Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Forward Together podcast. I'm Rick Muima, president of Wichita State University.
My distinguished guest today is world renowned opera performer Joyce Didonato. Joyce is a 1992 graduate of Wichita State, has gone on to perform on some of the world's most world renowned stages, included La Scala in Milan, Italy, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera House in London. Her many accolades include several Echo Classic and Gramophone awards, as well as three Grammy awards for Best Classical Vocal Solo. She's joining us virtually today from her home near Barcelona, Spain. Welcome to the show, Joyce.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: All right, Joyce, it's so good to see you on the podcast today. Thank you for making the time.
I think people need to understand that we are doing this podcast a little bit different today than we normally do because Joyce is in Europe. So, Joyce, tell us where you are right now.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: I'm between Barcelona and Girona, actually, and I'm a little bit in between travel jobs at the moment, so this is my current base in Spain. Never would have imagined that as a, as a shocker, all those years ago I left Kansas to actually sort of be on a bit of a farm in Spain.
But I love it and I've been working in my garden and enjoying my time here a lot before I gear back up.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Well, I know how beautiful that area Spain is. I was there this past summer. I was in Barcelona this past summer. Beautiful place, beautiful people, really enjoyed that. So tell, tell us, before we get into some more questions, how, how did you end up where you are and where you're performing?
Just, just briefly, I know that that's probably a lot of things to be asking you, but just so that the listeners understand how you ended up where you are today.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Gino, I'm still a little bit in shock sometimes. I say, how did this happen?
But I was working at the Liceo in Barcelona.
I fell wonderfully in love with my partner and I just couldn't find a reason to leave.
Spain is such a beautiful place.
Quality of life is extraordinary here.
The quality of food and the sunshine. Look at the sunshine is literally coming on my face. It's like I talk and it's just a beautiful, beautiful place to be based and to recuperate and, and to enjoy life.
I couldn't find really a reason to leave. So we're, I don't know, 10 years later, we're still here.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Oh, that's, that's awesome. Well, I can totally understand why you're there. I understand the beauty of the country and the people and the food.
All right, so just a couple of questions up front, if we can go back a few years. When you came to Witchita State from Prairie Village, near Kansas City.
Kansas City, Missouri.
What made you choose Witchita State?
[00:03:27] Speaker C: I have to say Kansas City, Kansas. I grew up on the Kansas side and settled on the Missouri side a few years later.
I went to Bishop Mih High School in Kansas City, and I had the most incredible choral experience there. I lived for the choir and for the drama department. There I was in the musicals, and I just loved it. And it was such a nurturing, welcoming place, and I just felt so at home and. And I loved singing in the choir.
My teacher was Carl Wolf, and as I was thinking about universities, I thought for sure the only thing I knew that I wanted to do was to be a high school choral teacher. I was sure of it.
And he had gone to Wichita State. He's a shocker.
And he said, you know, they have an extraordinary music ed program.
And that sold me. And I did an audition for Dr. Bouton in Kansas City.
They took me on, they gave me a scholarship, and I went into the piano department and the voice department as a music ed major.
It was there that I discovered they also happened to have an incredible opera department.
And that's where I got sidetracked.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Well, I've heard so many things about folks that you know here. Alan Held, who's on our faculty, he speaks highly of you. And then just over the years, just hearing about you from just reading about you, I know that you've performed all over the United States, and I know that you performed in Houston, where I'm from. And so I kind of followed that connection when you were there. So you're quite famous. You know that, right?
[00:05:24] Speaker C: So, boy, okay, so I'm opera famous.
Maybe I'll give you opera famous and maybe Wichita famous, but that. That is a slightly smaller window of fame.
It still boggles my mind to this day. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: And so you thought you wanted to be a teacher, and you said you were sure of that.
What made you switch careers?
[00:05:53] Speaker C: So I went all through. I ended up doing five years of undergrad there at Wichita State. And I. In my. The first semester of my fifth year, I think, is when I did my student teaching. And I was at North High School with Jeanine Vance, and I was at a. I don't recall the name of the elementary school. I did the high school in the morning, an elementary school in the afternoon, and it was a really economically challenged grade school where I was.
And north also had particular challenges for the student population there, I remember.
And I came home so overwhelmed at the need in the classroom for really dedicated teachers.
And I felt as the time that semester went on, that the call there was much more about education than music.
And at the same time, as I was doing my education degree, I was in the opera and I was performing and I was studying voice more. And I was falling deeply in love with that element of performing and being on stage and the personal challenges of conquering everything you have to conquer as a. As a vocalist.
And I was so conflicted as this student year of student teaching went on.
And I remember talking to my dad, I said, dad, I'm not sure what to do because I love the stage and I love singing, and I see the need in the classroom for really dedicated people. And I feel conflicted because I feel like I should do that.
But I really love this. And my dad, it was really one of the best pieces of advice I've ever had. And he said, joyce, there's more than one way to educate people.
And that was really a key for me to follow this passion, this, I think, innate talent and this joy that I have on the stage and communicating from the stage through music.
But that idea of educating and helping and transforming lives has really been the North Star for me. I've not been interested in fame so much as, you know, I appreciate you saying that, but that was never the idea of being a star or famous. Never was, was my guiding motivation at all.
And so it's one of the reasons I do a lot of master classes. And I'm always, you know, in contact with young people and.
And really trying to help people find something deeper in their lives and find a tool to understand how to be more fully human. This is what arts and music does.
The long answer. Sorry.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that was great.
Thank you for sharing that.
So kind of a little continuation of that.
I know that you were involved in many performances when you're here at the university. Are there any memorable ones that you could point out to listeners?
[00:09:12] Speaker C: All of them. I lived. I lived for those performances on stage. And it started with the choir.
Dr. Robert Glassman and Dr. Boughton, they were the choral teachers there. And I just absorbed every element of the choral experiences that we had from the Madrigal dinner we would tour.
I had a big solo one time with a concert chorale, and I just thought that was as good as my life was ever going to get. It was a huge mezzo solo called in the Beginning by Aaron Copeland. And that was a huge deal for me. And I just thought, I've arrived. My dad came from Kansas City to hear it.
And then by the time I got more into the opera, Dr. George Gibson, icon. I think he was just recently there doing master classes.
I still carry with him with me the lessons I learned from him. And I still have his voice so clearly in my ear anytime I take the stage.
But I remember I did because cosi fan tute in my last year there and this was a big deal. I was, it was a leading role.
And I remember being on stage and I had to be preset was with Lucy McCoy, who was singing Fior Ligi. I was singing Dora Bella. And we were behind this venetian blind and it would open to reveal us in silhouette. But we had to sit there for about 10 minutes while the men did their opening scene. We were already on stage and the nerves were going. The orchestra is playing and they're singing their hearts out. And you're sitting here thinking, I hope I can sing well and be careful about the nerves. But I remember thinking, this is the first time some of the people in this auditorium are going to hear this masterpiece by Mozart.
It's been sung for 250 years around the world.
But tonight in Wichita, I have the responsibility of bringing it to life for the first time for some people.
And I just remember this. I sort of felt myself get a little bit taller and feel this sense of artistic responsibility.
And I clearly still remember it very concretely. And I think about that often when I have a new concert or something, I'm thinking I have a responsibility for bringing this to people.
So clearly, all of my performances there at Wichita State, they were epic in my mind.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: That's great to hear. I just wanted to tell you just last night, I'm not a singer at all, but my background is healthcare. But last night, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Chorus, the Witch State University Chorus, the Butler Community College Chorus, and the Witchita Children's Chorus all came together at First United Methodist Church and performed Mozart's Coronation.
And I was a, I, I was a reader last night. I, I, they had readers interspersed into the concert. And so I read a poem about remembering your voice. And don't forget about how you should pay attention to your environment and your surroundings. And let's not stop being silent about particular issues. And so I don't have the same kind of experience obviously that you do, but I could, I definitely can see how you would enjoy that particular aspect of your, of your job.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. That makes me so happy hearing all those Groups come together.
