Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Face Your Ears podcast. My name is Justin Hoshela and I'm joined today as always with Rich Bozek. How's it going, Rich?
Hello. Good to see you and talk to you again. I think people don't realize that we can see each other.
Yes, it's a fun fact behind the scenes. We are looking at each other right now and I'm drinking a cup of coffee. There's a little insight into our process.
How was your weekend?
My weekend was good. I spent a lot of it with Spider Man on the PlayStation. I worked on some music as well. How about you?
Things are going well here? Teaching up a storm? Working with some students on some new songs that they're coming up with.
Excellent. I am also working on some music. I've got one that is pretty much done in terms of mixing. It's moving into the mastering stage. And then I have one which is... In the very beginning of production. Excited to, to be moving some projects forward. So that's great.
Excellent, I just wanted to take this moment to let our listeners know that we have a collection of episodes available now. If podcast. We got all kinds of little tidbits about recording, getting started with a home studio. We even have episodes where we talk about AI.
a buffet of topics around audio and recording. So you take what you want and leave what you don't. So
A growing buffet.
yeah. All fresh, always fresh. So don't worry. aNything special about today's episode we should know about, Rich?
Yes! The day has arrived. We have a guest today.
Yay!
Now, before I say this person's name, and before we get to the questioning session here, I'm gonna read this person's bio. Now, the fleshed out bio is probably a lot longer. I'm condensing it down. There's so many achievements and accolades and honors to this person. But I've condensed it down.
We could have a whole series on this person, but we only have so much time, take it away.
Praised by the New York Times as a soprano with a genuinely angelic voice. This soprano brings freshness and uncommon musicality to a wide repertoire on the concert, opera, and recital stage, and as a studio musician, having performed domestically and abroad, This soprano is a regular soloist at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, both services and as a member of the St. Andrew Music Society. This soprano has also sung as a soloist for Sacred Music in a Sacred Space.
Novum, the American Classical Orchestra, and most dramatically, made her Carnegie Hall debut, stepping in on one day's notice to sing Gabriel in Haydn's creation with the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. This soprano can be heard on the soundtracks for Noah. Zoolander 2, White Noise, and the Amazon Prime TV show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and can be seen on HBO's upcoming season of The Gilded Age.
She is on the first complete recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein's And is featured on Kevin Keller's latest album, Evensong. And, if I may add, I'm madly in love with this person. And I want to have children with her. And actually have. May I introduce the lovely soprano and my wife, Katherine Wessinger Bozic. Welcome.
Thank you very much. What an introduction.
Yes. That was a great setup, Ritt. Thank you. Welcome, Katie. Very glad to have you on the podcast. This is a milestone for us because we've never had a guest before, so we're really excited to have you as our very first guest. What an honor and what an incredible bio. Like Rich said there's more to it, right? Those are just some of the highlights here and there over the decades that you've been working. The thing that, strikes me is that, you've had all of this great success.
You've done all these great things. You're doing all these great things. You've worked really hard to hone your craft. How did that get started for you? Like, how, like, how did you get to this place where you're a professional singer and musician?
Sure. So how far back do you want me to go?
Oh we have our Wayback Machine. We have that music we can insert. So you can go back as far as you want, but whatever you feel like is relevant to your story.
Cue up the way back music.
I started piano lessons when I was four years old and took Suzuki piano for a number of years up through the beginning of high school. When I was little, my parents would take me to church. And I would sing the service music and, the hymns and all of that learning how to follow along and read in that setting, a group sing, my mom loves to recount the stories of me standing in the front yard and belting out what I called opera to my neighbors, because if I sang loud enough, it would echo.
We lived in a gorge, so it would echo off the walls of the gorge and come back to me. I hope my neighbors were thrilled. I bet they were. Then I started taking a band instrument in middle school. I was a French horn player, In high school I did all the music things. I did the show choir, I did the jazz band, I was in the marching band. I did all the musicals I was in the concert choir. If it was musical, I was doing it.
Side note, students, listen carefully. Be involved.
oh yes, every single thing, that was me. Then towards the end of high school, it became apparent that I wanted to do this for a living, or to try. So I went to Baldwin Wallace College for my undergraduate. Majoring in, originally double majoring in voice performance and music therapy, but pretty quickly dropped the music therapy because the course load was just too much. And I should also add at Baldwin Wallace College was where I met my lovely, beautiful, and very gracious husband.
Ah, this fine fellow that we're here with today.
this guy. So then after Bubba Wallace, I went to University of Michigan for my grad work made some great connections there
Met my lovely wife
hence the connection. The circle is complete.
