like the voice or
the piano or whatever it is. Like music carries such

(15:52):
emotional and halt in it like you can transmit to people.
That's a beautiful word, by the way.
I don't think I've ever heard emotional.
What was it Inhalt? Oh, sorry, inhalt, it's a German
word. It's a German word, but I love
the word. I think that's great.
What does that mean? Emotional.
I think that's why it's like nota a good English equivalent, but

(16:16):
like the what it carries inside of it.
Mm hmm. Yeah, that's what you're saying.
Yeah. Like, 'cause it can, it can
drive. Yeah, I can drive to the heart.
Was that you, like your first real experience then of like,
oh, this is an emotional thing for me now.
Like you start to overlay the emotion on top of the sport.
Yeah, and it took me or it has taken me a long time.

(16:37):
Like that's been the biggest struggle professionally for me
is that I'm a a very technical singer and now I've
flip-flopped. Now I'm like all emotion and
technique, whatever, but it was very hard for me to express that
connection than to an audience because I wanted to express the
academic side of the music and sing it very perfectly and

(16:59):
present a very polished. But it's singing, it's like
emotion. And I didn't make that
connection until later. So yeah.
And. When you were, you said you were
19. Is it fair to assume or I want
to kind of ask a little bit deeper here, Like was there
things going on in your life as a 19 year old where maybe the

(17:20):
emotional sense was kind of growing to a level to where like
now it's important because I need to work through these
things or like how did. Yeah, it seems like there may
have been. So what was that connection?
Yeah, it there was like the spark of the connection, but I
honestly don't think I was. Wow.
Yeah. I mean, when I really think
about it, I don't think I was able to truly connect

(17:41):
emotionally to a piece until probably 3 or 4 years into my
career of performing. And I started doing repertoire
that I really was in love with Verdi.
And it's these just emotionally intense music and the best
female characters, like, I mean,you're singing your heart out

(18:02):
and you get murdered at the end.And it's just like blood sex
rock'n'roll. It's great music.
And I remember the first time I felt like I was performing with
my own emotions, but also still keeping them in check.
So the audience is getting the experience they deserve was

(18:24):
after a breakup. And then I had this Verdi opera
the next day and I was like, yeah, you know, all of the all
of the emotions, but it was still hopefully a professional
performance because that's the the balance you have to find is
like, you want to put your raw emotions, you want to express
yourself through your singing. But it's done in classical in

(18:46):
like an opera, through a very technical way, almost like
you're playing an instrument, kind of.
I understand what you mean. Yeah, 'cause you want the
audience to have the crazy emotional reaction and sometimes
if you're the one having it, they feel disconnected.
So you have to like, constantly check in to be sure.
Like, are they with me? Are they not?

(19:06):
How far can we go? So let me interrupt really
quick. How do you, how do you gauge
that whenever like that you, because are you judging that
based on just like eye contact or like body language?
Like how do you know for sure what they're feeling or if
they're connected, disconnected?Because I've done public
speaking and I feel like there'ssome similar thing there.
But yeah, let me know what you think.
That's really so when we're on stage, you can't see them at

(19:28):
all. Like just.
Blinded. You're you're blinded.
It honestly, this sounds crazy, but it's a feeling that I mean,
I've been I've like given over 400 some performances and at it
for a while and it's just a feeling.
And then it also helps when you're on stage with your
colleagues because you can startmatching each other's energy.

(19:52):
And then you have the the conductor is like kind of out
further and he's more in contactor they are more in contact with
the audience then we are sort of.
And so if you can kind of read. Them and we always have our eyes
on them, him anyway, like then you're going to have a better

(20:13):
idea. But it's kind of it's kind of an
instinct. You're like, if I really, you
know, go for it tonight, it might be too much for the
audience and they'll be, like, checked out.
Yeah, that's like a sorcery thatlike, that's like a you can't.
I don't know if you can teach that other than doing 400

(20:33):
different shows, I guess. I mean, some people are natural
performers in the way that they carry themselves in a room with
a small group or whatnot. Like I'm just thinking out loud.
Like the energy that they carry,you can feel that and you can
feed off of that. But from such a technical
standpoint, like when I get emotional, you know, I'm just
thinking about talking alone or in a stint of anger.
It's like very hard to control your nervous system in general,

(20:54):
but like, especially your vocal cords.
And I can only imagine when you're getting into something,
being able to hold that back while also thinking about the
technics or the technicalities of singing and then connecting
with the audience. Like there's a lot of stuff.
Timing. Yeah, I can imagine that's
really difficult. Yeah, yeah.
But you're, it's interesting youbrought up the nervous system

(21:14):
because that's a lot of what we're talking about kind of in
the industry among singers rightnow because it has so much to do
with your ability to vocalize and communicate.
Yeah. So according to Martha then,
like what? What makes a good singer?
Is it more technical? Is it more emotion?

(21:36):
Is it does it depend on the music?
Like what do you think? I think.
I think if someone can communicate text and not just
the text, but the meaning behindit and a unique meaning behind

(21:57):
it, that's clear, like clarity, even if you like mess up the
high note and crack, you've got me.
Like if you have like a very clear intention and you
communicate that in a way that maybe you've practiced, maybe
you haven't practiced, maybe you've been in the practice room
going through iterations and trying this and trying that.

(22:19):
And then you have like a paletteof things that you can choose in
the moment on stage based on your feeling and what the vibe
is. But if you can like communicate
a clear, strong, striking emotion to the audience that in
some way is unique, like we havein life, like even this podcast,

(22:40):
like combinations of different ideas from different places.
And I think that's Ken in the essence be like, sometimes what
creativity is like putting 2 ideas together or two emotions
together in one clear moment andcommunicating that that kind of
like hits somebody on the hat orlike in the heart that they're
like, whoa. And I think that's also why

(23:04):
opera and like big sounds drew me in because it like put some
magnifying glass on small life moments that like blows them up
and you see them in a different way for the first time.
Like, yeah, it's a very. No, I love it.
I love it. I love good geeking out about
this stuff because you know whenyou said earlier, you know, you

(23:26):
fell in love with that out of tune piano.
I think of this may be like a stretch, but I think of artists
like in my opinion, like Bob Dylan, he wrote a lot of good
lyrics. I didn't think he was that great
of a like a singer technically, but in his ability because of
the time he was in the, the textthat he brought forth.
And I think just like some of the emotion of putting it out
there. This is what I think and feel.