Beautiful.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was a risk. I think I was talking to the conductor, Ryan Beacon, who's the choral director here, and when he went to the Wichita Symphony and hey, I'd like to do this. They're like, are you out of your mind? How can we coordinate all this? But it was beautiful. Sold out, the church was packed. It was really nice to see last night. Anyway, I don't mean to get off.
[00:13:48] Speaker C: No, I love hearing that. Yeah.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So you talked a little bit about some memorable experiences and a little bit about some of your professors. Anything you want to add about some of the professors that you've worked with, with or are still might have some kind of connection with all of them.
[00:14:08] Speaker C: I, and this really is, it's so true.
I think many times when I am having a big, a big event or you know, there's a big premiere or I'm with the Berlin Philharmonic or I'm on stage at the Metropolitan Opera, I always feel like the people who have helped form me are in my pocket or, you know, that they are literally on stage with me.
To be a classical musician and to achieve a certain amount, well, to work professionally as a classical musician alone is an extraordinary, Olympian, Herculean thing.
Our measure of performance is perfection. We are expected to be perfect. Hit every note, hit every note in tune, remember every word.
It's. It's a, it's a pressure filled business and it is one. In the case of a singer, as you heard last night, I'm sure in the coronation, we're meant to be bringing something of the divine down onto earth, something bigger than ourselves, something inspiring.
In the case of opera, many times I'm dealing with death and jealousy and hatred and exuberance and exaltation, you know, all these huge human emotions.
And it takes a lot of work to master the voice, to master the, the musicianship, to master languages, to master the human condition in order to portray it.
And there is absolutely no way we can do that on our own.
And the formation of a musician begins when they're young.
I had an extraordinary musical foundation from Carl Wolf, who went to Wichita State in high school.
And I took that extraordinary musicianship and expectation of excellence and into my freshman year at Wichita State and it was just amplified.
So all of those people have had a huge influence on my standard, my personal standard as a musician, as a colleague and as a performer about this idea of. It's not just about how I'm perceived, it's about what I give the capacity of what I can Give to the audience.
So every teacher that I had and at Wichita State has had an impact on that. Even my poor long suffering piano teacher Andrew Chek, who would like sit there as I would crumble through a Beethoven thing and I finally gave up on piano. It was too hard. And he was very patient. But we would talk about phrasing, we would talk about the delicacy of legato on the piano. So all of it, even if I'm not using it specifically, it all formed me.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
I wanted to know, when's the last time you were here in Wichita? Do you. Do you remember?
Has it been a while?
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yes, it's been a while. Don't ask me the year. I never remember the years. But I was doing master classes there.
I was doing masterclass. Yeah.
And with great, I mean, wonderful, eager singers. And I loved it. Yeah.
And I love that Alan is there with you all now. What a great, amazing, amazing mentor for so many singers. Yeah.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Well, we would love to have you come back. You probably wouldn't recognize the campus. It's changed a lot in the last 10 years. We really have refocused our efforts, you know, making sure that all of our students have the same kind of experiences that you had across all the disciplines. I wanted to just. If you could just tell the listeners what you're up to right now. I know that you said earlier you're in between performances right now.
Give us an idea of what it's like for the life of Joyce Dionato and her performance.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: I started the season in the fall opening four different North American concert series for the season in Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis and Montreal. Thrilling. And then I zoomed back across the pond to Paris and Geneva for some concerts. I've had two weeks off. I've been planting a lot of bulbs in my garden that, you know, maybe I will see them next season, maybe I won't, whether I'm here or not. And. And then I go down under from my first trip to Australia and New Zealand.
I take a non stop flight from New Zealand to New York and I start the next day with my first time singing Amal in the night Visitors at Lincoln Center.
I have two weeks off and then I'll jump into a North American tour of my next big project based on poetry of Emily Dickinson that I would love to bring to Witch State. I would love it.
And then I zoom right back to New York and I'm at the Met for innocence in the spring. At the Met.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: That sounds really, really busy and tired.
How do you keep positive? How do you keep healthy?
What's your philosophy around that?
[00:19:35] Speaker C: It's so much of it, I think is mental. And I work very hard at nurturing joy and positivity within me. Not the easiest thing to do at this particular moment in time. The world is a bit chaotic, but I work very hard at it. And I come back, really, it's the same sort of thing that I see the need of people to have music in their lives, to call them to something higher and something better. Exactly what you had last night at First United Methodist.
