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Episode 16: Defining a Successful Music Career
mezzo-soprano and music career coach
What defines a successful music career? Is it really about playing all the notes perfectly and getting applause, or is it about helping audience members to have meaningful experiences while being involved in the musical projects you want to do as often as you want to do them? On this episode, mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen shares how she chooses the projects she does and how building others up and giving them permission to be who they are has shaped her career.
Topics in this episode include:
- How varied interests cross-pollinate one another
- Encouraging people to be who they are (giving out permission slips)
- The choice between doing a lot of rep once or less rep many times
- What is involved in forming an ensemble
- How to know who you want to work with long-term
- Tailoring offerings to different groups according to their need
- “We all teach”
- Getting over stage fright
- The stories music tells (or rather, that people hear)
- Helping audience members to have a personal, meaningful experience with music
- The definition of a successful career
Megan Ihnen is a “new music force of nature.” The act of live performance is integral to Megan’s work and her performances thrive on elaborate sound worlds and fully-developed dramatic interpretations. Through narrative and non-narrative musical storytelling, she explores the subjects of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and relationships. Whether through chamber music, staged recitals, opera, or large ensemble soloist work, she emphasizes the full range of vocal sounds, timbres, colors, and uses that characterize the 21st century voice.
Megan is a prolific new music vocalist who has appeared with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Latitude49, Great Noise Ensemble, Stone Mason Projects, Rhymes With Opera, SONAR new music, and more. She has sung with many outstanding performers including Nadia Shpachenko, Michael Hall, Gregory Oakes, Nick Zoulek, Hillary LaBonte as well as premiered the work of Mara Gibson, Griffin Candey, Garrett Schumann, Christian Carey, Alan Theisen, Anna Brake, D. Edward Davis, and more.
A gifted narrative and non-narrative musical storyteller, Megan’s performance work explores the depths of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and complex relationships. Ihnen’s interpretations of modern and contemporary repertoire have garnered growing acclaim. She is particularly recognized as an excellent recitalist. Her This World of Yes program of contemporary music for voice and saxophone with Alan Theisen explores the themes of pathways, choices, and duality through the work of contemporary composers such as Jessica Rudman, Michael Young, and Michelle McQuade Dewhirst. This World of Yes has been performed across the United States including appearances in Kansas City, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. With performances in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, Ms. Ihnen has worked with violinist Martha Morrison Muehleisen and Rome Prize winner video artist Karen Yasinsky to take audiences on a profound journey through György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments through video and sound. Finally, Ihnen’s Single Words She Once Loved is a performance that centers around the ideas and effects of memory, dementia, and time. It is a deeply personal exploration of the dueling forces of ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ and ‘God gave us memories so that we may have roses in winter’. Single Words She Once Loved features compositions by David Smooke, Ryan Keebaugh, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jeffrey Mumford, and more.
Her devotion to the proliferation of new music extends beyond the commissioning and performing of music to teaching, workshopping, and mentoring of emerging artists in the field. She also works to increase the visibility and influence of new music through writing on the subject for multiple online and print publications. As a curator, she selected twenty songs for mezzo-soprano and piano for the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music. Mezzo-Soprano, Vol. 1 includes works by: Michael Betteridge, Mark Buller, Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Fisk, Matt Frey, Jodi Goble, Ricky Ian Gordon, Cara Haxo, Cameron Lam, Cecilia Livingston, Shona Mackay, Tony Manfredonia, Nicole Murphy, Eric Pazdziora, Frances Pollock, Julia Seeholzer, Alan Thiesen, Dennis Tobenski, Moe Touizrar, and Ed Windels.
In addition to being an avid podcast listener, Ihnen enjoys drinking good coffee, joking around with her sisters, tweeting about contemporary poetry, and watching Law & Order. She has grand dreams that one day her dog, Hunter, will be the best dog in the neighborhood. She lives in New Orleans, LA and out of her suitcase equally.
Find the Live Music Project here:
Website: www.meganihnen.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/megan.ihnen
Instagram: www.instagram.com/mezzoihnen/
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