“What’s the difference between ethnomusicology and musicology when we’re studying our own people?” mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sebron asks me. The question catches me off-guard. To me, ethnomusicology is the field of musicology that addresses the sociocultural aspects of musics, locally and worldwide. Musicology on the other hand has always been the study of (-ology) music, more specifically, the history and literature of Western art music.

“Well, I’m interested in traditional music,” she says. A Fulbright Scholar, Carolyn received the opportunity to travel to Kenya, “but I wasn’t as successful as I wanted.” What she wanted was to grow more, produce more, be more insightful and do more research. Why is that so important? “We have a responsibility as African Americans to protect and preserve our heritage… And we have to be intellectually, artistically and spiritually prepared to do so.”

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Carolyn began her vocal studies at 16, in the Preparatory Division of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music with Miss Jeannine Philippe, a university faculty member. “At the time, Cincinnati had excellent public school music programs starting in elementary. We had an orchestra, marching band… and each grade level had its own choir.” As if that weren’t impressive enough, she added that one of the standard subjects in her class curriculum was Latin, a language that is often untaught in many public schools today.

Carolyn recalls singing Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms in Hebrew at her school. Some mornings, a special class of young musicians gathered at 8:30am to sing madrigals. “What we learned was a testament to the Superintendent of the city as well as the music faculty.” Students were nurtured, encouraged to compete regionally and nationally, and participate in the all-city music festival. “This just seemed like a natural process. I couldn’t imagine my life having been without music.”

Her musically diverse school was also ethnically diverse. “We had Jews, Blacks and Whites… which allowed me to see what the world could be like. [As a community of people regardless of color], we can supersede our limitations as they have been defined for us. We must define ourselves.” This message of self-defining made me think about my own background—growing up celebrating the principles of Kwanzaa, one of which is Kujichagulia (koo-jee-cha-goo-LEE-ah) or Self Determination: to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

One of eight children, Carolyn remembers growing up with music in the house. “My father sang to entertain us at picnics… And one of my earliest memories is of my grandmother singing in the kitchen while making biscuits for us before church. She sang like Mahalia Jackson.” Her dad and grandmother sang in church and her cousin was in the May Festival Chorus, which was and still is mostly all-white.

Surrounded by gospel, how did she come to favor classical? Carolyn admits that she didn’t even consider music as a profession at the time because it was part of her daily existence. She wanted to be a psychiatrist. “One of my proudest moments was passing AP Biology.” But that same year, she went to an opera to see Bizet’s Carmen. “There was an amphitheatre at the Zoo,” she laughs about going to the Cincinnati Zoo to see an opera. In the middle of the open theatre, she heard sounds emitted by the vocalists—sounds without amplification so awesome, she knew she wanted “to learn to do that. It was organic, physical, stimulating. I like acoustic music. If I can’t hear you standing 15 feet away, I know you don’t have it going on. [Opera] singers need to be in good physical condition, which allows us to sing [for thousands of people] without amplification. Not all styles of music condition us the same way.”

On the subject of acoustic music, Carolyn added:

“I get excited when I can hear wonderful playing.” She notes that she prefers live performances to recordings. “When you’re standing on stage, in the middle of the orchestra…” We both drift off to a place and time when we felt tingles during the end of a Beethoven symphony. “It’s those vibrations on stage! You can’t get that in front of a speaker. I think we should go green!” This comment, again, catches me off-guard. We laugh about the implications of “going green” in music. “It should be totally acoustic, including the ensembles. We need more composers writing for instruments they really understand. I think a new style will come out of it.”

Entering the University on a Corbett Scholarship she earned a Bachelor of Music degree in voice, and holds her Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.
She has received scholarships and grants from the Corbett Foundation, the Three Arts Fund of Cincinnati, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Norman Treigle Memorial Fund, The Abyssinian Baptist Church and the Ohio Baptist Convention.  She was the Roland Hayes Fellowship recipient at the Tanglewood/Berkshire Music Center, first place winner in the Studio Club of New York Voice competition, a winner of the San Francisco Opera New York Regional Auditions, a winner of the Pro Musicis Foundation International Award and a Music for the World Foundation artist grant recipient.  

During our conversation, Carolyn talks about Le Chevalier de Saint Georges, the 18^th century fencer, composer, violinist and conductor who founded the Paris Opera. “You should check out Aubrey Bryan, a researcher of Chevalier. He’s a native New Orleanian,” she tells me. Apparently, Mr. Bryan discovered that Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, modeled [the character] d'Artagnan after Le Chevalier. “You see, African Americans are found in the fabric of European society from the time of their arrival. Our history didn’t just start in the medieval period or the 1200s. Matter of fact, Avenches, a town in Switzerland, has the symbol of Hannibal, a black man, on their flag!” A little research turned up the Coat of Arms (below). The vocalist was in Switzerland to sing in their Roman amphitheatre--Avenches itself built on the site of the Roman town Aventicum, which was the most important in Switzerland, when she made that discovery.

“You have to remember that the Moors entered Spain in 711 and weren’t removed until 1402. Gypsies came out of India… Some took the Southern route through Africa into Spain.” This, she explains, is the reason that much of our music sounds so similar. “When we meet each other as artists, we can jam, so to speak” because we are all connected, although most history texts fail to make these connections clear. “Take something old and experiment… that makes something new. That’s what music is all about.”

