Talking with Tami Petty by phone might make you believe she's a jazz singer. On this Monday in late April, she has a smoky voice that could easily be imagined scatting with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Petty is a classically trained soprano who made her Lincoln Center debut in 2010 singing Rossini's "Petite Messe Solenelle" and has soloed at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra, sung the title role in Puccini's "Suor Angelica" with the Southern Arizona Symphony, Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio" with Opera Fort Collins and the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss with the Fort Collins Symphony.
FAQ
Masterworks III:
Glory & Grandeur
WHEN — 7:30 p.m. Saturday
WHERE — Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville
COST — $28-$50
INFO — 443-5600 or sonamusic.org
BONUS — Ticket holders are invited to attend a pre-concert Creative Conversation with Maestro Paul Haas and SoNA musicians at 6:30 p.m. in Baum Walker Hall.
Critics call her a "powerful soprano" and say "such a beauty and purity of tone is so rare that I could only listen in ethereal pleasure."
She's also witty in a conversation and "screamingly funny" on stage when a role calls for it. And she says she's delighted with the challenge of singing Poulenc's Gloria with the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas on Saturday. Paul Haas, SoNA's music director, calls the work "bracingly beautiful." Petty's descriptions caress it, much as her voice will in the performance.
"It's such a fun, beautiful, serious work," she begins. "It's jocular at times and rather haunting or awesome at times. One of the things that makes Poulenc so special was that he writes in a kind of juxtaposed style, sort of neo-Baroque in a way, with something really melodious and soft and then something bombastic and loud. As a listener, it jolts us.
"At 55 years old, it's a piece that's been around the block but feels fresh," she continues. "One of Poulenc's friends said he thought there was something of a monk and something of a street urchin in Poulenc. And that tells you a lot about his sense of humor and his religion."
Francis Poulenc, born in 1899 in France, was eccentric and created music unlike anyone else's, writes Steve Schwartz, writing for Classical Net.
"Like most French composers of his generation, he fell under the influences of Stravinsky and Satie. Yet he doesn't imitate either. You can identify a Poulenc composition immediately with its bright colors, strong, clear rhythms, and gorgeous and novel diatonic harmonies. He is warmer and less intellectual than Stravinsky, more passionate and musically more refined than Satie."
Petty says she fell in love with the Gloria when she was an undergraduate student and more recently was "thinking about how far I have come in this work, growing into it and growing more confident. There was a defining moment with this work" as far as her career choice, she adds.
"I always knew I wanted to do something in music, but I was going to be a music educator," she says of growing up about 30 minutes north of Detroit. "I grew up very sheltered, protected, and I was supposed to go the route of an educator."
She was a junior in college when she switched to a performance major -- and decided to move out of state to continue her education.
"After they resuscitated my mom," she jokes, "we realized it was the best thing for me."
She "wouldn't say singing has been my main source of income" since her graduate degree at the Eastman School of Music, "but I certainly projected that as my focus. I've paid my dues along the way.
"You don't really know what you have or how you fit in the world until you are out doing it," Petty adds. "When I realized I could get paid to do this? Oh, hey! Now I get to sing the Poulenc Gloria. And next month I get to sing the aria in Mendelssohn's Elijah. I feel like I'm living my dream right now!"
NAN What's Up on 04/29/2016