Nanette McGuinness 00:00
[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, artistic executive director of Ensemble for These Times. Today we're joined by E4TT Audio Visual Project Specialist, and For Good Measure co-producer and audio engineer extraordinaire, Stephanie M. Neumann [INTRO MUSIC ENDS]. Thank you so much for joining us today, Stephanie, this is great that you're doing this.
Stephanie M. Neumann 00:37
Glad to be here.
Nanette McGuinness 00:41
You're a multi-instrumentalist, a composer, a conductor, and you work extensively with audio and video. Can you talk about your musical journey? And what led you to composing?
Stephanie M. Neumann 00:55
Well, the first memories I have of any type of musical activities I was doing was maybe playing piano in my piano lessons, just tinkering around and creating musicals for my parents. I feel like I've been doing music forever, you know, I can't remember the first time but I have pretty funny videos of me as a child, just singing little songs and writing songs. And I started band in fifth grade and decided to start with the saxophone. My neighbor, my, actually, my mother's best friend's daughter, played saxophone, she was years older than me, and I think I just kind of followed in her footsteps, in a way. I thought it was cool, and, and so I started on saxophone and found that I really loved it and had some teachers that gave me some positive feedback. So I continued on saxophone, as well as singing here and there in choirs or other situations. And then I ended up... I was in a lot of sports, but I also did music and I was just always busy, ended up being in the marching band and wind ensemble, jazz band. I was doing musical theater and anything music, and I was just drawn to it. I thought, what, what should I do for my career, you know, I love music so much, and I ended up going to school for music education. Initially, I thought that was perfect. That was exactly what I should be doing as rounded, I was, I loved music. And so I started that degree and, you know, the band world can be competitive. And I know there's a lot of, you know, a lot of other types of music worlds as well, but music wasn't as fun as it was before. When I was younger, and there was just, it was getting worse in, like that competitiveness and not that I wasn't thriving, because, you know, I gained so many skills, and doing music education, my first two years, and like even taking methods courses, where I got to step in and learn all these different instruments at 8am in the morning, we were all playing like brass methods, I'm playing trumpet and all of my friends that were all playing different instruments that we're not used to and it sounded like we were back in fifth grade, you know, starting again, but, and so then it was fun. But with that and also remembering how much I really liked writing music and just like the pop tunes I used to write when I was little and I thought I wanted to try, I wanted to try to, maybe I should be writing music, maybe what is it what is this path and I just ended up kind of taking a leap into that and we didn't have a music composition degree. It was like a concentration in it when I changed from music ed they didn't have that at my undergrad where I went, Miami University in Ohio. But I still took a lot of classes and I kind of built these skills and graduated with a BA in Music and then I was composing and ended up working at a music store after I graduated and felt a little stuck but my, I know my undergrad Professor, Seth Cluett, he was only there for two years, but he was a, he did audio and electronic music and I took his courses and ended up actually doing like a summer workshop in recording and did that but he saw this something in me, I think, and said, "I think you should go to grad school." So, nice, so I was like grad school what's, you know, what's, what is that? And, I just kind of went, you I trusted him, and I applied to a couple of schools and I fell in to wanting to go to Mills College because I asked him, I said, Hey, I got into these schools. What do you think? And he's like, you know, I think you're gonna really fit in at Mills College. And I just took a leap of faith, and I just went across the country. I never lived anywhere other than Ohio, and moved to California. And that was history. And I've been a composer ever since. So...
Nanette McGuinness 05:29
That's very cool. Lucky he was there those two years when you were there. You're a saxophonist, and you're a vocalist, is one of those a favorite child for you or do you like them equally? And, except for in that 8am class, do you play other instruments as well?
Stephanie M. Neumann 05:50
So saxophone I have so much experience, you know, I was, I was trained pretty heavily, like I would take, you know, I was doing juries in undergrad. And I was trained as a classical saxophonist, so I have this relationship with it, that it, it's just so natural to me now to pick up. And I don't remember not playing it. Even though I started in fifth grade, it feels like it's always been there. But with all of that experience, not that I wasn't doing voice, I think it just, I was in more opportunities to play saxophone than actually be a vocalist as much. But I also, it's, sometimes it's different worlds, it's just different worlds to me, because voice is also just such, like, it's part of my body versus the saxophone where I'm picking up this extra, this external entity. And so I don't know if I would say I like one over the other, it's hard to choose. And I think that's why I'm trying to figure out how to combine them, in a way and like, what does that look like, in a performance? When I'm doing one and the other? But yeah. Because it is, it's like, I feel like voice is such a part of me and saxophone's such a part of me, when I do one, not the other, like, it's great, but there's always that thing, I was like, Oh, but I wish, you know like, when's my next, you know, when am I going to sing? Or when am I going to play saxophone again? It's like, like a missing piece, not doing one or the other, so... but yes, I love, I love them both, so I don't know if I have a favorite between those two. But then, you know, as some musicians do, I guess I ended up just wanting to pick up as many instruments as I could, throughout all of my years, and ended up picking up... let's see, I was, since I was singing, I wanted to accompany myself and I had training in piano, I initially took piano lessons for three years so I, you know, that wasn't easy, I was just playing piano and singing when I would write songs and then I ended up thinking I need, okay, this isn't as mobile. I can't, nowhere, you know, not everywhere has a piano. So I picked up ukulele, which was and easy grab for, you know, and I learned that, and then as a woodwind instrumentalist, you know, being a saxophonist, I ended up like picking up flute and jazz band in high school just because they needed a flute, you know, a flute part and it's so similar. So I played flute now and clarinet because why not? It's also woodwind and, and then steel pans. I joined the steel band in my undergrad, and I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And... they're actually behind me right now. But, so I played double tenors, and I play it now and I just love, I love making sounds and diving into different sound worlds. So... yeah.
Nanette McGuinness 09:16
Yeah, no that's interesting. What kind of music do you sing? Other than, it sounds like you're doing some composing for yourself to sing and play sax?
Stephanie M. Neumann 09:26
Yeah, I did musical theater back when I was in high school. An d I took voice lessons then for a couple of years and did a lot of that type of music. And then I did more classical voice during my graduate degree with Sara Ganz. And that was really fun. Yeah. And I also tried to figure out like, as a singer songwriter, where does my voice fit? Regina Spektor was one of the vocalists that I'd first heard that I was like, she's a soprano? And I can see like this, you know, because because so many popular singers, they don't sing as high as where my voice falls. And so it just never worked. It didn't feel like I could fit in that world and so now I'm, you know, experimenting with that and what what sounds good in that register. So, the classical, the musical theater singing, definitely influences that singer songwriter voice, and whatever I'm creating now, for myself.
Nanette McGuinness 10:43
[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure, and a special thank you to our guest, Stephanie M. Neumann, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button, and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax deductible donation, please visit us at www.e4tt.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times and designed by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer, Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure" [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS].