Our inaugural contestant in our getting to know us segment comes from our soprano 2 section and is the lovely (and well read) Jennifer F.!
(Photo credit to Kristine Anderson, who also made the gown)
Jennifer has been with the WCC for 3 years now, but her love of music started well before. She attended the Preschool of the Arts her in Madison in its early years. There she gained her start in singing and they performed musical shows for senior citizens, and in arcane skills like solfege and counting rhythms. She was a little shy at that age (as many of us are) so she enjoyed singing in groups.
In middle school, Jennifer tried her hand at piano for 2 years, but it didn't really take. She did promise her piano teacher that she would continue with music by singing in choirs because she loves it, and she has ever since! She couldn't list all the choirs she had sung with; suffice to say 3 high school choirs, 4 college choirs, 2 different choirs in grad school, and three community choirs before she returned to
Madison in 2004. While she wasn't a music major in college, but took enough music
credits on the side to advance an extra year in the housing lottery by the time she was a junior! That's a lot of singing!
With such a love of singing, its no wonder that she eventually joined the WCC. She had been back in Madison for a couple of years and was singing with two rather informal choirs, which were fun for socializing. Looking for a bit more of a challenge, she joined the WCC. Jennifer says, "Being with people every week who care about the music like I do, and with a terrific conductor, is very
satisfying. To me, performances are icing on the cake."
Jennifer has been around to sing a lot of great music with the WCC, and this year has been no exception. It was a tough question, but her favorite piece she's sung was Jean Belmont Ford's Sand County that we performed at our November concert, O Voluptuous Earth, and again in March at the Madison Reads Leopold event. (editor's note: come to our May 20th concert, She is One of Us, to hear us sing another Belmont piece, Sky Loom.) Jennifer loves the piece because it is SO meaty with all kinds of challenges built into it, yet it's so beautiful that you are motivated to meet the challenges.
Outside of choir, Jennifer works as the Patients' Librarian at Mendota Mental Health Institute, a state hospital for the mentally ill. She has a background in health sciences librarianship that let her to the job. Her job is like that of a librarian in a small public library (purchasing popular materials, cataloging,
handling reference and interlibrary loan requests, running a book club, etc.), only with a smaller budget than most public libraries. We made the mistake of asking what her favorite book is, which is foolish to ask a librarian, how could she choose?
Jennifer has some other very cool hobbies, which we'll let her tell in her own words: This is the other part of my musical (and other) experiences: I take part in a medieval/Renaissance re-creation group called the Society for Creative Anachronism. I've been doing this about 14 years and in three different cities. There are events all over the US; in our "Kingdom" we have an event almost every
weekend. I've had volunteer roles such as newsletter and website editor, newcomer contact, choir conductor, and Provost of an annual performing arts event. I teach classes on various aspects of music, crafts, and history, and have earned the highest arts award in the Society, the Laurel, in the area
of Bardic Arts (music and poetry composition/performance/research). I sing my own songs and other peoples', as well as music from the period, solo and with several choirs. When not being a Bard, I practice other period arts such as embroidery, costuming, dancing, painting, cooking, and entirely too much camping in the summer. (You've got to camp if you want to stay up until 3 am singing
around the fire!) And when not being a Renaissance woman, I like to walk, swim, travel, knit,
read, and play around on the computer.
And now, the Lightening Round!
Favorite...
Food: Artichokes
Period in history: early-to-mid 1500s (Europe)
Time of the year: Spring and Fall
Famous dead person: Shakespeare
Composer: Orlando Lasso
Movie: The Breakfast Club
Anything else: I love singing with the WCC and hope I'll be doing it for a long
time!
We also hope that Jennifer will be singing with the WCC for a long time. We hope that you will come here Jennifer and the rest of us at our next concert!
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