(23:47):
That's what like really drew people in, which is always I've
struggled with because growing up, like I grew up singing, not
anywhere near that level, but just like local church stuff.
And my mom and sister were into singing, but I became very
self-conscious, like I don't sound good.
So it doesn't matter. And like that affects how you're
able to display what's actually going on inside as well.
And so you get older and then I'm realizing a lot of these

(24:08):
people, they're famous actually,I don't even think they're that
good of singers, but they have that heart connection.
It's a fascinating topic. Yeah, that's like, I love Bob
Dylan because it's exactly this thing, like something unique and
clear to say that like gets right to the point in one clear
moment. But also, if I were his voice
teacher, I'd be like, go to the doctor, like we've got some

(24:31):
dysphonia going on. Like this is not healthy.
But it's like he, you know, that's a really long career
physically with, you know, something a voice teacher would
say. That's dysphonia.
That's like faulty technique. Like you got to like, look, you
know, a runner saying like, you need to look at, you know, this
thing or this thing is going wrong and you're, you know,

(24:51):
you're running technique. I would say that to Bob Bob
Dylan. Yet at the same time, super
crazy long career. And I think the reason is when
you have something that you needto say or you need to do in the
like, realm of singing, it's like need to say, then your body
organizes itself to get that thing done when you really need

(25:12):
to do it. So yeah, it's like technique is
important, but how important is it?
If you have intention, Yeah. How is your intention meter
right now? Do you feel like you have a lot
of intention with what you're doing?
Yes, yeah, yeah. It's like that thing in life
when you're kind of on your journey and you're like, I hope

(25:34):
this is going somewhere, but what I'm doing or the projects
I'm working right on right now aren't perfect, but I feel like
I'm the season, I'm doing a lot of role debuts that I've wanted
to do and waited on my whole career, and it's just super fun.
Yeah. So I may ask questions that
sound ignorant because I am ignorant in this space.

(25:55):
But with with OK, good with these roles like that you have
been looking up for for a while and now you're kind of, you
know, debuting in them. Talk me through some of the
specific things that like reallyattract you about those roles.
And then some of the things thatnow that you're having the
opportunity to kind of scare youor challenge you now that you
have realized them. Yeah, So I just knocked off

(26:18):
like, I think every singer has these, like, probably like
races, you know, like I have in my mind, like, oh, I would love
to run this marathon or that marathon.
And like, it's the same with roles.
Like you're like, I want to singthis, I want to sing that.
And if I could just reach it to the, you know, my Mount Everest
would be this. And for me, it's Violeta and

(26:41):
Traviata. And I finally debuted it just a
month ago in Korea. And it's like you, you reached
the mountaintop and you're like,now what?
Yeah, you won your gold medal and you got there.
You did your Olympics. Now what?
Yeah, yeah. And I got lucky because my now

(27:02):
what is my next project that I kind of wasn't aware would be
such a like probably soul searching, human changing
experience. And it's it's an opera by Missy
Mazzoli. She's a a female composer,
American composer called Breaking the Waves, based on the
movie Breaking the Waves. It's a modern piece and it's

(27:26):
brutal. It's like very dark material,
lots of like mental illness, falling in love, questioning of
religion, lots of sex, both positive and the worst parts of
it. And she dies violently at the

(27:47):
end. And it's like a very dense piece
with a lot of exposed moments. So I'm working my way through
that right now. And it's been a challenge, you
know, 'cause keeping your, your system calm enough to perform
and sing, that's going to be thebiggest challenge.

(28:07):
And then yeah, you sometimes with a piece, you just have to
like go through your own life and deal with your own problems
through the music and then end up on stage performing it for
people. Is it because the like, the
topics are things like you're wrestling with religion, sex,
whatever, like things that you're like trying to grapple
with at the same time. So it's like forcing you to

(28:28):
rewrite what's going on up here or not rewrite, but just like I
don't know if cope is right wordbut process or like how do you?
Can you give me some real world examples?
I guess is what? I'm asking.
Yeah, yeah, there. I mean, in a lot of opera, there
are moments that hit you that you're like, wait, I have to
process this in my own life because I have to perform it
physically and say something physically that's believable.

(28:50):
But with Bess, the name of the character, she grew up in a
small religious community. She has some like mental illness
that like I don't necessarily identify with that extreme, but
I think almost anyone can identify with her position of
not having necessarily the support she needed in the

(29:12):
community she's in as a woman. I mean, so many themes,
especially German audiences aren't the same as American
audiences. So opening up a discussion
around sexual assault and the assault of like domestic
violence, that kind of conversation is a little later

(29:35):
to the game in Germany, as I would say, like we're having in
the United States, especially inthe arts and opera world.
So I'm really excited to bring that conversation here and have
that. But it's always it's not an easy
conversation to have for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, wow. That's crazy.

(29:56):
So for for like the belief side of this, has it called you to a
place to be in question? Like, is it called into question
some of the things you believe or have you started to evaluate
more of like why you believe what you believe?
I would say that I like, I grew up Southern Baptist, like I
said, and I think you kind of goon a journey of skepticism at

(30:20):
least. I mean, I have gone on a journey
of skepticism and gone through alot of different things in my
life since I left home and traveled far and moved to
another. Country.
And one of my favorite unexpected parts of of diving
into this character is her faith.

(30:41):
And like faith, whether it's in God or faith in just any sort of
deeper meaning, which I think connects with, you know,
reaching one of my big career goals, singing this role that I
did in Korea. You think, like, what is the
greater meaning here? Is it just to like reach goal
after goal after goal in a career ladder, You know,

(31:04):
checking off the list, like, what is actually the greater
meaning? And Best, learning her as a
character is like kicking off mesearching for something that's
more than just doing the career and just singing and work.
Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I've found it yet,

(31:25):
but. I'm on.
That's good. I'm glad.
Yeah. No, I'm glad to have the
conversation in that place because I I like hearing about
just the journey that people areon because I believe we all are
on different paces of somewhat of similar, the same journey.
I think we're all asking the question, you know, what is the
meaning of life? What is our purpose?
What is my why? Who is Martha?
Like those kinds of questions. But like what are because when

(31:47):
I'm going through those kinds ofdiscoveries or journeys with
different facets of life with just outside of even just
religion, but what it is to be ahusband, a father in the future
or like be a good triathlete. There's often like I'll see a
few paths ahead of me and I'm like weighing which one is the
best or beliefs and systems of thought and processing just so I

