Bridget Skaggs and George Cederquist

00:03 This is my ID. George cederquist. 42 years old. Today's date is Friday, June 25 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.

00:20 Hi, I'm Bridget Skaggs. I'm 33 years old. Today's date is June 25th, 2021.

00:28 I'm talking to my colleague George cederquist in Chicago, Illinois.

00:34 Thank You, Bridget. And yes, it is indeed George cederquist, artistic director of Chicago Fringe Opera and my colleague mezzo-soprano. Bridget Skaggs Bridget. I am so thrilled to have a little time to talk with you about life and music in the pandemic and your taxi.

00:56 Same. We got 40 minutes. So let's let's get right down to it to the ear. Taxi. Festival is a

01:07 Ostensibly classical contemporary classical music festival. Based in Chicago. It's hitting the stages. In the streets in September of 2021. Chicago from Joffrey's contribution is a program from songs from letters and we're going to get to that later. Bridget. I want to start with and I truly don't know this. Where did you grow up?

01:31 Oh, I can't believe you don't know. I grew up in a suburb of Fort Worth. Texas called Southlake.

01:38 And I know where is Fort Worth in the state of Texas?

01:45 It's part of what they call the Golden Triangle between Dallas Denton in Fort Worth. So those are all about like an hour drive apart. From each other, North, Texas. And when, did you move to Chicago?

02:00 I go to Chicago. After I finish grad school in 2012, where where was grad, school undergrad and graduate school at Oklahoma City University, which is driving distance from North Texas. Okay.

02:19 Talk to me before we get into the Opera side of it, like talk to me about your your connection to Chicago. Like and we'll start with like what is your connection to Chicago? Is the city. How does your life intersect with this city? It's neighborhoods and its geography to start off with.

02:40 Sure. I ended up in Chicago through as just a series of connections when I was studying music in college was part of a summer, Opera program, in New Mexico and one of the vocal coaches on faculty there. His name was Dana Brown and he is a vocal coach at Roosevelt University in Chicago. So at that time, I really wanted to start planning the next chapter of My Life After College. And I was studying classical music and Opera performance and it seems like

03:19 Maybe a bigger city would be a good place to do that with just more opportunities. Just simply a bigger city and I was thinking about where I have colleagues and Friends some connections, and I really kind of just fell in Friendship, love with Dana Brown.

03:41 Are we loved working together at the towels Opera Institute, and I thought, you know, I'm just getting a really good vibe from

03:50 Chicago and ready to take a leap in my life. I'm ready to take a chance. And so I visited Chicago.

03:59 I came to Chicago to do a few auditions for a different Opera programs. And then, after I graduated from grad, school at Oklahoma City University, actually moved sight, unseen into an apartment that I found online. So, I went on Craigslist on Craigslist, in Chicago and my lease in Oklahoma City went through June 30th and my lease in Chicago started on July 1st, so, I drove overnight might my lease is different. So I moved out of my apartment on June 30th in Oklahoma, City drove over night, and arrived at like, 11 a.m. On July 1st.

04:49 And then I promptly had the flu for like the next week moving overnight. Is a terrible idea. It's like a 12-hour Drive.

04:57 But then I woke up and I was in Chicago. And I have my first apartment was close to the lakefront. So I had a really kind of just great quintessential. First Chicago Apartment is small need to walk through the closet to get to the bathroom, which was just like kind of a weird for keeping. And yeah, I was walking up and down the lakefront and just feeling like that. That first morning, literally that first morning when you're Delirious, like, what was your first feeling looking to say?

05:36 I don't know. I've always felt really at home in big cities. There's something kind of cozy about it like,

05:46 I was also living by myself. And so there's this feeling of like extreme privacy because I was in a studio apartment, just by myself. So there's the ability to be alone if you want to be alone, or you can just walk out onto the street and

06:01 All of humanity is at your fingertips. So, yeah, I love the contradiction of that that you can. You can interact with the city as much as you want. Whether you're an introvert or extrovert. There's, there's all different ways that people choose to live in urban areas. I like, I like the diversity of that interacting with all different kinds of people or hear you. I hear you on that. The older, I get the more freaked out and I get when I don't have people around, like, there's something, so wonderfully, Anonymous about living in Chicago. If you want that anonymity because of the density of the of the city. I want to get to your music stuff in Chicago, but, you know, for the, for the archive, just to kind of put my background on as well. I'll answer my questions for you. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

06:54 Can you tell me where to grow up? I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan?