Success arrived in small but steady increments for Carolyn. After moving to New York and completing her studies at The Juilliard School, she found engagements with several organizations: the New York Grand Opera as Cuniza in Oberto, the first opera of their seven year Verdi Festival; the Bronx Arts Ensemble as vocalist for the chamber music version of El Amor Brujo, which she first learned in Castillian—“that was the wrong dialect!” she laughs. Carolyn has also performed with the Oratorio Society; the Longar Ebony Ensemble; the Collegiate Chorale in La Fiamma by Resphigi; with Opera Ebony in their productions of The Medium, Sojourner by Valerie Capers, Frederick Douglass by Dorothy Rudd Moore, and The Marriage of Figaro; with the American Composer's Orchestra; and as vocal soloist in two ballets for Dance Theatre of Harlem, Songs of Mahler Ballet and  Prince Igor, performing with the company, as featured singer at the Lincoln Center and City Center of New York as well as The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Eventually she found her way to Europe and it is there that she made the most important strides in repertoire and experience.

Her first role was Maddelena in Rigoletto in Limoges, France. In 1996 in Milan, she was hired after an audition in a pianist's living room for Carmen, and made her Italian debut in Palermo that Spring. Following those performances she was offered many other opportunities in Italy: Samson et Dalila in Turin, Carmen at L'Arena di Verona. Her debut as Amneris coincided with the historic 1998
reopening of Teatro Massimo in Palermo. La Favorite by Donizetti in the original French at the Rome Opera; Princess Eboli in Don Carlo for her debut in Bologna; and a return to L'Arena di Verona singing Amneris in Aida.  Eventually she would sing in just about every major theater in Italy. Other theaters included Monte Carlo singing the role of Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda; the Teatro Real in Madrid in a live television broadcast of Samson et Dalila with Placido Domingo; the Liceu of Barcelona; the Deutsche Oper in Berlin; Marseille; Glasgow; Edinburgh, Bilbao; Sao Paolo, Brazil; and Seoul, Korea.

Her concert and recital repertoire is diverse. It includes solo and chamber works by Mahler, Ravel, Falla, Brahms and others. “The nice thing about being an American as an artist is not having to assimilate… but having the opportunity to taste all the flavors and decide [where you want to specialize]. It’s a freedom you have. You may not like everything you hear, but at least you heard it.” Carolyn goes on to say that it’s okay to like jazz, operatic, hip hop and symphonic music all at the same time. “African Americans have to follow a trajectory that does not always agree with them. We often need to make a decision about where we will end up working. There is more of a market for operatic over art songs.”

This month, Carolyn performs excerpts from Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo (Love, the Magician), which was highly unpopular when premiered in 1914-15 as a chamber piece. “The vocalist hurls a lot of curses to the audience.” However, the piece was reworked for orchestra a decade later and made a much better impression. El Amor brujo tells the story of Candelas, a gypsy girl, whose love for Carmelo is tormented by the ghost of her faithless former lover. The work is distinctively Andalusian in character with the songs in the Andalusian dialect of the Gypsies. “But I don’t speak Spanish,” Carolyn laughs. She is currently working with a dialectician.

“I just love flamenco music! Music itself is very expressive and very emotional. The connection is visceral. Now add to that the dancing!” She says in a hushed voice, “Now I won’t be dancing,” as if peering over her glasses to make sure I understood. “Flamenco is very gutty,” she says noting that she will not sing the Falla in authentic Flamenco style so as to preserve the clarity and health of her classical voice.

Carolyn has appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Daniele Gatti, c. during the London Proms 2001 as alto soloist in the Verdi Requiem in Albert Hall; with the Detroit Symphony, Dr. Leslie Dunner, conductor; the Minnesota Orchestra; and with the Spoleto Festival in Italy singing Mahler's 2nd Symphony. She has commissioned works by American composers Tania Léon, To and fro, and Earl Stewart, Amina, using Native American and English, and Swahili texts respectively, for a special concert of contemporary music sponsored by the ISCM of New York in collaboration with pianist Eliza Garth.

“Tania told me something that I’ll never forget—and mind you I’m paraphrasing here—but she said that our students will never win those auditions because they start practicing when they hear about them. But we need to practice on a consistent and steady basis.” These words, she says, have stuck with her. When she feels that she has not been practicing, she recalls this advice and gets back to work. “There are no guarantees in our profession that you will be financially steady,” she tells me. “Stay at the ready. It’s a sacrifice.”

Carolyn has performed live on the London Olivier Awards which was broadcast throughout Europe, the Evening Standard Awards broadcast on the BBC-TV network, in concert on WNYC-FM “Around New York” and WQXR radio stations in New York. Carolyn admits that it’s easier to get opportunities in Europe as a Black artist simply because there are more theatres out there. She has presented recitals in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, Cincinnati, Prague, Rome, Venice, Bermuda, Guadeloupe, Paris and Nairobi, Kenya.  She looks forward to presenting more concerts and recitals in the future.  

This month, Carolyn will perform the passionate flamenco based El Amor Brujo with The Chicago Sinfonietta as they present  Global Voices. Under the baton of guest conductor Leslie B. Dunner, the event will feature the ancient and beautiful Indian vocal tradition Ghazal, sung by international star Kiran Ahluwalia, and cimbalom virtuoso Alex Udvary joins the orchestra lending another distinctive “voice” to the concert in Kodaly’s Hary Janos Suite.