(32:08):
can kind of go to bed at night and be like, yeah, I got that
all checked out. So what are some of the things
that you're like, unsure about, like in that topic of belief of
faith and and religion and and whatnot?
Oh, some of the things I'm unsure about.
I, I have always had this theorythat I feel like has recently

(32:31):
been proven wrong that your pathwill be just like shown to you
through consistent chugging awaythe hard work every day.
And I generally still believe that it's like, get in there,
put in the junk miles, do the training, get the practice in.
But I think there's sometimes inlife where like God, a higher

(32:57):
power just like pulls the wool from your eyes and you suddenly
see, oh, I'm in the wrong place and I need to just do this or I
am in the right place. I just couldn't see it.
And I'm gonna like, you look back and you see that was
actually right. And I don't think there's really
any right or wrong. But I recently have discovered

(33:18):
that there are some kind of moments that feel super painful
that are actually just moments of like the wool being pulled
from your eyes and you being able to have a moment of
clarity. But it feel like it often comes
with a little bit of suffering. So it's like, yeah, 1 foot and
suffering, 1 foot and joy. And you can kind of see where
you're standing. And yeah, those clarifying

(33:40):
moments are are painful, but ultimately, like, thank
goodness. Yeah, I know for sure.
Yeah, No, it makes sense. It actually reminds me of just.
So this morning I was doing justmy final, like, harder run
workout before this Iron Man that's coming up in 10 days or
something like that. And as I was pressing to the
upper ends of my ability, you know, my lungs started to burn.

(34:03):
And then it's like it's a painful moment to be there, but
it is those moments that enable you to be able to have an
adaptation for the future. It's not a perfect analogous
situation in terms of like the course correction wool from your
eyes moment, but there's a lot of clarity that comes to my mind
whenever I am pushed to the limit.
I find often that my most creative moments are when I am

(34:24):
maxed out emotionally and I needto offload those things in some
type of an art form or in triathlon 2.
But I, I think art can, offloading art and then
expression through artistic means can be more beneficial
than just trying to go run it out.
Because, I don't know, maybe I think we're all actually

(34:44):
supposed to be pretty creative. I don't know.
I'm kind of thinking about this out loud as we say it, but
that's at least been my experience.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's that's why I
still like run and challenge myself to run just as like a
amateur, because you can find things out there when you're
just like, I'm going to die. And then if you just keep going

(35:04):
because I I feel like that's onething that also from running has
helped me with singing is like Idid a pilgrimage through Tuscany
and I ran the via Frenchie Jana I.
Just I don't know what that is, but it sounds amazing.
It goes, it goes from Canterburyto Rome.
I did not do the whole thing. I did like 88 miles of it one

(35:27):
summer and totally 10 out of 10 recommend.
It's just like get up trail, runby yourself every day from town
to town, eat great food. But it's a, it's a religious,
it's a pilgrimage way, and you're pretty much guaranteed to
have insane experiences, no? Kidding.
But like day three of running, Istarted having some like pain

(35:51):
that got into my head. And I'm sure you'll, you'd be
like, I know exactly what you'retalking about.
It wasn't like real pain. It was just my body being like,
I'm really tired. Please stop.
We just want to be comfortable. And I realized this clarity for
the first time between pain thatI should pay attention to, like
your legs broken, like stop or pain that is just your mind

(36:15):
saying you're going past your limits, but you're still totally
fine. It's just like really
interesting because in singing, even in the at the end of a
phrase, you're like running out of air.
You're still, you stole plenty of air left.
You're not going to like pass out and die.
You'll you'll breathe. You might like miss the end of
the phrase, but it gives you that extra little bit to like

(36:36):
make it to the end of a phrase and like have that intention and
to the end of something 'cause Idon't know.
It was a clear, clarifying moment that was like this pain
sometimes doesn't matter. No, that's so beautiful because
I think that what you're talkingabout a second ago, you know,
almost like the faith aspect or belief.
I think it's so fascinating withlike endurance sport, but I, I,

(36:58):
I haven't experienced it much with singing or the arts yet.
But I think that, like you said,if you believe that, you can get
there. And if your lack of belief in
yourself will actually probably even restrict your ability, your
range of singing. And so like, yeah, like, so talk
to me about that. Like how do you, how do you
teach someone to believe in themselves?

(37:19):
Because like it's very practicalwhen you're running.
You can kind of get there, I think even easier than if you
were going to sing because it like it, it calls into question
your own self. Like everyone gets embarrassed
if they don't sing well enough. Not necessarily if they can't
run fast enough. I guess somewhat.
But anyway, yeah, what you're gonna say I.
Mean this is like a huge cause, like we don't see like the

(37:40):
positive side of it, but we definitely see the negative side
of like not believing in yourself and and singing who I
mean, the mindset aspect of it is kind of like, in my opinion,
now the coolest part once you get a handle on it, but before
you do, it can be a rodeo because if you have the wrong
mindset going into performance, you can bomb and then it's

(38:04):
terrifying to bomb because I think it's connected to you
know, you walk out and you make a mistake and you think this
person is going to not like me and they're in my community and
I'm going to be excommunicated from my social group and I will
die. Like it goes like almost so
deep. So deep.
So you walk out and you're like,what if I forget the words blah,

(38:26):
blah, blah? As somebody is who made a
million mistakes on stage, You start to realize, like the world
won't end if you crack a note. People will still love you.
They might even love you more. Like you're not going to like
die, but it's terrifying realizing, realizing that it was
also like my first, like my first marathon I did, I did it

(38:50):
where I had no friends. Nobody could watch me because
what if I shuffled to the end and like, look bad, you know,
like what, They still like me anymore.
It's like, so funny how deep that kind of stage fright, like,
performance fright goes, Yeah. What are what are some of the
inner critic voices that you notice within yourself that you

(39:13):
have to keep at Bay, or that youno longer believe?
Or maybe sometimes you do believe when you don't feel at
your best. Yeah, so I did a a crazy thing
that I've passed on to a few of my friends and we use it in my
my last theater I was working at.
I have a very clear inner criticand I've, like, given her a lot
of character. And I named her Brenda.

(39:34):
And she's like a Midwestern woman who makes, like, great
cast roles. She's like the over concerned
mom. Yeah.
And like, I can hear her. Like her.
I've changed her voice in my head.
Like she's that Midwest mom who is like, terrified I'm going to
make a fool of myself and her friends are going to be
embarrassed. And she's just watching out for

(39:56):
me. She doesn't want me to like, you
know, incur any embarrassment or.
Have any hardship she wants me to be comfortable and oh honey.
And that's like having her as a character.
I'm just I'm literally on stage sometimes and I'm like Brenda's
in the front row say hey to Brenda.
She comes to every performance. She's my biggest fan.