06:59 And a week. After graduating, from undergrad. I moved to Chicago with my then, girlfriend now wife and

07:10 I wanted to get into the biggest city. I could in the Midwest and I knew that I didn't want to live in New York City. I would later in life. I would end up living there while previously, I lived there once at one summer during college and I would go back to New York for a short spell, but I knew that it wasn't a good match for me and that I wanted that big big Midwest town which was Chicago and and have lived all over its 2001 till. Now, you know, have lived in in Humboldt Park and have lived in uptown and have lived in Lincoln Square and all over the West in the North.

07:48 Sorry, but it is that kind of anonymity that I do. I do, like about this city look into the music. So so what's your connection to Chicago music? You talked about Dana? That's how it started. Where is it gone from there for you?

08:05 Well, I studied Opera in graduate school, and that was kind of the traditional path of what I thought, an opera singer supposed to do.

08:16 You know, I don't come from a musical family. I never went to the Opera until I was probably 16 years old and my voice teacher got a whole group of her students together and tickets were donated from the Dallas Opera and I went to the Opera for the first time at age 16.

08:37 It was Jennifer beginning. It was really, I mean, I was kind of confused. I'm sure a lot of it went over my head.

08:59 It's such an unusual experience watching, basically a play happen on stage.

09:05 In another language that you don't speak. But the emotion comes through, in the sound of a person's voice. The emotion comes through in the way. The composer has kind of played with your emotions, through the music throughout the story and the story comes through through, just the ascetics of the art form the costume, the set-pieces, and I always love to get her. And this guy was so intrigued because it really does seem like theater.

09:35 To the nth degree.

09:41 And I'm like I said, I'm sure a lot of it went over my head, but it was intriguing enough for me to feel like I'd like to know more about this and

09:51 At the time, my voice teacher, who I mostly started taking lessons with because I wanted to be in musicals.

09:59 Started giving me Mozart arya's started. Giving me art songs by French composers and American Opera Arias.

10:09 And suddenly I thought like there's so much more depth to the human voice than I even imagined from my perspective of just being someone who likes musical theater. And I just kind of kept following that passion down the rabbit hole of. Well, if I can sing this, maybe I can sing this and loving the feeling of being a Storyteller and using my voice.

10:36 To express.

10:39 The spectrum of human emotion.

10:42 That mean, you talked about your first opera memory because one of my questions which is granite Jennifer. You've talked about a little bit about your connection to Chicago music as well. How have things developed for you since those, you know, lessons and coaching with Dana 2012. I think is that what you said, 2014, 2012, 2012, since then I figured out that, you know, my idea of the quote, on quote cookie-cutter career kind of doesn't exist anymore and maybe it never existed. I don't know, maybe it was all a mess.

11:24 The makes singers things that like if you go to grad school, then you'll graduate and you'll get into this kind of a training program and that'll lead to full-time work and that'll leave you an international career. I think maybe there was a time when that was a more typical career path, but

11:45 I think like all forms of work in the world right now. Our industry has become globalized and decentralized and

11:59 I basically just started producing my own artwork because I knew that I needed that outlet and I would do a ton of auditions and only get a few opportunities. The first couple of years that I've lived in Chicago. I took every opportunity whether or not it paid. I was doing a lot of unpaid gigs. A lot of gangs that required a long-distance drive without being paid, very much money, just to meet people. And to build my resume, you know, middle-class artist. So I was working like three jobs during the day and taking these gigs babies. We don't pay at night and

12:41 It took a few years for all of that to kind of shake out and for me to realize that if I put more of my energy just into producing my own project.

12:54 The song, one of my colleagues, also an opera actually, what a great reminder to turn this off. I figured that if I put all the energy that I was putting into, you know, all of my part-time jobs and the gigs that didn't say anything into my own projects that will, at the very least. I can make the same amount of money. And I would find a lot more personal fulfillment because I would be singing the music that I want to sing.

13:26 And so I found it a vocal Ensemble group called fourth Coast ensemble, in 2013, and they're very soon after you moved to Chicago, then like the year after. Yeah. Yeah. I met I met the original tenor of our group, Zack Vanderburgh through my church job and he and a couple of his power from Roosevelt University.

13:53 Love choral singing but we're studying Opera and you know art song kind of lives in between those two extremes Opera being a fully produced play with music Underneath It, costumes and stage and everything and choral music being more. Just like country music, stand and sing. But art song lives in this really lovely place in between where you get to be a soloist and you get to collaborate with other singers on stage in smaller numbers. So, typically an art song concert would have less than 10. Musicians on stage, you get to sing solo things and use the full spectrum of your voice. But at the same time, it's not all about anyone. Singer. The ethos of chamber music is about the community of it. And that was that element from growing up singing and choirs that

14:51 I didn't want to lose, and I wanted to still have that feeling of relationship with the other people on stage, and, and not have to feel like it's every man for himself and just whoever can sing. The highest notes with allowed a decimal supplies at the end of the night or whatever. So yeah, I love working in a communal environment and on chamber music for that reason, because it really brings everyone together for the purpose of creating the best art, not out of Bingo, but just like for the beauty of it. Yes, art song, does occupy, that kind of liminal space, where it's not really the Opera but it's not very concert music for me oratorio. Kind of serves a similar function right where we are or a Tory was absolutely narrative-driven based on stories from the Bible, but can also be fully staged, don't you can fully staged Handel's Messiah, you can pull the stage a passion and that's done in in Europe, a lot. I want to I want to get to your taxi in one second.

15:51 Connect the dots between fourth Coast Music in Chicago, ear taxi, but I want to reset and and share my. I first opera memory. I was growing up it in Arbor. I was a boy soprano. So these are boys, whose voice is having broken and so are singing in the same range, then she'll be as female Sopranos and

16:20 It must have been in the late 80s. I was in a production of Bellini's Norma at Michigan. Opera theater, in the story, Norma the character who I have two children, and I'll let folks, they can go back and research from the whole plot story of Norman and Norma has these two children that in a very climactic scene. She is supposed to kill, and she can't bring herself to do it. And she wakes up these two children's class the promises that that she's going to protect them from my brother. And I were these two children, the children don't sing. Actually, and Norma was played by Dame, Joan Sutherland. Who is dead bite? Was that is a phenomenal. I mean, world famous.

17:14 Soprano and I just, I remember a total total Legend. I only two things about this production one was that?

17:25 Joan Sutherland had the biggest breasts of any woman I've ever seen.

17:30 In the scene where she woke up my brother and I were sort of sleeping on this, like fake bear skin rug the Opera set in Roman times and she's kind of clasped to her chest and practically drowned us hearing her sing while my ear with against her chest was just overwhelming. The power of the unamplified human voice thing is that she gave us a box of chocolates shaped like a piano on opening night with the white keys being white chocolate in The Black Keys, being dark chocolate.

18:00 I said I moved to Chicago in in 2001 and started directing plays acting started working in one will be Coast storefront theater. And did that professionally for about 10 years went to graduate school at Northwestern to get an MFA in directing. And that's where I shifted my focus from the theater into Opera. I'd sort of always wanted to find a way to combine my musical childhood with theatrical storytelling and that's kind of what the definition of Opera is.

18:31 Shortly after that Chicago Fringe Opera was found it. It was a it was a group of people who essentially wanted to create opera companies on a storefront and mop and in 2014 very, very close to one. Fourth Coast, actually popped up in 2014. That was a relatively new idea. I don't know how many companies there were in 2014. Now in 2021, I mean there's a dozen say of which I'd like to think fringes the one that at least produces the biggest volume of work, but the company Chicago from Joppa was kind of was based on three principles which are reflected in the name. The first one with the higher local artists.