Yes!
Yes.
And we are all friends to this day, so good things. after I graduated from University of Michigan Rich was finishing up his degree at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins. And once he finished there, we decided if we were going to do this, we needed to live in an area where music making was possible. And so we moved to New Jersey, close to New York, but not too close. So we're still in suburbia.
What did they say? You can take the Midwesterner out of the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest out of the Midwesterner. Or something like that.
Yes, I think that's well put. Yes. anD it's it's all been history from there. You know, Of course, you start a career thinking you're going to do one thing, but so often you end up in another direction doing another thing. I thought I was going to be a professional opera singer and was going to travel the world singing all my favorite operas. But it turns out that there are 400, 000 Sopranos versus 400 of any other voice part.
The competition is steep and I decided Fairly early on that professional choral music was a really nice way to make a living. I love sight singing, and it's very much less stress.
So sight singing, for those of us who don't know, what is that?
I am comfortable picking up a piece of music I have never seen, and reading it with a good degree of accuracy.
Excellent.
That's amazing.
action, people. It's amazing.
I, it is like a superpower. So like some superheroes have x ray vision or they can like teleport or fly. Like to me, sight reading music to sing, because I'm a, I was an instrumentalist. I played trombones. I could sight read. Trombone music and piano music to some degree but singing was always like completely I was like level one, level two, and then I'm like, I'm out and so my wife is a singer too and she can sight read stuff and just people that can do that well, I'm just blown away,
We were going to give you x ray vision, but we have enough of that going around. You get sight singing.
you,
Well, you know, my ability to sightsing, or my ear training started very early on with a Suzuki Piano. Um, Since I was so young when I started piano, Suzuki was introduced because it involves using your ear more than the reading part, because I was not yet reading at a reading of words level. Hehehe Hehehehe Yes.
it's a style of learning or a method. Does it involve motorcycles?
No, you'd think, I always thought it was the same company. It might be, I don't know. Mr. Suzuki was a a pianist and he put together a method for learning by rote. So you would play it, and you would listen to it, and then you would watch the music while you played it. That would, the idea was that you would learn the notes on the page from what you heard and what you were playing. It was a backwards way of thinking of things from the traditional. Not saying that it is backwards.
IN its thinking. But instead of looking at the notes and going, Oh, this note is this, and playing that note, you'd listen to it and you'd go, Oh, this melody goes like this, and you'd play it, and then you'd look and say, Oh, and that's what it looks like.
It seems more intuitive. I can harken back to my early days of learning to play music and there was a level of sort of intuition to it and you feel it. and and I think that, definitely is part of the ear training part of it. But to come back around to where you were going, it sounds like this was a huge influence to you in terms of getting into choral music and your ability to pick something up and just quickly go with it.
Yes.
I got a question about that. So you were doing opera. Yeah. Yeah. When you first got to the New York area, how did you get into this other stuff? How did you end up getting these gigs to do recordings and whatnot? Let
I was studying with a very famous soprano. And her husband is an organist, and he had a number of connections in New York with other organist friends and sent me with a list of names and phone numbers. And before we even moved, I had set up a number of auditions. I sang for a bunch of different churches and through those church connections Occasionally someone would say, Oh, you need to sing for this contractor. And so I started singing for the contractors as well.
Before we moved here I had my first church job lined up and I should say it is still my church job to this day. We moved here in 2005.
Me ask about that. What's a church job, for those who don't understand? Are you like, a priest?
Why no? Because New York is a metropolitan area and the churches in New York have the funding to afford a a robust music program. I am a paid octet member for the volunteer choir. So there's a core of eight of us two for each section. And our job is to aid our sections and the volunteers in those sections to have a fulfilling and satisfying musical experience. We also do solo work. And I should also add through that job, I teach as well.
You do solo work as well. Does that organization also do other concerts on the side or is that just stuff in the service?
Yes, so certainly things in the service, but they also have a a community choir called the St. Andrew Music Society, and do major works, two or three major works a year. We're actually getting ready to do a Mozart mass in C, in the C minor mass in week and a half or so. So with that, I am a ringer in the chorus and occasionally will do solo work as well.
Excellent. So can you tell us, Katie, how do you prepare for gigs? Let's break it into two parts here. You got a concert. How do you prepare for a concert? And how do you prepare for a recording gig? Is it different? Tell us about that.