(40:17):
She's just scared I'm going to mess up and I'll be embarrassed
and hurt. But Brenda, I got it.
I've practiced like six weeks ofpractice and if I make a make a
mistake, it's going to be OK, Brenda.
And so I this sounds insane now that I'm saying this out loud,
but we all. Have no, no, I think it's no
good because I went through thisprocess one time where I was

(40:40):
encouraged to write down all of like the phrases that kind of
ring back in my mind. And we were encouraged then in
this group to kind of draw a picture of all of the of what
this thing looked like and then say them out loud.
But then this is what broke me after.
And this was a group with like 30 or 40 people, and we were
doing this. And then and there was this
crazy music going. And we're saying this and it
seems just, it's absolutely hilariously stupid.

(41:02):
But then the music stops and they're like, open your
envelope. And what we had forgotten was I
pulled out a picture of me from,like, being four years old.
And it was like, now say those same things to your kid.
I broke down. I get, like the same emotion
while thinking about it because we're all constantly saying
those things to. No one would ever say that to a
four year old. It's like you're a kid, but

(41:24):
we're still a kid. Like, that's the way it has to
be communicated to everybody andunderstood.
Yeah. It's like such a powerful thing
to do that to give it a body, a face, a name, so you can call it
what it is, which is that's not true.
Like that's and if even if some of the things are true like you
said, it's not going to be worldending.
Yeah, and that's like when I find cool about that, 'cause I'm

(41:44):
also, I think, I don't know if you saw Wicked the movie.
I didn't. If you do, there's a moment at
the end worth watching the moviefor.
For exactly this moment, she grabs her younger child and it's
her realizing that all of her fears were just like her adult
trying to protect the child but not doing a really good job.

(42:08):
And that's what Brenda is. She's like the overprotective
mom. But also if you were, you know,
a four year old on stage, you'd be like 4 year old Martha would
be having the time of her life, not caring what the words even
were, not learning her music. She doesn't care about
perfectionism and not only came from like life events, being

(42:28):
becoming an adult, being like the world is scary, creativity
is scary. You should protect yourself.
Of 400 different, you know, performances you've had that
it's assuming it's around the number, like you said, what
percentage of those are like, I'm so glad that's over.
That was like, really? That was a bomb.

(42:52):
A few of them like Each one is different.
I need to find my actual number.It's somewhere between 3:00 and
4:00. That's not bad.
It's like 1.1%, yeah. But there are times, there are
times that you're singing like as a fast singer, like I said,
we're on stage every night and sometimes you're singing the
lead role and sometimes you're singing the second tree from the

(43:13):
left. And sometimes that's really fun.
But there are times when you've done a piece, I've done some
pieces like 30 or 40 performances of the same
production, and you're like, OK again, again.
But yeah, I mean, there's sometimes you're just like, got

(43:35):
to get through it, got to stay focused.
It's like you try to remember the audience and that, you know,
that might be the only time they're singing an opera that
year or the first time they're singing an opera and you're
like, you got to roll up and do the thing.
Yeah. So that kind of brings me to the
next question. I was perusing through your
Instagram and you recently did avideo about like burnout.

(43:56):
So I'd love to understand from your perspective, how do you
avoid burnout? Can you avoid burnout?
And what are the earlier signs even before the like?
I don't look forward to doing this like some of the earlier
warning signs that you see when approaching that.
Yeah. So this is this is something
that I feel like within the opera community, I've started

(44:18):
talking about a lot because festsingers are working more and
more and more and our contracts are pretty rough to deal with.
Like we generally get 1 1/2 daysoff a week.
Sometimes we'll work like 12 to 13 days straight and then we get
one day. We never know when our free days
are, and we get our schedule at 2:00 PM the day before every day

(44:40):
for the whole season. And so somebody's like, hey, you
want to go out on a date Friday?You're like, I'll tell you, 2:00
PM on Thursday. Or like when you go to the
dentist, you know, planning likegeneral life things.
We've done a lot of work with the union to try to protect like
our personal lives. But at the same time, the
burnout in classical music and amongst opera singers is a

(45:04):
massive issue. I almost don't know anyone who
hasn't had like a severe run in with burnout.
And the next step after burnout is vocal injury.
And that can endure not only your career, but your ability to
communicate for the rest of yourlife with your loved ones.
If you mess up these two vocal cords, that's all you get.
So it's like a serious topic because it also affects your

(45:28):
mental health so much. And then I think with burnout,
you see singers, I mean, anyone lose the ability to advocate for
themselves because you just you're so tired.
But for me, I mean, actually this this bad boy, other than
when is being like you're too slow, you know, when it's

(45:50):
saying, how did that work out feel?
How did you sleep? Starting to ask myself those
things around my rehearsals and around my practice.
And I've talked about this with other singers.
It's like, how did you sleep? What's your stress level and
like what's your mood? And did you have a big like big
training day or like a did you sing for six hours yesterday?

(46:13):
You should not sing today. Did you sing with orchestra
yesterday? Like today should be a rest day
or after a performance. You need to have a rest day.
And also having the time away from the art and away from the
theater and diversifying your identity and doing something
that's not opera. So like going for a run or

(46:34):
whatever, spending time with family or friends or having the
ability to go out to bar and notworry if you can sing the next
day, you really need to like completely let go.
Those are tons of the signs of of burnout, but also like you
can see it and when you're in the rehearsal process, right
like the week before premiere, we don't taper.

(46:55):
We like go full force ahead right into the premiere and
everyone rolls up that night andthey're like, my voice is so
tired I. Was going to say, should you
taper? Like, is that something that
needs to be put in? Yes, yeah, yeah, we generally
you work the most volume at the very end of a production period
and then you get one day off, which usually kind of tanks your

(47:17):
body actually because you just get the one.
Like, Oh yeah, I can stop and then you're dead.
You. Just yeah.
And, and everyone's roughing it for the premiere, which is why
if you go to the opera, go to the second performance, not the
premiere, everyone's going to sing way better.
Yeah. But yeah, things like that, that
like because opera singers aren't considered as athletes.
I mean, we are working with our two tiny little muscles and like

(47:40):
tons of our intercostals, like when I'm wearing, you know, my
garment during a rehearsal or like a dress rehearsal when I'm
not in costume, like I'm in zonefour or five for periods of
time, so. Can you start to publish that
data? Actually, do you do that?