19:17 And to really put Roots down in this city, where were based in that? We know and love the second one was to look at stories and artists and spaces and venues that lie on the fringes of society in the fringes of art-making. Whether that is contemporary composers who are produced whether that is site-specific an immersive settings. Whether that is artist that we don't typically associate with Opera. And then the last word off, of course, we was friends. Trying to kind of, I don't like the word disrupt. That's very cool right now, in 2021 to talk but like Opera disruptors, I think that's extremely pretentious, but I think we did want to try and redefines or like what Opera could be in to get it away from, you know, what's a Lyric Opera of Chicago? Does Ben, and, and song from letters, but I don't know what you're saying.

20:17 Reminded me of a lot of the reasons why we founded, our vocal Ensemble at that time.

20:24 Remember the housing collapse that just happened in 2008? And a lot of those big companies, you know, big Arts companies, like Lyric Opera, the met all these like Scions of the industry. We're really.

20:44 Being questioned as to whether they have a future anymore, you know, is it practical to spend millions of dollars to produce one Opera production to to hire hundreds of musicians and be on stage? Like it's expensive. It's an expensive art form. And

21:03 I remember the early conversations that we had with fourth Coast thinking, like,

21:09 This is a great time for chamber. Music is like a great moment for chamber music to take Center Stage because it's a portable arc form. You can do chamber music in a living room or in a small black box theater.

21:27 A lot of times it's not that expensive to produce at least comparative Lee to, you know, these large-scale production for your having to costume everyone. And, you know, I work with Union stage hands and all that. And we just thought this is the perfect time for this art form. And I think the same is true with Chicago Fringe Opera and Chamber Opera just thinking like there are so many artists out there who are trying to get work, and it's not the opportunities are presenting themselves, but

22:02 They want to produce, they would produce the work on their own if they had to and like creating these companies, these kind of Grassroots Arts organizations as I sometimes think of them.

22:18 It can be.

22:21 I think a way to revitalize the city because sometimes those bigger organizations feel a little distant or, you know, they are only bringing an artist from

22:34 Other countries from International places and to have companies like Chicago Fringe opera or fourth Coast Ensemble or any of the other number of really wonderful. Chamber music groups in Chicago. It's like this kind of grass, roots feeling. These are the people who live in this city all the time. They're not just flying in, for a weekend to conduct an orchestra, these people live and breathe Chicago, and take the train everyday and, you know, go to a church and have people that they meet at their neighborhood church or synagogue or you know, local coffee shop or music school. And I think there's something really significant about that. I don't exactly know how to articulate it, but we found that to be a big part of

23:28 Quiet fourth Coast Ensemble has thrived is because people become invested in us as people and we live here and you know, we want to get back to the city and just keep this art form alive for our city. And we try to make herself as accessible as possible. And make sure that all of our programming is speaking to what's happening in the city at the time. The same, I mean, I think you have articulated it. Well, and it comes from this need to sell produce. I think that in the Journey of the artist life. The moment when you realize that sell producing is essential as a huge turning point, I think back to the years when I, when I was in theater, when I was pounding, the pavement looking for folks to hire me and I'm not going to say that was wasted time. But ultimately you do realize you're like, you know what, I just need to make the art that I love with the people that I love and put it out there.

24:25 Because the theater and Opera, it's not a meritocracy.

24:31 That is such a fallacy to buy into that idea that people in the theater are hired because of their talent like this sooner you figure out. That's a total lie, the better off, you will be and you will start to sell produce and you will start to connect with. Whether that's a community of actors instrumentalist designers, whatever it is in your respective art for

24:58 What about songs from letters to take us through the whole story of this and and what we're going to end up touching on my question number four or five, which is about your ears. Kind of got reaction to the pandemic, the hybrid vehicle Shakedown, actually from letters is integral to my reaction to the pandemic because this was a project that was originally slated to be performed last April in 2020. So,

25:30 We have the venue. We have the artists, we'd even had a whole weekend of rehearsals on this, this event songs from letters and then the pandemic hit at the end of March everything.

25:45 Became clear that this wasn't just a one or two week, long shut down. This is going to be a huge.

25:52 Interruption in everyone's lives and in the lives of all the musicians involved in the project and

26:01 Touched every aspect of Our Lives. Not just this project, but no are very livelihood. And what did you feel about that? When you, when you figured that out and I think we all decided different moments of like. Oh, yeah. This is going to take awhile when you figure that out yourself. How did you feel?

