Our September Q&A is with American singer, musician, composer, and professor of voice, Lisa Reagan.
Lisa performed with the Washington National Opera for over two decades sharing the stage with icons such as Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, & Renee Fleming.
During her career, she performed at the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
She has also given solo performances for world leaders including King Hussein of Jordan, Oscar Arias (Former President of Costa Rica), and Deng Xiaoping (the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (1978-1989) – aka The Architect of Modern China.
She also presented a one-woman show of Sondheim at the Kennedy Center and performed at the Wolf Trap Opera.
Her composition “a L’infini” was featured on the Bravo Network finale of Project Runway season one. She also performed the role of the Cantor in the Canterbury Voices’ world premiere performance ‘Of Perpetual Solace’ composed by Edward Knight and librettist M.J. Alexander to honor the people of Oklahoma affected by the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
She has released eight albums in musical genres ranging from classical to new age.
On her latest album, “What We Need is Here,” Lisa composed music for ten of her favorite classical poems. Her luxuriant vocals and hauntingly beautiful melodies pay homage to these poems.
At the age of three, Lisa climbed onto a piano bench at the Oklahoma State Fair and with no formal training played a challenging song. The audience’s response convinced her mother that Lisa was ready to begin formal lessons. While taking lessons from a graduate student at Oklahoma City University, seven-year-old Lisa attracted the attention of the Dean of the Music school, Dr. Clarence Burg. The professor agreed to let Lisa audition for him and ultimately agreed to give her private lessons. She continued her studies with him throughout college.
Lisa also took early acting training at the historic Mummer’s Theater in Oklahoma City. At fifteen, she began voice lessons with Professor Florence Birdwell. Professor Birdwell’s former students include Tony Award winners, Kristin Chenoweth, and Kelli O’Hara.
Lisa graduated from Oklahoma City University with a Bachelor of Music in voice and piano performance. She earned her master’s degree in Opera and Vocal Performance from the prestigious Opera Studio at the University of Maryland.
From 1998-2008, Lisa was a professor of voice at the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music. She became a professor of voice at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University.
While performing at the Salzburg Music Festival in Austria in 2013, she conducted classes in opera. She performed and taught there again in 2018. She has also taught acting for opera students in Italy.
Lisa and her husband, Greg Love, live in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Aspen, Colorado.
Lisa has graciously agreed to answer my questions about her remarkable career and the inspiration for this album.
Here are her answers. Thank you, Lisa!
1. Music has been an integral part of your life since childhood. You started lessons at three, continued them into college, and have had a successful career in music spanning several decades. How did you avoid the burn-out that plagues so many talented young people in the arts?
I always loved music from the time I was extremely young, actually as long as I can remember. I loved how it made me feel in my heart and body, how it connected me through some sort of magic to a divine language that expressed all of life. I never really had a time of burnout because for me, music wasn’t about being successful in the world. It was about having a relationship with the music, with the piano, which was my first instrument. The piano was sort of like a great friend that I could always go to with whatever was on my heart. It was also about the relationship with my voice. Bring able to vibrate my body and send frequencies through the air that connected with others, and we did a little dance together. the audience was my dance partner!
Since I was mostly focused on the joy of music, and it was such an outlet for my feelings…there is no way for me to ever be burned out.
If I focused on trying to make a career of it and worried about what people thought, that would quickly cause me to grow weary.
2. You began giving piano lessons as a junior high school student. What motivated you to do this? Who were your students?
By the time I was in junior high I had been studying piano for over 10 years and I had reached a fairly high-level of musicianship by then.
I knew I could teach young kids to play, especially beginners so I started teaching lessons in my home. I had a lot of students from my neighborhood and from my church.
I also taught at the local music store after school. I had a lot of students there, from kindergarten to senior citizens.
3. You were born and raised in Oklahoma. Your mother found gifted teachers and music programs in the area to help nurture and develop your talents. Are these opportunities at risk as schools and communities cut funding for the Arts?
I was fortunate that my mother had a great love for music and was proactive in finding me a masterful piano teacher, Dr Clarence Burg. He was the dean of the music school at Oklahoma City University.
My first piano lessons were with the organist from my church, but after a couple of years with her she recommended I get a teacher who was more advanced. That’s when my mother took me to the performing arts preparatory school at the university and that’s when I started lessons with Dr Burg. I was 7.
