Baritone's formula: equal parts teaching, performing

By Judith Sandler

Baritone William Sharp, an SFA associate professor of music, tells his students to follow their dreams -- even if they seem impractical. After all, he knows from experience.

Once he finished his graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, Sharp moved to New York to pursue an operatic career. He chose this path because it was considered to be the only viable option for a professional singer. Though he preferred enchanting audiences with art songs and oratorios, along with the music of Bach -- much more than performing on the operatic stage -- he didn't believe he could make a living singing the music he loved. Yet within a year, he was well on his way to doing just that.

"I tell my students it's important for them to discover what it is they really like and explore how that coincides with their particular gifts," Sharp explains, "and not to be so concerned with the practicality of specific areas of their field."

Sharp has forged his own path to the top of his profession.The December 1999 issue of Opera News applauded Sharp as ". . . one of the most gifted lyric baritones of his generation; his mastery of a wide range of styles and the depth he brings to his performances lingers with you for weeks, months, after he's left the stage."

On Thursday, March 23, Sharp will be joined by several SFA faculty at the Tsai Performance Center for a recital that will include music of Spohr, J. S. Bach, Fauré, and Sharp's longtime friend David Liptak.

Even as a teenager, Sharp was fascinated by medieval and early music before the genre became popular. He formed an early music ensemble during his undergraduate years at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, where he majored in music, "because it was the only thing I really cared about," he remembers.

At graduate school, he sang opera for the first time and began considering the possibilities of a singing career. Soon after moving to New York in the late 1970s, Sharp's career took a decisive turn when he won an audition for the early music ensemble, the Waverly Consort. "In my first year in New York," Sharp says, "I was making enough money singing to pay my rent and stay alive. And I loved it.

"I'm still doing the same things I did as a teenager," Sharp continues. "The one thing that's different is I'm singing a fair amount of contemporary music. In school, composers would ask you to perform their music, and I discovered that I could do it, so that became a bit of a specialty for me." Under the Resurrection Palm, which Sharp and violinist Peter Zazofsky will perform in the Tsai concert, was written with him in mind by David Liptak, a friend from graduate school.

Baritone William Sharp (right), an SFA associate professor of music, rehearses with pianist Robert Merfeld, an SFA teaching associate. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Sharp has gained critical acclaim not just for his amazing voice and the vitality and enthusiasm that comes from his love of his art; critics and audiences also remark on his extraordinary connection to the music -- a connection forged from the considerable thought, energy, and meticulous preparation that goes into every project. As with his career, Sharp discovers his own path to his music. This path begins with a mysterious journey traveling backwards in time.

"Most composers of vocal music start off with the text," explains Sharp, "whether it's a poem, libretto, or liturgical text. So when I work on a piece of music, I try to open it up and go backwards to the text. I start with the words and see what they do to me and then I look at what the composer wrote. I try to get back to what the composer was doing when he wrote the piece."

After studying the text and music, the technical work begins. Part of the difficulty in learning a song is getting to the point where the whole song feels to him like a single cogent unit. "It can be a struggle to make that connection with a piece. But once you've done it," says Sharp, "you don't want to settle for less." It's not crucial for every singer to make this connection, "but for me, nothing else matters.

"Probably the main reason I like to make that deep personal connection, and take the long road to make a song happen for me, is to feel like I've done something I understand. Of course you want affirmation from others, but the personal satisfaction of the act itself is more important."

"When Bill sings, it's not about him, it's about the music," says international artist and fellow baritone Sanford Sylvan. "In this world of ego and money, I'm thrilled he's teaching because someone is saying to students, ŒLet's focus on the music.'"

"As a teacher he's thoughtful, flexible, supportive, and very intelligent," says Mischa Bouvier (SFA'00), who has been Sharp's student for four years. "And he brings his intelligence to the music -- aired with musical history, or footnotes, or the musical practices of the day. He takes all of those things into consideration."

Sharp, who has taught at Boston University since 1993, commutes from his Washington, D.C., home to teach half of the week at the School for the Arts. He combines teaching with an active performing career, which mixes song recitals (he specializes in American songs) and early and contemporary music concerts with oratorio and opera.

The week before his Boston University recital, Sharp traveled to Amsterdam to perform in Leonard Bernstein's opera Trouble in Tahiti at the Concertgebouw with the Amsterdam Radio Orchestra. Immediately following the Boston recital, he will perform in Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania. After a busy spring that includes more Bach, he will spend half of the summer at the Aspen Music Festival, where he will teach and perform Schubert's Winterreise with Joseph Kalichstein.

"I think Bill has one of the most beautiful voices," says Sylvan. "And he has the one thing often missing in today's musical world: class. Bill is a really class act."

Baritone William Sharp, pianist Robert Merfeld, an SFA teaching associate, violinist Peter Zazofsky, an SFA associate professor, and cellist Michael Reynolds, an SFA associate professor, will present a free faculty concert on Thursday, March 23, at 8 p.m. in the Tsai Performance Center. The program will include David Liptak's Under the Resurrection Palm for voice and violin, Louis Spohr's Six Songs for Voice, Violin and Piano, Op. 154, Gabriel Fauré's La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61, and J. S. Bach's Hier in meines Vaters Stätte, stürze zu Boden, and Nichts ist es spät und frühe. For more information, call the Tsai box office at 353-8724.