When we look at the arts and letters in America, especially if we look at poetry, and poetry set to music, this dialogue, we have this very powerful beautiful, eclectic, diary, or narration of being in America, being American, participating in America, becoming more of America and also as an American, the American creative spirit, which is quite interesting. Our composers and poets have spent more time writing and thinking and speaking out of what it means to be a composer or poet as well as to be an American, or a composer or poet In America; both relationships.

My only advice as an experience older singer is about singing, it isn't about music. To have a career in music is a completely different question and leads to other kinds of advice and other kind of experts. All you can do is someone planted in my mind very early on, this wonderful truism called, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Be passionate about being a musician. There is no limit to how hard you must work and how detailed you must be in every facet of what you do, either as a singer, as a musician, or as a person.

I love to sleep because I need the rest, but I hate to miss something. I would love to be able to take a pill that I wouldn't have to sleep. So, sometimes what keeps me up at night is just that I don't want to say good-bye to that day. And at the same time, I love to start the next day. I think I'm essentially a very unsettled person.

When we look at the arts and letters in America, especially if we look at poetry, and poetry set to music, this dialogue, we have this very powerful beautiful, eclectic, diary, or narration of being in America, being American, participating in America, becoming more of America and also as an American, the American creative spirit, which is quite interesting. Our composers and poets have spent more time writing and thinking and speaking out of what it means to be a composer or poet as well as to be an American, or a composer or poet In America; both relationships.

Singing is not about timbres or category labels, singing is about fascinating acoustical properties like the colors of the human voice which derive from thought and emotion.

Every opera, because every opera is a unique slice of a particular perspective, historical perspective and psychological perspective if not musical style, and so forth, they all present different challenges. Some can be musically very challenging, some can be psychologically more challenging. There is always something that requires a pretty specific amount of energy and attention.

The issues of poetry, and music, and dialogue with one another is the essential thrust of any song. The breakdown becomes the epoch, the language, the cultural tapestry from which it's echoing, if you will. I often say it's the eyes of the poet's and the ears of the composer's. This narration is what fascinates me endlessly.