So I guess it depends on what kind of singing I'm going to be doing. If it's choral music, I prefer that they expect me to come in and sight read it. I don't want the music ahead of time because that doesn't tell me how prepared they want me to be when I get there. Should I have this down cold? Should I be able to read it perfectly? Whereas if I walk in the door and they hand me a piece of music, they're expecting me to sight read it and expecting my sight reading level to be good.
I far prefer that over, we've sent you the music three weeks in advance. Because I don't know what to do with that. Now for solo work, that does take more preparation. Depending on the work and whether I've done it before, I will start weeks or months in advance doing my own private study working out, doing all the woodshedding and all of that, listening to as many recordings as I can.
And then if I'm lucky, I get to work with the conductor and a pianist ahead of meeting with the orchestra before the rehearsals begin.
you ever get to work with any of the composers?
Oh yeah, occasionally I do, and those are really fun. oFten the composers if, especially if it's a new piece I'll be asked for my input occasionally. Oh, is this working? If this isn't working, how can we make it work better? So those are really fun because they feel more like a collaboration. than just performing what's on the page.
And I should also add, performing what's on the page is also a collaboration, because I'm also bringing part of myself into that music, even though it's already been written. My job is to give it life, and to give it life with the people who are performing with me. Always this coming together in this collaboration. Even when I'm singing solo work, I'm never singing a solo.
Now, just a side question on this stuff. I think people might be interested in getting some insight in. When you go to a contractor or some of these Conductors and music directors, and you have to audition to try to get involved in their music program or what's going on. Can you give us a little bit of insight? What does that entail? What does one have to do when you're at an audition?
I Suppose it depends on the audition. For contractors Often there will be a piece, they'll ask you to have a piece prepared, uh, some kind of solo work. Often they want to hear varying styles, so they want to hear what you sound like as a soloist, but they also want to hear how well you would blend with others. So often that involves some straight toning or some use of different ways of using your space in your mouth and in your throat.
Straight toning is singing without any vibrato, so a very pure, clean sound, like a piano, which cannot add vibrato.
So I
If I'm auditioning for a conductor, I'm usually auditioning for solo work and something specific, and so I will cater my offerings around the job I hope to do.
missed a job until you
So if it's oratorio, then I'm choosing oratorio repertoire. If it's in a specific language, I'll show that I have a mastery of that language. Or a specific style, if it's Baroque, or if it's classical, or if it's contemporary. I'll try to choose repertoire that shows that I have the ability to do the things that would be asked of me as a soloist.
What are the hurdles and challenges you face in this kind of work? And, I'm thinking about like recording, performing. collaborating all of those different things preparing what are some of the maybe external and internal challenges that you face?
there are so many different kinds of challenges. The first challenge is getting the job. And often when you work with a contractor, you don't know you've missed a job until you hear other people talk about it. StAying in the forefront of their minds is a challenge, but it's hard to do that without being obnoxious. So in terms of I've got a job and I'm going to prepare for it being a parent as well, I have the challenge of balancing my home.
jobs and responsibilities with my practicing responsibilities, with my professional responsibilities, and trying to strike that balance. Now that both kids are in school full time, it is much easier to find that time during the day to make those things happen, which is
that time during the day to make those things
yes, thank you, public school. But in terms of other challenges there is the ever present threat of illness which as a vocal performer can. really messed things up.
Yeah.
A little tickle or a cold or a poorly timed case of the flu or the dreaded rona, can just Wipe out a contract.
Oh.
That's why often you will see singers babying their voices. We've got the hot tea, and we've got the scarves around our necks, and we've got our masks on, and we're all like, oh, you sound like you might have a cold, and we're running the other way, because if we get sick, we don't work.
Tell us about one of your. Favorite or most memorable recording gigs?
Recording... Okay. I can't talk about the most memorable one, because it hasn't aired yet. But. I can talk about the most recent one was Kevin Keller's Evensong, which happened in the spring. His album was just released a few weeks ago, I think. And that was a fun... recording session because we were working with the composer and he had never heard any of our voices except for one. So he hired four female voices. We were all sopranos to sing Hildegard von Bingen plainchant.
So that is medieval plainchant was originally performed, in a church by nuns with no, other instruments, completely pure straight tone, and just really beautiful flowing melodies. And then Kevin took this music and made it into ambient chamber music. So he put a beat behind it and he put some synth on it and made it into his own thing. thing. But it was really fun working with him because we were able to sit down and go, all right, so we all need to move the same way.
And this music that was not written with with a time signature. So it didn't have a steady beat or a steady number of beats per measure. There weren't any measures. It was all just a string of notes on a page, um, and meant to be sung very freely, but we had to make it line up with his beat and we had to do it. In the same way, at the same time, so our voices all lined up and did the same thing.