(48:00):
Yes, I'm going. To start following you on Strava
'cause I want to see that like hey, here's what the cause I've
tracked weird things before. Just like to see what happens
about singing like that. I would.
That would be amazing to watch. Yeah, yeah.
There was like one production I did where I think I I ran at
least a 5K like up and down stairs over the course of the

(48:21):
whole night. Yeah, it's crazy.
But yeah, I think that this is ahuge theme because we're, we're
just considered artists, not like, you know, dancers.
It's makes a little bit more sense.
You know, we work, I'm work at aState Theatre, which means
ballet, straight theatre, opera,orchestra.

(48:43):
And so we work a lot together. And so the, the dancers have
like, a little bit different schedules.
Still brutal, but they're more clearly considered like artists,
athletes, Yeah. Can you, can you make the
argument or is it possible to say that are accurate to say
that you can actually increase your cardiovascular fitness

(49:03):
through the work that you do? Obviously running up and down
the stairs while singing, but like singing in general, I feel
like it does do that, yeah. I I want someone to study this
because as singers we talk aboutthis all the time.
Once you've been singing professionally for like a few
years, your body starts to change in like pretty specific
ways. Like for women, like you'll buy

(49:26):
a concert gown and two or three years later, if you move up what
you say in Falk and start singing larger repertoire, your
intercostals like your rib cage like expands.
And I mean, we also have like the over, we have a lot of
overuse injuries like heartburn because we're just like pushing
up and down on our pelvic floor in our diaphragm like all night

(49:48):
long, like hard enough to make sound.
Go over a 70 piece orchestra as one.
That's crazy. An amplified person.
So it's like the internal amountof air pressure is a lot.
And then we are sustaining that like with all of all of these
muscles. Not necessarily like that.
They have to be flexible. So we're like needing to be able

(50:12):
to contract and relax them at a given moment to, you know, make
a phrase like louder or softer and control our air pressure in
that way. That's like like trumpet
players. My partner's a trumpet player
and it's a lot of the same stuff.
Like you can't just play and play and play.
You got to have some physical rest because like.

(50:33):
Yeah, that's like just don't even work.
After a while, they become this inability to pinch them together
to make the the high notes. Yeah.
Yeah. That's so interesting.
I wish that this kind of stuff was more popular now because
when I first started playing instruments really pretty young,
around 5th, 6th grade, trying toAlto sax and then the trumpet, I
would get really discouraged, especially playing trumpet

(50:53):
because we would be practicing alot before a big, you know, a
band camp or whatever it was band festival.
And then like my lips just what I couldn't push any harder or
like create the muscle and like that takes a lot of muscle to
that. So I'm sure it's the same for
singing. And yeah, maybe there's a new
field of study that needs to be enacted to bring education.
Maybe you should start start a foundation that does just that.

(51:15):
I would absolutely adore that. I also think like for people who
can sing but don't have a lot ofmobility, I think singing can be
like a form of very light exercise.
Like it gets your heart rate up when you're doing it in a like
classical singing, like really projecting and you're working a
lot with like expanding your body from the inside and your

(51:38):
pelvic floor and a lot of this stuff.
So I'm like telling my parents who are I'm just like, yeah, you
should just, you know, sing start.
Singing a little bit. So what do you, what do you
start to do or what are some of the tricks that most people may
not know who are not in the industry or are outside of just
like a casual singer, What are the things you do to expand your

(51:59):
ability to go deeper and have a longer breath and get to higher
notes? Like is it just little rudiments
of this or that or what is it? Yeah.
So singing tradition, classical singing tradition has been
passed down kind of like almost a oral history there.
A few voice pedagogues have written books about it that
include specific exercises, literally like APT or like

(52:22):
somebody would give you at the gym.
And there are certain patterns of vocalises and ways, vowels,
consonants. And like the set of exercises I
use was passed down to me from my teacher who studied with
Ritchie, who also taught Maria Callas.
And so this set of exercises is basically used to train the

(52:43):
voice for agility. I mean, all these tiny muscles
for agility. Diction.
Diction is just a matter of likeall of your articulators in your
mouth, like learning how to use them or relax them, use them or
not use them at your will to create, yeah, clear diction.
Lots of ligaments like I've had tongue tie surgery so that I can

(53:07):
do that. I, I had a tongue tie like 70%,
which no one cut it underneath. No one noticed because I've been
singing so long and I think I like learned how to like speak
correctly outside of that. But it's amazing how much it
like helped so many things. Yeah, things like that.

(53:28):
But it's really just like getting your body correct, like
posture. Lots of singers doing
cardiovascular stuff or like Pilates is really popular
because it's a lot of inner strength work.
And then just your series of exercises that build in these
physical habits, like how to sing triplets.

(53:50):
You don't want to be like, like on stage thinking, how do I sing
a triplet? It's just got to happen, just
like a motion. Yeah.
That's super fascinating. It would be so fun to be able to
take six months or a year and just dive into that profession
to see what kind of ability you could build up over time for.
I feel like anybody I selfishly want to do that, but yeah, that.

(54:11):
Would be if you ever, yeah, totally get in touch if you're
like, I want to take voice lessons.
Anyone can learn how to sing. Absolutely.
Do you give voice lessons? I do.
I have like one or two students that I do aside from my theater
work, where like, I try to keep performing at the forefront.
And then I'm sure when I'm not performing as much, I'll take on

(54:32):
more students because I adore it.
I absolutely adore, yeah, watching people do these
exercises and like, get strongerand get better and get more
agile, be able to like, sing higher, sing lower, have more
confidence. Like, it's like, yeah, it's like
training for a marathon and suddenly you roll up and you're

(54:54):
like, oh, I can do this. I can do the train.
Yeah, no, I may, I may reach outto you.
I've been wanting to do that fora while.
I I after doing this sport like pretty seriously now for five or
six years now, I have noticed that it's already just helped me
in singing in general, like performing at a church or
whatever. And, and I know that there's
more, there's always more like that mountain continues to go

(55:14):
up. But yeah, that's, that's super
fascinating. I might have to reach out
sometime. Yes, join, join, join the club.
Yes, I'll join the club. I'll start being an opera
singer. So let me ask you this question
first, an observation. So when people finish like a
really prestigious race or something, the people who come
in first, it's like everyone wants to talk to them or this

(55:35):
just that they draw people in. I would assume when you have
some of these performances around the world, especially the
ones where you're more in the spotlight singing, I feel like
does it even more because you'rea woman.
And then it sounds pretty and people are like, oh, that's just
super attractive. I want to talk to this person.
So when people come up to you and talk to you afterwards, what
are the things that you hear most common?

(55:56):
And then what thing, if there any things that like kind of
annoys you? And then the final question of
that, sorry, there's three of them.
When people look at you and theyand they, what do you, what do
you think they see and what do you want them to see?
Oh yeah, most of the time I've been very lucky in my career.

(56:17):
I've had good experience with audience members there.
I have colleagues with stories you can imagine of I mean,
people like opera fans can be just like amazing.
And I'm so thankful for them. But they can go sometimes a
little overboard and be a littlestalkery and you know, but most

(56:39):
of the time I'm incredibly thankful that people show up and
are so invested in in you. I've had like a fan of the
theater that I was at come to literally all of my performances
had them like laminated, like myperformance dates.
And I was like, should I call him up and be like, what am I
doing next week? But but I love that he was, you

(57:04):
know, it's like people who are obsessed with a certain sports
team opera in Germany is there 80 / 80 theaters.
Every town has an Opera House and the community, you know,
that is around it. Like our audiences, they know
who we are. They want to see us from night
to night. It's like going to see the game,
honestly. And they're like, oh, you know,
how's Martha going to sing this role and then this totally

(57:26):
different, you know, other role,other style of music in another
language. And how's that going to go?
You know, it's like first base. Oh, she's pitching tonight, you
know, like, what's it going to be like?
And I love that aspect of it in Germany, something that doesn't
exist so much in the States. Why I moved over here.
But luckily, no crazy, crazy stories.

(57:50):
But I would say a lot of performers are different people
than we are on stage. Especially after a while of
performing, you're able to play a lot of different roles.
And acting in stagecraft is justthat.
It's like it's technique, it's expression, but it's also not

(58:10):
who we are necessarily. And hopefully there's always a
little bit of who I am on stage,but that's less important than
the character I'm playing and their emotions and like making
those emotions real for the audience.
But I hope that I hope that the audience sees a little.
That's why I'm active on Instagram.
I hope the audience meets some of the artists and sees a little

(58:33):
behind the curtain so that they have that connection with the
art of like, maybe I want to take voice lessons and see what
it's like to sing simply becauseit'll expand me as a human.
Or like, give me another area ofexpression that they kind of see
like a little bit of the processbehind the art instead of just
coming to the opera and saying, oh wow, it's so beautiful and it
seems so easy because it a lot of work behind it.

(58:55):
Yeah. Has anybody ever done any like
vlog style documentary of the lead up to like a big
performance and then like just showcasing that story all the
way through to performance premiere and day after?
I need for someone to do that. I think it would be a great
comedy or a great like putting on an opera.

(59:17):
It's unbelievable the stuff thathappens.
Just like so many stories that you're like, I can't even fathom
that's, you know, that happened.And so many performances of
things that happened on stage that you're like, so and so's
pants filled out, you know, likeyou just never know what's going
to happen. But it's also the same.
It's usually a six to eight weeks of rehearsal period and

(59:38):
you're creating something from scratch.
You just have the score and you have to bring it to life.
So we're working with fashion designers who make our costumes,
set designers who are like, you know, architects and also have
to deal with sound design and materials, our makeup and wig
people making sure we look great.

(59:59):
And it's a lot of things can go wrong that you would never think
of. Like, you walk out in a wig and
suddenly it's a different color because the lighting designer
hasn't communicated with the makeup wig person.
Like all of these details that have been a lot.
Of logistics, yeah, that's wild.That would be a good
documentary. Maybe we can find somebody from
the triathlon world to come overthere and do that.

(01:00:20):
I think that'll be super fascinating.
That would be so cool. Yeah.
I mean, most opera houses, like our Opera House where I am now,
I think we employ like 8 or 900 people.
It's like a small city. It's a small town.
So these are pretty big budget things then I would imagine with
that many people, Wow, who fundsthis?
Is it all of ticket? All off ticket sales?

(01:00:40):
So Germany funded a lot by the government, It's opera in
Germany because it's historically like, I mean, we
have all the composers, it's ourBroadway in Germany.
And so it's protected as a worldcultural, cultural heritage
officially well. That's crazy.

(01:01:02):
I need to get and buy some tickets to my wife and go see it
because I, I feel like opera hasin the mainstream kind of like
if you like it, you like it, if you don't, you don't.
But I truly have never experienced it other than this
is going to sound really embarrassing, but like, what was
my experience of opera? Oh yeah, watching Bugs Bunny
when I was little or like stuff like that.
Like that's your only experienceof like, oh, is that really what
it is? You know, so I feel like it

(01:01:23):
would be good to, it'd be reallyneat to go and see that.
I love orchestra, like bringing you to tears.
Music has done that for me a fewtimes too.
But I would love to see the whole thanks I need to make
that. Happen go to go to a good opera
because that's the thing that's the tricky part.
Opera is really complicated. And I would say like 1 and 12 is
going to just be like what like life changing.

(01:01:45):
And the rest of it might be kindof like or a little it's it's a
hard art form to kind of get right.
But I also identify with that because I didn't, I didn't come
in contact with the art form other than recordings until I
was older 'cause I there's no orchestra in Appalachia.
Yeah, I was going to say, you probably never thought when you

(01:02:07):
were 15/16/18 that you'd be in this world.
No way. Yeah.
How did you break in? Like what 'cause you, I guess
you saw that performance. That was pretty moving.
Yeah, I I think it's, it's good.Something that I like about my
artistry is like, I don't, it was, it's not like I woke up and

(01:02:31):
was like, I'm going to become anopera singer.
And even when I was studying, I got my master's in opera
performance, I was still skeptical.
I went to University of Virginiaand I studied music, but it was
not a performance degree. It was a lot of like musicology
and composition. And then I did a second major,
which was arts administration. So a lot of business classes,

(01:02:52):
museum curation, nonprofit stuff.
And I thought I'll probably likerun a museum or like go into
ballet or like work on grant funding for the arts, which is
like really my, I thought would be really interesting.
All of those skills have served me great as an actual performer.

