In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

[upbeat music] Hi, my name is Nikan Inga-Bire Karate.

I'm a soprano and I study opera at Curtis.

Opera has been around for a long time and it's become sort of like this exclusive thing, but I think they're really trying to make it more accessible to everyone and for it to not be this snobby thing, you know.

piano plays softly Well, it depends on how people react and how they ask me about it.

[singing] A place of confusion, sometimes it's actually genuine curiosity and sometimes people are not too sure why I'm doing it and and they might come off as like judgy but you know you just you I know why I'm here I know why I'm doing this so I just I just tell them how it is and if if they don't accept it that's their business [Music] Curtis was my first choice.

I didn't do a lot of applications for grad school.

I knew I wanted to be in the States.

I found out about Curtis through some peers who graduated a couple years or a year before me.

They were telling me how great Curtis is and that it's tuition free, which I think is an incredible thing for students.

So that finances don't get in the way of you following your dreams and that it's purely merit-based and talent-based.

And yeah, that it's so small, so the community is so tight-knit.

And yeah, it's known as one of the best music schools in the world, so why wouldn't I want to come here, you know?

And I always knew that I wanted to be somewhere where the caliber is really high and somewhere where I'd feel challenged and inspired by my peers and my mentors.

And that ended up being exactly the case and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

For singers it's a little different from instrumentalists.

Physically we can't practice for as many hours, but I went to a performing arts high school and we would get assigned cute little songs to learn and we had exams at the end of each semester.

So I started taking voice lessons in grade 9.

And so my teacher would assign me some songs I would practice at home or at school and yeah and then I would do my exams and our little end of semester recitals.

It was sweet.

And now to you Rachel Johnson with the weather report.

It's looking quite such.

Now introducing the heart attack burger.

So I auditioned for the voice program at that high school and they offered classical training so I started voice lessons and I ended up falling in love with it and auditioned for a Bachelor of Music in Performance at the University of Toronto.

That's where I ended up doing my undergrad and then I applied for grad school and now I met Curtis.

I'm ready for you this time.

There's a light in your eye I can't deny.

Then there's me inside a sinking boat running out of time.

Without you I'll never make it out alive.

But I know, yes I know we'll be alright.

There's a future in my life I can't foresee.

Last spring, the vocal department, we did a recital in Field and everyone sang a bunch of different art songs.

And so I chose a leader set by Korngold in German.

[applause] The first one is called Was du mir bist?

And that means what you are to me.

And basically the poem just lists a bunch of beautiful things about nature that represent the narrator's love.

Was du mir bist, Der Ausblick in ein schönes Land, Wo Fruchtbeladner Bäume ragen, Flumenblumen am Quellergrat, Was du leer bist, Der Sternfunkel, Das Glück durchbricht, Der ferne Blühstrahl, Dem Dunkel spricht, Auf andere verzage nicht.

Und war mein Leben auch ein Zahlen, Glänzte mir kein Frageschick, Was du mir bist, Was du mir bist, Was du mir bist, Was du mir bist.

Mein Leben an das Glück.

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Wie in Traumrot geht der Mäsel, Such'n Sternen dir.

[How in dream does the Maiden go, Searching for the stars for you.]

[piano] [singing in German] At Curtis we're pretty spoiled.

We get to work with so many different coaches and you can have up to three or four coachings every day if that's what you want to do and depending on what type of repertoire you're working on as well.

And so you head to a coaching, they're usually about 45 minutes to an hour.

Sometimes you might have a voice lesson with your teacher.

Emerging stronger like a butterfly reborn.

But when we're in production for our operas, we usually have rehearsal pretty much every night from 6 to 10 p.m.

We're not always called every day, but it takes up a lot of our time, you know.

But we get so much done in those staging rehearsals, and we put together huge productions, and it's always so rewarding.

[Bells ringing] So in the fall semester, the first year masters of all disciplines, singers and brass players, string players, composers, conductors, we came together for this residency called Nate's World.

And it was hosted by three Curtis alumni, Nate Farrington, [MUSIC] Teddy Abrams, [MUSIC] and Gabriel Globus-Hörnig.

They are classically trained, but they also branch out and do a bunch of different music things.

So they came and they were like, our goal is to put together a concert of things that you wouldn't necessarily do for your other classes or in recital settings and things like that.

So they were asking us, what are your wildest musical dreams?

What are some things that you thought you would never get to do that we could make happen?

And so one of my good friends, she said, "Oh, we should do a gospel song."

I brought up some choral improv that I used to do during my undergrad where you start on one note and you use these hand gestures to lead the choir to do some improvisation.

But we did it with singing and instruments and it ended up being really cool.

You were like a butterfly.

[Music] I have always loved singing pop and R&B and folk.

During my time in undergrad I was in this trio and I would go with my two friends and we would arrange these short little covers of songs and we would have these intricate harmonies and we posted them on TikTok and Instagram and it kind of went viral so that was really fun.

So I hope to be able to do more things like that and I've always dreamt of at least making an album one day.

I don't know of what but I want to be able to do a little bit of everything.

I'm going to do a little bit of everything.

Okay.

[piano playing] [vocalizing] ♪ Give me some time to learn ♪ So you came, you came to stay ?

In my brain, my brain instead ?

Staying late night Every time I see you It's just getting deeper You're the one I call for Way out in the ether You're the one I wanted When it got so lonely Only pain would hold me Baby it's so hard to wake It's so hard to wake up You're real, you're real It's so hard to wake up I'll fight back, back, back I'm like that, that, that I'll find a way back down Way from heaven steps.

Is this what love is like?

I can't escape like this I'm in your arms and found you keep me off the ground In my brain My brain is stale So you came, you came to stay now In my brain, my brain is stale Stale now Every time I see you It's just getting deeper You're the one I call for Way out in the ether You're the one I wanted when it got so lonely Only pain would hold me Baby, it's so hard to wake to wake up You're real, you're real It's so hard to wait up Curtis for me will always be a very special place where I met some incredible mentors and some lifelong friends and connections and they always tell us that the people you meet at Curtis are going to be with you for the rest of your career and the rest of your life and at first I didn't believe it I can't lie but now I understand and it's a family and it's it's a community and yeah it's just I guess you can't really understand it unless you're unless you're in it you Last year I didn't do any auditions because I had just done grad school auditions and it was my first time living in the States and getting to know a lot of the programs and everything that there is to do around here.

So I took that year to really grow vocally and as a person.

And now this year I'm back in the ring and I'm going to be doing competitions and auditions for young artist programs and for summer programs as well.

So in the past maybe month I've done maybe 12 applications, something like that, because everything is always happening at the same time in the fall especially.

And I'm hoping that a few of them are going to be yeses.

They're not all going to be yeses because that's how it works, you know.

We spend a lot of time doing auditions and I always tell myself what's meant for me is meant for me.

If it doesn't work out then it wasn't meant for me and if it does then that's where I'm supposed to be you know because it's not a reflection of my talent or my worth it's just everyone has their time with everything so yeah I've been doing a lot of auditions and there's going to be more so yeah.

It always starts with, well usually starts with pre-screening videos.

You send two or three songs that you record.

And then they either pass you to the next round and then you go in person and then usually it's two or three rounds depending on the program.

So yeah, it's a stressful process but you just got to take it one day at a time.

After graduation, I'm hoping to be in a young artist program somewhere in the US, maybe in Europe or back in Canada.

I'm going to be doing a lot of auditions and we'll see where it takes me.

I hope to have a long performance career all over the world.

I just want to be singing my heart out wherever I can.

I would tell my future self that it was all worth it.

I would give her a big hug and tell her how proud I am of her.

I would tell my younger self to keep going, that she's doing the right thing, and to not be scared because it's all going to work out, and that I'm on the right path, and to not listen to people who don't believe in you because they don't know what they're talking about and they don't know the potential you have.

So yeah, to just keep going.

[ Music ] Once there was a chicken and it laid some tasty eggs.

[piano] Fragile is the life of the world we must share.

Keep us from today, for tomorrow's growing cold and frail.

I will have some respect, I will have some love.

Death must heal the scars of man, 'cause life has led us here.

[Instrumental] [Music]