A lot of work trying to figure out exactly how those things were going to move together, how we were going to communicate together in the room. And that whole session was really a lot of fun. You know, Another memorable one was when I... recorded the soundtrack for Noah. That one was a larger ensemble. Were more singers. The orchestra had already been recorded. And the conductor was sitting in the middle of the orchestra setup, but no players were there.
And he had a a Monitor in front of him and it was clear that he was watching the movie while he conducted us so that we ended up coming in at the right dramatic moment in the movie and that one was There was singing involved, but there were a lot of sound effect kind of things too, and I think that was the first time I got to do that kind of thing. thing, a lot of whispering and,
whispering and
Spooky noises. Like we were the wind of God or whatever we didn't see. They don't want to give us too much information because of the whole non disclosure
we're all surprised when we see what
business. So we're all surprised when we see what comes together because we don't know what's
know what's, what
What we're doing and how it fits with anything. So,
get a gig, you're sometimes recording something and you don't even know how it's going to be used sometimes. Often,
often, yes, especially for the movies and the TV shows, things like that. Because the last thing anyone wants is a leak. Now, we sign our lives away with the non disclosure agreements. I solemnly swear I will not speak of this in any way, shape, or form until it has aired, right? Ha
I do believe if we have a third child we're supposed to name him Rumpelstiltskin. I do believe.
ha!
It was in one of the
Based on the contracts
that fine print, they don't give you a whole lot of time sometimes to read every single thing that might be in there. often even in working on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel we knew what they wanted us to portray but we didn't know how it was fitting into the episode or what was happening or any of the other visual anything. so we just, trust the process, we trust that they are getting what they need.
It's happened occasionally where it's clear they're not getting what they want from us, so they have to give us more information. So then occasionally we do get a little bit but never more than they absolutely have to.
Wow, so it's like you go in with very little context to what this thing is going to be. And, yeah, it's it's almost like this poker game. Like, how much do we tell them? Wow. That's awesome. you worked with Danny Elfman, is that correct?
Yes, that was on the soundtrack for White Noise.
Awesome.
here. Hold on. Justin, come on now. You ask that with such restraint. This man loves Batman. And he's like a Batman fanatic. Danny Elfman was the composer for a lot if not all of the Batman movie soundtracks. You have such restraint
I know. I was trying to be polite, but I'm, I don't want to take away from Katie's spotlight here, but yeah, Danny Elfman, I'm a huge fan of his. He's worked a lot with Tim Burton, so the Batman films in the 80s, early 90s, Nightmare Before Christmas, all kinds, like the guy is just a very prolific, prolific. movie composer. He has his own solo stuff he does and performs. He's, he was in the band Oinko Boinko in the 80s. So he's, he goes on and on.
But what was that like working with him on that project and everything? I'm just curious.
So that was a fun session. It was different in that it was recorded during the pandemic. tHe union had just lifted the restrictions on, meeting in public, but we all had to wear masks and be spaced and all of that. And so that recording was actually done at the dementia center, which is typically a rehearsal space, but it's large space and it's soundproof and easy enough to set up a booth. So that that was done. Yeah. That way, different than going into a studio proper.
Danny Elfman was in the sound booth most of the time. But then at the end, he was so happy with the work we had done. And it's one of those sessions. So with the union they have to hire you for a set period of time. It's usually a four hour session or an eight hour session. And if they end up going over that, they have to pay you a whole lot more money. It is to their advantage to overbook the time and then underuse the time.
So it was a situation where I think we were booked for an eight hour session and we used maybe an hour of it. So at the end, when Danny Elfman came out of the sound booth, To say, hey, a friend of mine it's his birthday. I had the orchestra perform Happy Birthday in minor the night before. Will you guys all make something up and make it like, Nightmare Before Christmas style ha!
great. Oh
but it was fun because, it was more like, he would just do these big motions and we would all go, Ooh, happy birthday to you, different tempos, different, dynamics, just just completely bonkers. And he was trying to line it up with what the orchestra did the night before.
my god.
That recording exists somewhere in the world. I'm sure
Wow
someone's private collection. Wow, so you've collaborated with Danny Elton on
I suppose I have.
that's that's amazing. do any other composers come to mind for you that you've worked with? So you mentioned that earlier that it's really cool to get to work with composers writing something new and collaborating and iterating with them. So I'm just curious if anything springs to mind.