26:24 That was beautifully. Put I don't know that there's words.

26:32 For how I felt. I felt absolutely dread because as we've been talkin about

26:39 I over the past eight years have been in a position of gradually becoming a producer in Chicago of concerts. I become a company member with Chicago, Fringe Opera. And we were producing songs from letters, and there's nothing better than giving your friends, a gig. There's nothing better than saying, like,

27:03 Chicago Fringe Opera is producing a concert. There's a perfect for you. We'd love to have you involved. It's going to be this great experience. And and I love that feeling of passing a gig on to my colleagues and my friends, just

27:21 Feels good to watch them succeed and to know that I had a part in facilitating these opportunities for people that I know and love and of aligns with your mission, in Your Vision, in your values, as an individual, and a fourth Coast as well.

27:37 So I felt terrible and a little responsible even though I knew logically that I wasn't responsible. But but yeah, it's really tough to have to reach out to people and say, you know, this is been canceled and we don't know when we'll be able to do it again.

27:56 On top of just my own personal loss of not being able to perform for.

28:05 For the foreseeable future and all the questions of not knowing how much longer it was going to go on. Yeah, it does that feeling of responsibility for others and

28:18 It worked out pretty okay, but there was a dark period of time for the rest of 2024.

28:27 You know, singers were being told.

28:29 You're not allowed to sing in public. You're a super spreader, just like wind instruments in a flute players. People who play Brass, we're told, we can't make our art because we are literally a threat to the people around us and that was

28:47 Just total mind-fuck.

28:54 To think that this gift that you've been told your whole life is worth cultivating and giving to others, you can no longer do until further notice. And the only way to make your art is to buy a camera and a USB microphone and to go into a practice room and record yourself and submit an mp4 file for someone else to edit and put on YouTube. Like, it was just so

29:27 Play cutting your art off from your body, you know, because my whole life I was trained to be a live performer as an opera singer, you're trained to know how to project your voice without amplification, you know, as an actor, you're trained how to work on physical examination and articulation in your body. And so my expression of what it means for me to be a singer is so rooted in the physical aspects of it. And so the pandemic, I just flipped all that on its head and forced me.

30:08 Figure out how I was going to keep making art during a time when I

30:16 You know, my physical presence wasn't as important to the art as just, you know, a digital file.

30:26 I would like to thank you, but it got very personal and our business Bridget of Opera because as you said for someone to be like, you know, what, you are a threat, you are making people sick by what you do. And that is a shocking, and sort of horrific thing to hear. Somebody asked me a very similar question. They were like, so at the beginning of the pandemic, like, what were your concerns about the future in Opera? And I said, look, don't get the fuck about Opera right now in a pandemic. Come on. I'm worried about my wife and my two kids right now. I'm worried about how I'm going to be teaching.

31:09 At home. And let me make clear that that many many people have had far worse lives in this pandemic than myself, but your first thought goes to your family and have to eventually. You're like, okay. So how we going to make art? And there we were March April of 2020. Releasing Zoo operas, which were essentially a form of art therapy which hey, Art therapy, that has value that has meeting. I'm not going to pay for it. We moved quickly. It took about 48 hours for the market to be completely saturated with zoom Opera. Let Me Slowly kind of worked through that and and realize that self-producing was what we needed to do. And honestly, it is brought in the Avenues of of camera Opera Opera as film opera on film music videos, and

32:02 The pandemic has basically, in my opinion, forced The Gatekeepers of Opera to relax their death grip on what this art form needs to be in their opinion that has kind of blown It Wide Open as to, what's what's possible.

32:19 Something else. But I noticed I thought was so interesting is bring a pandemic when we weren't allowed to travel, really, you started seeing.

32:28 Bigger upper companies, you know, the place is like lyric in the Met. Suddenly. They were featuring singers that live locally to them.

32:39 Cuz they were forced to cuz they couldn't fly people in from across the world and I think

32:46 Could have been a lesson for them, all the talent. That's right. Underneath their nose and these people who are into their city, and

33:00 It was just a human capital that is available. If you invest in your own City and you feature artists that live, there can can really go a long way.