My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they made sacrifices so that my sister and I could have music and dance lessons.
A lot of children who have real talent don’t have the opportunity to work with a music teacher. I feel sad about that because I’ve seen music, not only change young people’s lives, but I’ve seen it save lives. I’m very involved with the Allied Arts in Oklahoma City, which gives money across the state so that music lessons will not be dropped from public school curricula. I feel this is so important for our community and the health of our whole society.
4. You are a spinto soprano. To be considered a spinto soprano (according to my limited research), you should have a vocal range from Middle C (C4) to in alt D (D6). What is your vocal range? How is that different from a lyric soprano? Why does the distinction matter?
In the traditional opera world, Lyrico Spinto is a soprano who has high notes with a lot of rich low overtones on the voice.
Often a Spinto Soprano will have very low notes and can be mistaken for a mezzo soprano as a young singer, but then as the voice develops and matures it becomes obvious that the voice is going to be a soprano. You know this because of where the notes naturally “ring” in the voice.
The heavier voiced soprano with low notes in her range can end up being a Spinto soprano when the voice finally matures. These sopranos commonly sang operas composed by Giuseppe Verdi. Puccini and Wagner. A Lyric soprano has a slightly lighter voice, than a full dramatic soprano, but they have similar rich qualities in the voice.
It’s important when you are a young Dramatic or Spinto soprano that you get with a teacher that knows how to train a bigger voice so that proper technique is taught from the beginning. These big voices need to have strength and physical coordination that can support the voice. Singing opera is very athletic. It’s also important to be introduced to the right repertoire so that the young singer is singing music that will stretch the voice and make it stronger and more flexible.
Instead of stunting or trying to make a big voice smaller sounding, she should be given repertoire that allows the voice to open up and release. I often think it’s like training a great horse for the Kentucky Derby. You can’t push them too hard too soon, but eventually you’ve got to let them run!
5. You taught a Masterclass in acting for opera singers at the Accademia dell’ Arte in Arezzo, Italy in 2022 and 2023. You’ll also be teaching the Masterclass in 2024. What skillset are you teaching? How is it different from a traditional acting class?
Singing in an opera or musical is different than just traditional acting because when you sing the text is being elongated and sustained by the melody and rhythm. In other words, you’re not just saying a line but you’re singing the line which could extend over several seconds. While you’re holding that note you’re having to focus on the emotion of the word you’re saying, which feels very different from normal speech.
It almost feels like you’re acting in slow motion, so you have to keep the emotion sustained in a way that is different than traditional acting. I often have the students speak their text in rhythm so they can get the feeling of the words in their body, and then I have them recite the words as if it were prose or a poem.
6. In addition to your career with The Washington National Opera and other opera companies, you’ve held several teaching positions. What inspires you to pay it forward by teaching?
I love teaching because it connects me to the student in a very special way. When you’re teaching singing, you’re asking the student to trust you…you’re asking them to be vulnerable with you. You’re asking them to open their heart and share the fragility of themselves with you and with the audience. A great singer allows the music and words to be channeled through them as if they were a vessel. That way the composition is given birth again and again with each performance.
I love teaching technique because that gives the singer the coordination necessary to free the instrument so they can express the emotion to its fullest without limitations so that they can experience the true artistry of singing. I really can’t think of a greater joy than being able to share these moments with not only the students, but with the audiences and other musicians on the stage. It all becomes this beautiful dance. So, I don’t feel like I’m paying anything… I feel like I’m only receiving!
7. My son Christian loved music. I leaned heavily into some of his favorite songs, artists, and bands for comfort after he passed away. I’ve read that your grief after the untimely passing of your sister became the catalyst for you to begin writing and recording your own music. Why does music have such healing power and importance?
This is such a big question. I think as humans one of the greatest gifts we have is music because it transcends other forms of communication, and it connects us at a heart level in a way that nothing else can. I also love poetry and great literature. However, the magic of music is something that transports me through a portal into another realm. which is so healing for me. I believe it has the power to heal our hearts at a soul level. It’s such a gift.
8. Your new Album, “What We Need is Here,” brings ten classic poems to life and celebrates the connection of poetry and music. Why did you choose this project? Does the natural rhythm of a poem work with you or against you when you attempt to set it to music?
I chose the project of writing music to poems because I was introduced to a beautiful poem by Wendell Berry called “The Peace of Wild Things.” The poem moved me so much when I first read it, I felt my heart burst open. I could hear music in my mind giving a melody to the words, so I decided to go to the piano and write it down. Then I thought since I loved this poem so much maybe I could write to another one of his poems and from there I decided it was fun to write to poems and it was something I’d never done. I thought it would be interesting and challenging. However, I have to say that writing music to poems is not as easy as I thought it would be. Because the poem is already its own song with its own rhythm and I had to bend my melodies to them, not the other way around.
I realized what I had to do was to speak the words in the rhythm of poem over and over again. This gave me a template for how to create the rhythmic patterns which I then placed the melodies and harmonic structures into. When you analyze the poems, the Shakespeare poem is a sonnet, the Frost poems are in iambic pentameter, which were easier to write a song to.
Yeats and Wordsworth are long verse romantic style poems. Wendall Berry is didactic and nature focused. But all in all, i picked poems that inspired me. It was a challenging, interesting, and definitely rewarding project. I was so fortunate to have had Jamshied Sharifi as my arranger and producer because his beautiful and incredible arrangements brought such richness to the life of the poems. Jamshied and I traveled down the road together as we thought about each poem, and what the poet was trying to say through their words. We then created a musical landscape that would enhance the emotional feeling of the poem so that the listener was immersed in the world of the poem.
9. Other people have set poems to music. What motivated you to dedicate an entire album to classic poems?
Honestly, I loved the challenge of trying to set these poems to music. It was during COVID when I started writing, and I had a lot of time to sit and think about how to set each poem to music. In the beginning, I was only going to do a couple of songs, but then it became really fun, so I just kept going and then I started thinking about which poets I loved a lot, like Frost and Yeats, Wordsworth, and Keats. And then I started reading a lot of their poems and trying to see if I could hear melodies in my head. It actually became a fun and challenging project that took almost 3 years, but it was definitely worth it.
10. How did you decide which poems to use?
How I decided to use certain poems was based on how the poem moved me. I would read a poem and if I felt my heart open, and felt like I had been transported by that poem, I knew it was one I was connected to and would like to work on. Jake Johnson, my dear friend, and colleague (who actually introduced me to Wendell Berry) said that poetry is like Narnia‘s wardrobe, sometimes it can just take you into a wardrobe, but other times it can take you into another world that has the ability to make things that are ordinary, extraordinary. So, I used my intuition, and my instincts to guide me on which poem to choose.
11. You’ve stated that part of your mission was to “do honor to the poets and their muses.” How was your interpretation of these poems influenced by the things you learned about the poets and their muses during your selection process?
I wanted to get to know the poet as much as possible. So, I read as much as I could about their lives, and what inspired them. I wanted to know who the people were that were in their lives and who they loved. Even understanding the time and place in history when and where they lived was important to me, what was going on in the world at that time and what influenced their writing.
For example, Shakespeare. I wanted to take into consideration the world around him when he was alive. I thought about how he wrote for the theater and how he had a whole wife and family out of the city in a country house. I thought about how the black plague actually caused him to produce more work because the theater kept being closed and he had nothing else to do, but write another play or sonnet.
I think he wrote the sonnets to help him clarify his mind and emotions about personal dilemmas and rivalries in love.
The same goes for each poet. I know Yeats was in love with a woman that would never marry him because of political differences and that he was involved in the theosophical society, which showed his interest in mystery and the occult.
These experiences shaped his life, which, then of course, influenced his poetry. As for Frost, he was a man who lived mostly out in the woods on a farm up in New Hampshire and Vermont. He was close to nature and that influenced his poems. And the Irish Poet Arianrhod that I found by accident… I loved learning about her life and how she’s connected to fairies and the magic of the Irish folklore and landscape. I loved learning about the owl that flies with her as she walks along the sea at night.
I felt if I dove into the world of each poet and got to know them better, then I could connect into their spirit, and write music that would reflect the essence of who I felt them to be.
12. You’ve said in interviews that you create a painting in your mind that looks how the poems make you feel. What is a tonal palette and how does it affect mood? How many of the senses come into play in the creative process?
For me, the process seems to be that I first hear the tones coming to me in some sort of melodic structure; sometimes with the words connected and sometimes without the words. But almost always, I get some type of visual image in my mind at the same time that I get the notes.
It can look like a movie, or a landscape or just an image that seems to accompany the melody line. I feel like I create soundscapes for the idea of what the words are trying to convey. When I compose music, I use all my senses - my intuition, my musical knowledge for how to structure the notes, and my imagination for how those words make me feel. I try to imagine the place where the poem is set, the smells, the lighting, the time of year, etc.
if you’ve ever watched a movie with the sound muted, you can experience how powerful the music is and how it moves the story forward. Without the music, it’s just images…which are not nearly as powerful. Composers who write film scores know this. They know how to create the right sounds that’ll take you into the world where the story is trying to take you. In a way that’s what I feel like I’m doing.
13. In addition to the album, there are videos for the songs. How involved were you with the creative process? How did the tonal palette you created for each song come into play?
As I have mentioned before, I am very visual and when I compose, I actually see images in my mind at the same time I get the musical notes.
So, I feel it’s important for me to always be involved in the videos because I have a strong feeling for how they should look. If I’m going to be completely honest, what I see in my mind is too expensive to create so often I have to compromise and yet still make the video beautiful, poignant, and compelling.
I like to be involved from the very beginning. Creating the storyboard, finding the location, and finding the right Director and film crew who can capture what I’m trying to convey.
But in these situations, you have to be very flexible because there’s times when nature doesn’t cooperate or you don’t get the space that you wanted to have, or you just don’t have enough money to create what you want. I find those times challenging but also interesting because they force you to think outside the box and be more creative than you may have originally thought that you could be.
14. Which poem was the most challenging? Why?
Interestingly enough, I found that creating music for Frost's "The Road Not Taken" was one of the most challenging tasks I faced. You might not expect that, given his lyrical style, but the poem's myriad interpretations left me unsure of how to translate its essence musically. There are countless discussion groups still pondering the true meaning of "the road less traveled." For some, it symbolizes the right choice; for others, it represents missed opportunities and regret. This complexity weighed heavily on me, as the poem evokes a blend of emotions—sadness, happiness, contentment, acceptance, and regret.
I must have written over thirty drafts of this song, discarding each one because none seemed to capture the poem's emotional depth. At one point, I even considered leaving it off the album entirely. I set it aside to focus on other poetic songs, but many months later, I returned to it for one final attempt. This time, I decided to embrace the idea of allowing each listener to interpret the poem in their own way. As I composed, I oscillated between major and minor keys, much like painting with a musical palette.
The essence of the song revolves around the decisions we make in life, choices that can alter our entire path. In retrospect, we often convince ourselves that everything happened as it should have, hoping we have few regrets. Yet, the uncertainty remains. When Frost concludes with the idea that taking the road less traveled made all the difference, I found myself contemplating what that difference truly signifies—it could be wonderful or not. Ultimately, I crafted the song to reflect this duality, shifting between major and minor keys throughout. Even at the conclusion, when it seems destined to resolve in a minor key, it unexpectedly shifts to major, instilling a sense of hope that perhaps the chosen path was indeed the right one.
15. You’ve recorded seven previous albums of your own music. Most songwriters start with the music then fashion lyrics to fit. How difficult is it to start with a set of lyrics that can’t be changed?
When I look back over my discography, I've actually recorded 10 albums of music. Some of those were chant albums in which I used existing ancient chants and two of them were Christmas albums for which I used traditional lyrics. However, the other ones were completely original. I'm mostly a musician so I'm note oriented, and I do have to make the words work around the notes. It's much harder for me to try to write lyrics than it is for me to write music. The music comes extremely naturally, and lyrics are definitely harder. So, in working with these poems (and actually the same thing was true for the chant album), I had to create music that fit into the words. It was definitely more difficult than working the other way around.
As I said I think previously, I would speak the words in rhythm to help find the melody. For the Christmas albums I was actually mostly doing different arrangements of existing carols, but for the chant albums I created completely new music and melody lines for the chant. I believe I have explained this, but the poetry album was definitely more challenging than the others.
16. You collaborated with Jamshied Sharifi. He is responsible for the orchestral arrangements and production of this album. Have you worked together previously? Can you tell us a little about the collaborative process?