Yeah. I did a few years ago Judy Clurman, who is also a composer and she conducts a choir called essential voices, USA. She collaborated with Stephen Schwartz on a piece that he wanted to write. I think this was also, I think it was written during the pandemic and released, oh, it might have been released during the pandemic as well, I can't recall.
But we went into the studio with him, he was present, and the collaboration was more between the two of them than with us, but we were there, we were singing his music, and then he would give input and we would adjust things that way. So I guess the only other thing that was similar to that when we first moved to the city or shortly after I got hired to sing for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Allegro recording there is not another full length recording of that.
I believe there were some big names on that. I'd have to look up to see who is in that,
wow, so you're on the definitive first recording.
I am, I can't remember if my name is listed, but I was a small ensemble might have had a solo, short thing, but that was one where the big Broadway people were, in the sound booth, first they got all worried because the contractor, Threw together a group of professional choral singers to come in and read this thing. And everyone in the booth got really nervous because we didn't have recording devices to record the music that was being taught to us.
They were expecting to teach us our music, but we could all come in and read it. So that was really fun because while the music was already written, I believe Stephen Sondheim was part of that collaboration as well. I did not get to meet him at that gig, but he was working on that project. I think he studied with Hammerstein, if I'm not mistaken. That's worth fact checking. But that was, it was just like, I didn't know what anything was at that point.
I think we'd been in town for two or three years and just get, yeah, sure. I'll come in and sing this. Okay. BUt that's another another job that, that does stand out.
what advice would you give an aspiring singer interested in getting into recording and performing these days?
Oh man, that's hard. Strongly consider. choosing something else, if I'm quite honest, simply because it's a certain kind of person who could do this kind of work. I am very lucky that, Rich, that you you have your very successful studio and that I don't have to rely on this kind of work to make ends meet, to pay the rent, to buy groceries. This work is supplemental to our family income.
I do have colleagues who try to make this work and that is becoming harder and harder as arts organizations drop out. As I'm sure AI is playing a big part in some of this. And I know the The Actors Union strike has just ended, but that was a big part of that is this whole business of AI and how that is going to affect the field moving forward. I suppose similarly to recorded music for Broadway shows as opposed to hiring live musicians for the pits, for the orchestras. for those.
I think with anyone going into any kind of music, it has to be the thing that you want to do above all else, because it is very rare that anything drops in your lap. Everything has to be fought for. Even students of mine who are very fine, who have a lot of talent, I encourage to spend their money on a degree that can make them a living.
them a living.
And to pursue music outside of that. And then if the music takes off, fantastic. But if not, you can still pay your rent. You still have somewhere to live.
Yeah. I think that's good advice, just be practical, don't squash your dreams of wanting to pursue music, music is something you can pursue. So regardless having something uh, that can allow you to do that even if it's not your focus, I think is a really wise thing to do. And yeah, I think there's truth to it. AI continues to blow our minds and do things that we never thought possible. And we're at the very beginning of it. So who knows what's going to happen in five, 10, 20 years from now.
It's really insightful. Thank you.
Sure.
You started to touch on this because I don't think most people would have thought about that. What is something, just to continue that topic, what is something most people don't know or think about in regards to becoming a professional singer in the world? Yeah. Mm
amount of competition
hmm.
And how important it is to diversify. Like I thought when I first started. I thought I was going to do one thing. And then realized that everyone who had my skill set and my training thought they were going to do that same one thing. So I had to veer off the path and try a different path for a little while. see where I was going to land in terms of my particular skill set and how that would make me stand out. important to. stay open minded. with the things that you can do with your talents.
And also to consider other talents that you may have that are not related to music, and how they could either complement your music, or work in tandem with your music.
I just remember being in undergrad and thinking, I'm just gonna sing, I'm wonderful, I'm the best of the eight people in my class, I'm winning all the awards and blah blah blah, and then you get out and you realize that you're competing against people who have 10, 20, 30 years more experience than you do, and their voices are fully developed, and they don't need the hand holding, they just walk in and do the whatever, you know, and
Mm
know all the people
or the people who already know all the people who are hiring they say so much of it is about who you know and there is definitely truth to
Is definitely
Networking. Yeah, relationships. Absolutely.
Thank Thank you so much for being the first guest on the Face Your Ears podcast.
honored. I am an avid listener.
Excellent. Thank you. Yeah, this was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about you and the work that you're doing Very insightful and as you mentioned you're a busy mom in addition to being a busy professional singer, so we thank you very much for your time. This is awesome. thank you everybody for tuning in to our latest episode. We will also include links to some of Katie's work in our show description so that you can check it out at your leisure. So thanks everybody. Have a good one. Bye.
bye.