33:14 It's so well put and it just it lines up. Perfectly with what we've been talking about. All along is this like connection between artists the city that they live in Chicago and our case and the music which is our field and how did those things all combined and and have the pandemic actually kind of forced us to take a closer look at that in to really improve on that. In addition to acknowledge that like opera and theater in general. But specifically operator really wasteful art form, right? Especially environmentally. I mean, the idea of flying these singers and conductors around the world for a performance or a week of rehearsals is is toxic the idea of like building sets and then throwing them away is completely wasteful and I really am interested to see in the coming years. How is this, how is this going to have a knock-on effect in terms of how we we make this art?

34:11 We have a few minutes left before I wrap it up and we've changed it all along as your taxi and sorry for what is so, but it wasn't and then tell me more.

34:25 Well, we kept the dream alive over the past year.

34:31 And when your taxi announced that they were going to have a spotlight series, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally be able to perform songs from letters. It's perhaps an even more relevant program now and it was previously pandemic. It's a program all about

34:53 Handwritten letters, being sent to music and in theater, and an opera. There is this.

35:04 Like plot twist that is often use of a storytelling technique of the characters writing letters or reading letters from one another and

35:15 Not only can we Source those Opera scenes for this program, but in art song in chamber music land.

35:26 There's a lot of repertoire that has been set to historical letter correspondence, soldiers, writing home to their family composers writing back and forth with their librettists as they write operas.

35:43 Parents writing letters to their children. And so we've aggregated all this repertoire whether it's letters that were taken from historical correspondence or contemporary Opera scenes that use this storytelling device of the letter and we've put it all together in a program called songs from letters. It features the music of Libby Larsen from Minneapolis. And I love the song cycle of hers that were using it is it's about I'm totally blanking on her name.

36:27 Who is at bii melter blinking on the name as well?

36:36 It takes the correspondence between Calamity Jane and her estranged daughter. And what I really love about the song cycle is that it undermines the typical mother-daughter relationship, and the typical role that you would expect a woman to play in the 19th century. Calamity. Jane was

37:03 Independent. And

37:06 She?

37:09 Was not married to my mother of her butt to the father of her daughter and

37:17 I think she had a lot of regrets about the way that she parented and the absence that she had in the life of her child and all that comes through in the letters. The regrets the

37:33 The love the failing and I just love that. It's an imperfect person because all of us are imperfect. And so often what you see on stage is like an idealized version of who people should be. And I just, I love the fact that in that particular piece. You really see the whole person.

37:57 Flaws, and all.

38:00 The great piece of music, you know, Bridget you selected the repertoire, you pick the singer is staging, the peace with the goal of having it hosted by a Bookshop somewhere in Chicago, which seems to be head of the perfect size than you for folks were at this point, you know, in September of 2021 wanting to get back into some sort of a space with other people to watch art happen in real time without getting super freak out about it. And of course, it matches the the cinematics is well of of the repertoire that you've selected.

38:41 It's an exciting project. And I'm glad that we've. We've got it. We've got it coming up. I mean, your text. He seems like a great match and you and I we haven't quit on this one have way. I mean, we're definitely not. Yeah.

38:58 So producing is nothing but like, longevity and tenacity. I learnt this growing up in the storefront theater.

39:11 Was literally you just have to grind it out for 10 or 15 years and then one of just a few things going to happen, which is either you'll be you'll die or you'll quit or you'll be. So part of the culture in the community that you'll never go away. And having that moment of sang. I'm just going to dedicate my life to this crap. And I'm just, this is it. This is what the life is going to be. And I'm going to I'm going to be a great human and in my case and I'm going to try and be a great husband and a great dad and a great artist. I'm going to try to be all those things and just having that, that longevity and tenacity commitment to to the art form of music into this city that we live in.

39:57 Bridget so great to hang out with you and just to hear your story and hear your vision and insights into this art form. And of course, we talked about this piece that were, that we're doing together. I know. So often when we talk it's all business. So like

40:18 You're here about Glenn Jones, Sutherland's mother you, with her breast. I know, I know. Yes. I live to tell the tale.

40:29 I think that's all we got.