Chicago Daily Southtown, IL
Jan 23 2005
Soprano to hit high at Music Festival in Salzburg
By Stephanie Gehring
Staff writer
It may be family lore, but Barbara Ann Martin Green’s mother tells
her she was singing up the musical scales at 8 months old, repeating
after her mother, a nurse with a musical background.
When she began voice lessons, the girl from Queens, N.Y., had a
three-octave range. Not bad for a 10½-year-old.
In high school, the soprano was introduced to opera.
Her Norwegian mother and her Armenian father, an optician with a
musical background, were pleased when their daughter gave up popular
American music to focus on the classics.
Later at The Juilliard School – from which she received a bachelor’s
and a master’s degrees – Martin decided to explore the works of
contemporary classical composers.
She found the works of composer George Crumb, and then he found her.
After hearing Crumb’s work “Ancient Voices of Children,” the Palos
Hills resident said she was determined to perform it.
When she was in her 20s Martin, her professional name, and Crumb met
in Maine at a music festival where Martin performed for Crumb.
The meeting started a relationship that has spanned 30 years.
Martin considers Crumb and his wife, Liz Crumb, like a second set of
parents.
To this day she estimates she has performed Crumb’s “Ancient Voices
of Children” more than 100 times including her acclaimed 1981
performance with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic.
“That was when everything came to a point,” Martin said. “This piece
expresses so much of what I believe in. I felt such a power and a
presence.”
A recording of the work with Orchestra 2001 was released in 1999 and
nominated for a Grammy.
While Martin spends a fair amount of time on stage and traveling to
Winnetka for work, she loves to come home to what she calls her “new
old home” in the Southland.
She moved from New York to the Southland in 1994 after her
three-month courtship with Jim Green ended in marriage. Her husband,
an Illinoisan, had bought the house before they married.
The couple’s home was totally redone and expanded over a two-year
period.
“We love being down here,” Martin said. “My work is just there. I
don’t mind the trip.”
Martin, who has performed throughout the world including the renowned
Music Festival in Salzburg, Austria, said she always hoped Crumb
would compose something just for her.
She got her wish with Crumb’s four-volume American Songbook. Volumes
II and IV were written for Martin to sing. Crumb’s daughter, Ann
Crumb, performs I and III.
Martin, Ann Crumb and Orchestra 2001 will be in concert this summer
at the festival in Salzburg. George Crumb will be the composer in
residence.
Martin said she premiered Volume II in November, but has yet to
premier Volume IV.
While readying for the concert Martin will also be teaching during
the festival at the Internatonale Sommerakademie Universitat
Mozarteum.
“In combining performing and teaching I have to be very careful,”
Martin said. “When I go up to perform no one cares how many students
I have. I have to sell the product.”
Martin, who has taught at the college level on the East Coast,
teaches voice at the Music Institute in Winnetka and at her home. She
began teaching a two-week course at the Mozarteum in 1992.
“I plant seeds there that spread,” she said. “It’s so exciting to do
it on an international scale. A lot of performance opportunities come
from the festival.”
In fact, Martin said, she goes to Denmark each year for an
international arts festival because of one of her Mozarteum students.
Martin loves teaching, but she also loves performing.
She said she thinks her students respect the knowledge she tries to
pass on to them, in part, because she still is performing.
“I’m told not everybody can do both (teach and perform) effectively,”
she said. “I love my students. I love teaching them, but it’s no
substitute for getting up and doing it myself. I love performing,
communicating with an audience, giving to an audience.”