Jamshied and I worked together on the album Shunia which is a chant album made-up of Sanskrit chants. That was a challenging project because in a chant album you repeat the same words over and over again for the duration of the song which can last up to 11 minutes if you want. Often these chants are used in meditation, or after a yoga class so its repetitiveness is on purpose. However, it is hard to make the song musically interesting for that length of time when you're repeating the same words over and over. So, in order to make it interesting you have to make the music interesting. It needs to go places. For example, sometimes we would have a much more orchestrated part and then the instruments would drop out and it would only be a-cappella voices. His skill for arrangement and keeping the music interesting and beautiful was so impressive to me that I thought of him when I started putting these poetry songs together. I thought he would be the perfect arranger and producer for this album. I was very fortunate that he has the ability to squeeze me into his schedule which honestly only happened because COVID came, and they shut down Broadway, so a lot of the work that he thought he had was put to the side and he was able to concentrate on my project. The way we collaborated during COVID was to discuss the poem, the concept for how we were going to approach it, and then I would send him my sketches which is basically me on piano creating harmonic structure and a melody line… singing in the poem on certain notes. I would send him these drafts and he would send me back his ideas whether he liked it or not or he thought it worked musically or not and we would go from there. A lot of things were scrapped or just elements were kept…but little by little we started building the songs together. I would send him my melodic ideas and he would send me his feedback on whether he thought it worked and his ideas for the arrangement of particular songs.
17. The songs on “What We Need is Here,” transcend traditional music genres. When you started the album did you have a particular audience in mind? How did that change as the album progressed?
I actually had zero thoughts about who my target audience might be or what the genre might be. That's not how my creative process works. All I could think about was that the poem made me feel open and loving towards nature and connected to the poet as I read the words, I started hearing melodies in my mind that I then went to the piano and recorded. From there each poem evolved pretty much the same way. I think what I've actually written now that I look back on this album, is a group of art songs. If you try to put it into a genre that probably be the closest one you could find. The album held together musically because Jamshied and I worked together, and our musical ideas blended on each song, so I feel that it has a similar feel musically throughout the entire album. But I didn't start out thinking of a genre or a target audience or anything other than the purity of creating in order to connect more with the poetry and to create something that could help others connect the poetry in a very different way.
18. Your career has taken you all over the world. You’ve sung with some of the most famous classical artists of their generations. Who else (classical or contemporary artist) would you like to perform with? Why?
As I'm pondering this question, I thought, “it'd be fun to explore into a realm that I think would probably be impossible,” but if we're going to fantasize, then I would love to perform with Yo-Yo Ma, because I believe he's such a great artist and every time I hear him play the cello I can feel his whole soul. Also, one of my other favorite artists is Sting. I think it would be amazing to be able to perform with him somehow. He's been an inspiration for me all my life. Also, I would love to perform with Renee Fleming because she has such a heart for the healing power of music and is very much involved with musical therapy. I’m a big believer in musical therapy and to do some type of concert with her would be a dream. Also, I'd really love to do concerts with the musicians in my band. When we did the live concert last July it was so much fun, and I loved sharing my music. It's just great to be on the stage with brilliant musicians.
19. When you aren’t composing, performing, or teaching what do you like to do?
I love stimulating conversations, belly laughing with friends. Taking long walks in the woods and being in beautiful nature. I've always thought I'd like to be a painter, but I seem to never get around to it. Most of my time is taken up with music…sharing that with colleagues, students, and friends and creating together, I find that the most rewarding thing.
20. What’s next for Lisa Reagan?
I seem to always have the next album brewing in my brain. I'm not sure what this one's going to be about, but I can feel it starting to bubble up. If I'm going to dream - and why not dream big - I would love to take these poetry songs over to Ireland and England where I believe the audience would appreciate them on another level. So, putting together concerts for over there is one of the goals that I'm working on right now. Besides that, I'm not really sure. I try to just go with my heart and stay open for opportunities that come my way. Some doors open and some close, but if I’m flexible and ride the wave, life is a lot more fun!
Albums by Lisa Reagan:
What We Need is Here
Shunia (Lisa Reagan and Suzanne Johnson)
Realm of Dreams
Noel
Arcana
Lisa’s Albums are available at Stillpoint Records, on Spotify, and Apple Music,