(01:03:13):
Because you're running a one woman business that like most
artists go to Conservatory and they get trained in the art, but
they don't get trained in how tobreak into the industry.
And the industry is rough. And I found it really
interesting that part of my brain that was like, oh, arts
administration and management, like how does this industry

(01:03:34):
work? And like, how can we make it
better? And that's actually how I ended
up in Germany was I got a grant to study the kind of financial
structure of opera in Germany because it has the specific fast
system. And I ended up being like, going
to the opera and being like, I want to be on stage.
I don't want to write about this.
I don't want to, like, study this.
I want to be up there doing it. And I can always come back to

(01:03:59):
figuring out, you know, like, the financial structure in
Germany of opera is so different.
And it allows this incredible system that hires more a
classical musicians than anywhere else in the world to
exist here. That's so cool.
Yeah. So it's like, how can we bring
some of that to other places in a way that fits the culture

(01:04:20):
pretty well? But that's for my second life.
Yeah, I was going to say, well, that needs to happen.
Like in the USI feel like that, You know, it's interesting how
easy it is to just find a piano nowadays that someone's thrown
away. Like, I got this beautiful 1931
piano, I just needed a little tuning up, and I have it in my
house now. First time I ever have any piano
and I was just so excited. It has a lot of character.

(01:04:41):
It's not perfectly in tune and Idon't know if it ever will
because the strings are literally like 100 years old.
But yeah, that like me, people, it just, I don't know, I I guess
I say this because I don't know everyone in the US, but it seems
like it's just really lost its importance in our culture.
Like musicians, which I guess most everyone immigrated from

(01:05:02):
somewhere else and from Europe and that's where it came in.
But then it's kind of died off to like, well, I want to be a
streamer, which is fine, but it's like, yeah, music, like, I
feel like that there needs to bea resurgence and a great
awakening for people to like what desire to create unique
music, especially in the world of AI stuff.
Now it's like, come on, Like yougot to get out there and make
something new. This is like my biggest hope for

(01:05:24):
opera, because when it's good, it is so good.
And it doesn't matter that it's in another language.
It's most of opera is if you really dig into the art form,
it's like the opposite of pretentious.
It's like everyday story about everyday things that like a
history of rich audience people have like cut the rest of us off

(01:05:44):
from having access to. And you have just people up
there like wailing unamplified over an orchestra, like
screaming their heart out. And there's you don't bring your
phone in. It's one of my favorite things
about my job, especially somebody who's active on social
media. When I'm in rehearsals, like my
phone's somewhere else. I'm staring at a human being.

(01:06:05):
I'm making music with a human being.
We're breathing together like ina performance.
It's like, think about how rare that is for, you know, about,
you know, an audience of 1000, some people and all of us on
stage and we're sitting there, not a phone insight.
And we're like paying attention for hours for like multiple

(01:06:26):
hours, like. Suddenly ADD disappears.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like, where else do
we get that luxury anymore? It's crazy, kind of sad that
that's a luxury until everythingkind of blows up and just
nothing digital works again, andthen we have to go back to all
that. The violins will still work, the
voices will still work. So the only thing they struggle
with is lighting. But we can always light a
candle. Yeah, that's what they used to

(01:06:47):
do. They had, which is why so many
theaters went went up in flames.Yeah, no kidding.
So are you a writer? Do you write because you
obviously know how to do composition?
Do you have a desire to do more of that?
I don't know how much you have done, but.
Yeah, so I have, I run a like weekly newsletter called

(01:07:07):
Rehearsal Notes. That's kind of the a mix of some
like vocal technique stuff, but also a lot of mindset
entrepreneur, a lot of like endurance athlete mindset stuff
makes it into the newsletter because a lot of opera singers
are like, like ritual addicts for some reason because they're
just like, there's a lot of parallels and how to deal with

(01:07:32):
performance anxiety and like dealing with like stuff like
that and then mapping it on to aclassical music.
But yeah, so that goes out everyweek.
And then I do some deep dives into some kind of like, inside
baseball stuff about the singingindustry.
Like this month it's about social media, personal branding

(01:07:53):
and like that because that's become really important for
opera singers as the pandemic has changed the structure of the
industry a lot. We used to rely a lot on agents
and managers to find us work, and now we can do that ourselves
by post, like having our materials.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like last month it was about burnout, a little bit about

(01:08:15):
burnout month before that vocal technique stuff.
So I love writing about educational things.
Yeah. Do you think you'll ever write
any music or opera pieces? Yeah, like, I think some nights

(01:08:36):
over a few beers and some friends, like we have some
things cooked up for the future,but writing an opera is a huge
undertaking. That's why I'm also really
excited for this next project because Missy Manzoli is a
female composer. She's just a few years older
than I am, and I've adored her music forever.

(01:08:57):
And I just, like, have such wonder for people who can, like,
literally come up with a whole piece, like theater, The text, I
mean, usually work with a librettist, which is what I
would like, see myself as instead of writing the
composition. But usually, yeah, it's like
having a playwright and a composer kind of work together

(01:09:19):
and work with a few other peopleand create this piece that's,
yeah, viable. It's wild.
Yeah, you think it'd be easier to make a movie or to make an
opera? Well, probably a movie.
Yeah, Yeah. That's what I was thinking cause
'cause the movie, I mean, there's, it's not a perfect

(01:09:39):
comparison, but I, I was talkingwith someone yesterday, the
episode that's going to come outby the guy who did a full length
feature of an hour and a half film.
And then hearing this, I'm like,I wonder which one would be more
difficult because you can kind of do retakes for the film.
And I guess your multiple shows by the 5th or 6th one, you
probably got it ironed out pretty well.
But yeah, it's super interesting.

(01:09:59):
Like you got to kind of nail it the first time if you can.
Yeah, and you got to deal with like, composing for an
orchestra. You got to know all the
instruments, what range they canplay in.
If it's going to get too thick, like, can the singers be heard
over the orchestration? Will they hear the text?
Does it dramatically compare? There's, like, so many.
I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure making a movie would be crazy

(01:10:22):
hard. Yeah, but.
Yeah, that that's wild. So for and how you operate
nowadays, because we've talked about this a little bit of
moving from more of an analytical stage in life to more
of like an emotional state or atleast in the way that you
express yourself in your art form.
Do you spend just in everyday life, not just in your

(01:10:44):
profession now? Do you think that you spend more
time in your head or in your heart?
Now I'm spending more time in myheart, but that's a very new
shift, I would say in the last, like years, and even more so in
the last months for sure. Really.
Yeah. Yeah.

(01:11:04):
I think for me, most of my life it's way more comfortable to
live in my head and I'm only nowrealizing like the suffering,
but the benefits of the suffering of getting in touch
with my emotions and like dealing with that and dealing
with what's in my heart and acting on it.
Terrifying. Yeah.

(01:11:26):
Are your parents proud of what you do?
Yeah, they are. I think for a while they didn't
understand it. But my parents have been so
supportive, even when they're like, we don't know what you're
doing, like, you're moving to another country.
Thanks for telling us, like, yesterday.
But yeah. But they're kind of like, you

(01:11:49):
know, if you think this is the right thing, you'll figure it
out. And especially being a classical
musician, it's not always been easy.
And there have been points in mylife when I've been kind of
hanging out to dry on my own because I wouldn't ask for help
or. And I needed it.
And they've always just called and said, you know, if you go

(01:12:11):
for broke and, well, you know, you have a place to land, which
is an incredible privilege. And but also when I've been in a
pickle, so to say, up a Creek without a paddle, my dad has
always been very quick to say, oh, you'll figure it out.
Good luck out there. You'll figure it out and helped,

(01:12:33):
you know, kind of push me past that pain points to where I
actually do figure something out, Yeah.
That's a hard thing to do as a parent, I would imagine.
I'm not a parent yet, but I, I think that will be one of the
things I would struggle with themost.
And I really admire people who can do that.
Let the person suffer to the extent of on their own that they
should without. Oh, I want to help you here.
Let me, you know, pick you back up.

(01:12:54):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It's like, I think if you also, I mean, that's something I
really have been thinking about even this week.
I've had some like big life events happen that have been
beautiful. But also thinking about just
kind of if you're kind of on thewrong path and you have the wool

(01:13:16):
pulled from your eyes like we were saying.
And then you see, I got to go this way.
And it's going to be weird for people when I make this
decision, but this is my path, at least all of the problems on
that path. And like the struggles, you
know, are the ones that are for you.

(01:13:37):
And I don't want somebody to like take that away from me
because then I don't get to figure out how to get through
it. Like I don't get the development
of figuring that problem out if somebody figures it out for me.
So I'm always kind of like maybeoverly self reliant, probably
because of that mindset, but I think it's true in a lot of

(01:13:58):
ways. Yeah, for sure.
Well, like you said then the theother side of that is like
asking for help and not asking too soon, but are you getting
better at knowing when to ask for help?
Like, do you feel like you have that pretty well figured out?
Yeah, I'm definitely getting better.
I've I've gotten very lucky withmy partner.

(01:14:19):
I mean, I think there's no greater joy in life than having
a partner who like really believes in you and like sees
when you want to. You want to get through your
struggle and that's meant for you and you want to figure it
out yourself. But who's always, you know,
there to be like, let me give you a hand so you can figure out
how faster or like give you somegood advice.

(01:14:43):
And I'm really thankful I found that person for me because
especially as an artist or endurance athlete or anything,
when you have like something bigthat you want to accomplish,
like you need support, for sure.You need a good team.
I have some really good friends who are also quick to be like
Martha. Nope.
Yeah, it sounds like you know how to pick friends then,

(01:15:03):
because like some people, they can be on either side of the
equation. People are absolutely not
supportive. And then people are way too
supportive of everything you do.And to a point of it being
toxic, yeah. Yeah, honesty is like a big
value I have in friends. Even if it is not going to be
what I want to hear, I want to be.
You need that for sure. Yeah, perspective.

(01:15:24):
So my final question for you, your path seems like it's
definitely not a typical path for how to get to somewhere to
find your ideal career or whatever the profession may be
or starting something, whatever it is.
You've made choices like you said along the way, and
sometimes you feel like the pathwas right in front of you and
now it's like a little bit different.

(01:15:44):
The wool is removed. With all of that in context for
somebody who is trying to figureout, well, what should I do with
my life? Based on your experience, what
is some advice you would give tothem to be able to discover what
that thing may be? Yeah.
Oh, this is such a good question.
I've had like a couple moments in my life where I'm like, what

(01:16:05):
am I doing? Am I going to go to medical
school? Am I going to, like, write
grants for people? Am I really going to do this
thing of being an opera singer? I think you have to, what my
advice would be is to like buildsome moments where you can
actually get quiet with yourself.
I mean, I think for some people that's like prayer and faith.

(01:16:26):
Like I have a meditation practice.
I'm ATM Transcendental Meditation practice that's
helped me really clarify a lot of things.
Sometimes it's music that I can get quiet and kind of hear that,
like internal guidance system, whatever that is.

(01:16:47):
But I also think when you're notsure, sometimes you just got to
like get moving in a direction and like run into a bunch of
walls and like forks in the roadand just choose one.
And if it's wrong, you can go back.
Like try, sometimes you can't goback, but you can just just
start moving and like observing and not like that's helped me a

(01:17:11):
lot. Like recently.
It's just like move, create, go forward and you'll like figure
it out when you get there and maybe you'll look back and
realize, oh, I did figure it out, I just didn't know I was
doing it at the time. Beautifully said.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
It's, it's been really fun because it's helped me cement
the idea that yes, I want to have more musicians on this show

(01:17:33):
to, to get to know them and hearthat lifestyle.
Because I find myself asking questions and I'm like, I don't
know if this is a good or bad question.
And maybe I can live up to the name of the podcast a little bit
more. So thank you for making this an
opportunity where I get to learnabout something totally outside
of my wheelhouse and for being so gracious with it.
So it was really cool to hear your story and wish you all the
best with your new mountaintop debuts.

(01:17:54):
And we'll look forward to seeingyour your, the opera that you
write here before too long. Amazing.
Well, thanks for having me. It's they're definitely fun to
like cross. Yeah, like endurance sport and
musicians. Very cool.
Yeah, cool. Thank you.
Amazing. Thank you so much to Martha for

(01:18:14):
coming on and sharing her story and a profession in a world that
is totally outside of my wheelhouse.
It was really fun to get to interview her and learn some new
things. Obviously, I love music, so we
had that to connect on an endurance sport, but the little
in between Gray areas of things that I didn't know about was fun
to ask questions about to give me the opportunity to learn
something. And that's truly what I enjoy

(01:18:36):
and I hope you guys enjoyed it too.
So thanks again to Martha. Wish her all the best and make
sure to again check out the shownotes for ways to follow her and
get involved in that side of theworld and the crossover of
endurance sport and music. Yeah, thank you guys so much for
being here. I'll catch you in the next one.
Peace.