And it's really vocational for me and a world. I'm. I mean, I'm surrounded by masterpieces and I'm surrounded by harmony and music, and I get to use my voice.
It is the privilege of my life to do that. And it is tiring, it is hard, it's challenging in a lot of ways. It's full of pressure, but I dodge those in search of joy and positivity and sharing it. And so that's a, you know, I say it sort of beats working for a living. And I really do feel that.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Well, it sounds like your work is your passion and what an awesome thing to be able to have in your life.
I wanted to also ask, you know, when you're out in your travels all around the world, do you. Do you have people that you come across who are. Know about Wichita State and. Or the Shockers, or have you had any of those kind of funny interactions in your. In your travels?
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Do you know? I. I do. I mean, I talk about baseball a lot, and I'm always very proud of all the World Series that I experienced when I was there back 100 years ago.
And. And people also know Wichita State because of Sam Raimi, Alan Held. I mean, the tradition of Carla Burns, the tradition of great singers that have come through there, people are still astounded at it.
And, you know, sometimes it comes up through Boeing, sometimes it comes up through Pizza Hut, you know, and the one thing I'm very proud of is that I can talk about the heartland of America and the. That sense of.
People will sometimes say, a lot of times from Europe, they say, oh, but you have such a good work ethic. I'm like, I'm from the Midwest, I'm from the heartland, and I'm very proud about that.
And I get a lot of questions about.
I come straight from the Bible Belt. That brings up a lot of conversations in Europe as well, especially under current times.
And I'm very proud to represent and to show what I consider. I.
I don't mean to be in sort of, what's the word?
Not humble, braggadocious, but I feel like I'm the poster child for the American dream. Somebody who works really hard, somebody who is a great colleague, somebody that supports other people, somebody that looks for everybody to have an equal chance.
I came from a very, very low income, middle class, low middle class family.
I went, I got scholarships all through school. I worked really hard. I was surrounded by extraordinary colleagues.
And I feel like it represents the best of America.
And I mean that in a heart filled way, in a very heart filled way. And I'm proud to represent that side of America in the world.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Well, the listeners may not know this, and Joyce, we want to also make sure you understand how proud we are that you are one of our alums and that you represent us well. And, and what you just said really rings true with me. But one of the things the listeners may not know, that we're going to be bestowing upon you an honorary doctoral degree at our commencement in December.
And we're very honored to be able to do that. The board of Regents approved that at their September meeting. And when I have to present proposals for honorary doctorates, it's very formal. The board's sitting in front of me and I go up to the podium and I read this information about the folks that we bring to the board. And this year it's you and everybody around me. The other presidents of the universities are sitting right next to me when I'm speaking and they're all paying attention to Joyce Didonado being recognized in this way. So I want you to know it's just not the university, it's just not me, but it's the entire state of Kansas, Kansas, Florida, regents, and we're so happy to be able to provide that recognition for you.
[00:24:45] Speaker C: I appreciate that so much. I. If you had told Joyce and little Joyce Flaherty in 1988 that this would happen, she would never have believed you. I'm really deeply honored. Thank you so much.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Well, you're welcome. And thank you for signing on to the podcast podcast today, all the way from near Barcelona. And we're going to continue to follow your career and we hope at some point you'll get to swing by Wichita and Wichita State so we can meet in person.
But in the meantime, we wish you all the best and your performances and your work and know that we are very proud of you. So thank you so much.
[00:25:31] Speaker C: Thank you so much. That means the world to me. Take care.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Thanks to our listeners for joining today. Be sure to rate, follow and share the podcast so others can find it, too. And if you're curious to learn more about the ideas we touched on, check out my book, Student Centered Innovation A Guide to Transforming Higher Education. It dives deeper into the story of Wichita State's transformation and what it takes to lead meaningful change. Visit Wichita Eduardo for more information and go Shockers.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: Sponsorship for the Forward Together podcast is provided by Scott Rice officeworks and the Shocker Store.
Additional thanks to Nair Amp WSU Carpentry Shop and go Create.
