- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

(jubilant orchestral music) - My name is Micah Gleason.

I am a singer and at Curtis I study conducting.

I'm a conductor as well.

(somber orchestral music) I always loved opera and sort of as I grew to love opera more, I wanted to become involved in the process of making opera in a way that wasn't available to me with my particular voice.

(soft piano music) ♪ Let it be forgotten ♪ So I started off as a singer, I fell in love with music through singing and largely through experiences in big choirs.

That summer when I was 16 was my first time I got to sing with an orchestra.

And first time I actually got to hear an orchestra live as well.

And it was just completely mind blowing to me.

And I ended up going to college and studying voice.

And in college I did a lot of opera, but I also did a ton of choral stuff, and I did a ton of more and more kind of chamber music and art song.

And I found my personal stride as a singer more in the vein of chamber music and art song and sort of smaller scale stuff.

(thrilling orchestral music) As a child, being a singer was very casual for me because I really didn't start pursuing music seriously at all, really until I was 16.

So as a child, singing was very much only something I did around the house for fun in the shower, et cetera.

But when I was 16, I sort of threw a series of very beautiful chance events, had the opportunity to start taking voice lessons and then go actually to Interlochen Arts Camp, and then subsequently Interlochen Arts Academy, which is a fine arts boarding school in Michigan for my last years of high school.

So I sort of went really zero to 100 with music very fast.

(tender piano music) (singing in foreign language) So the sort of discipline of it was a familiar thing to me, but I really didn't do much music at all until I was in my teens.

So I grew up just with me and my mom.

And she actually was a singer when she was young.

She never pursued it professionally, but she sang in weddings all the time when she was a teenager.

And it still is to this day, a great, she has a beautiful voice.

So I grew up listening to like Kathleen Battle and you know, all these great opera singers on CDs my mom had.

And she was thrilled when I decided to pursue it.

She actually is the one who pushed me into my first ever voice lesson, which my mom didn't push me into a lot of stuff, probably because she was a very busy single mom and probably because I was like, I was a kid who wanted to do stuff.

So, you know, it wasn't that I was, you know, ever lacking in stuff to do.

But she had a hunch, I guess.

She just was like, I really think you should take a voice lesson.

And she found this program at the local university where you could take lessons for free with college students who needed teaching hours basically.

And the student I had taken the lesson with, I just, I was 15 and she was like 22, and I thought she was very cool.

So I think more I liked her than I even liked singing at that moment.

But I was like, okay, that was all right.

I'll take another lesson with her because she's cool and I enjoy learning from her.

(singing in foreign language) (tender piano music) In the last few months, I've had the opportunity to do three sort of big musical events through Curtis.

The most recent one was at the Kimmel Center, which was really exciting.

And I was conducting Julia Perry's short piece for orchestra as the opener to the last symphony concert of the year.

(audience applauding) Julia Perry is one of a whole sort of school of composers that lived in the 20th century whose works were neglected at the time that they were alive, largely because many of them were Black.

(energetic orchestral music) (energetic orchestral music slows) (soft flute music) (soft orchestral music) (moves into soft tense suspenseful orchestral music) (tense suspenseful orchestral music quickens) (tense suspenseful orchestral music softens) (tense suspenseful orchestral music intensifies) (tense suspenseful orchestral music continues) (tense suspenseful orchestral music softens) (moves into soft orchestral music) (soft orchestral music continues) (orchestral music quickens) (orchestral music ends) (audience applauding) Well, I'm in the dressing room before our performance.

This is our Philly stop on a tour that is seven or so.

Let's see, we had a week in Phoenix, and then we had a concert in Irvine, California, in Portland, two in New York, and now here.

And then we have two more at the end of the week in Oklahoma and Kansas.

So however many that is.

But this is our home turf stop.

I am just sort of getting ready.

We have our sound checks soon.

It's a chamber music tour.

So there's a number of pieces on the program that are being performed.

Many of them, you know, solo or duos.

This one is a chamber work that was actually commissioned for this tour.

And Nick DiBerardino, the composer, who is the Chair of Composition Studies at Curtis, actually a really wonderful fun guy, knew that John de Lancie was going to be a narrator for "The Soldier's Tale."

And he's a big "Star Trek" fan.

Hello.

No, come.

And he said that he wanted to do something "Star Trek" inspired because John de Lancie famously played Q in "Star Trek: Next Gen." (audience applauding) - Ladies and gentlemen, "The Story of a Soldier."

(cheerful orchestral music) Towards his home at Eagle Bay, a weary soldier makes his way.

(cheerful orchestral music continues) Two weeks leave at last in sight, on the go from mourn till night.

(cheerful orchestral music continues) Marching on, up the hills and down.

(cheerful orchestral music continues) Swollen feet and heavy pack, he's so happy to be back.

(orchestral music ends) A soldier sits beside a brook.

The grass is green, a restful nook.

Well, isn't this a pretty spot?

And what a lousy job I've got, always tramping, always broke.

Everything I've had has gone up in smoke, overworked, and underpaid.

And look at my pack, what a mess I've made.

Oh dear.

My Saint Joseph medal is lost.

Oh no, here it is.

He keeps rummaging around, digging up things he's found, some cartridges, a mirror of sorts, whatever it shows it distorts.

And where's that picture of my girl?

The picture she gave me when I went off to enlist?

He finds it and holds it to his breast, remembering her sweet blue eyes, how beautifully she dressed.

He opens up his pack again and digs down in.

And this time he brings out a small brown violin.

I bought it cheap.

The tone's not rich.

I have to keep screwing it up to pitch.

(violin chord plucking) He turns the pegs and lifts the bow, his fingers make the music flow.

(light lively orchestral music) (light lively orchestral music continues) (light lively orchestral music continues) (orchestral music ends) A strange old man approaches the soldier and says, "Hey, give me your violin."

"I will not."

"Well, then sell it me."

"No."

"Well, how would you like to exchange it for this book?"

"I'm sorry sir, but I can hardly read."

"Well then this book is perfect, just your speed.

And it's not just the book, it's wealth untold, bank notes, securities and gold."

"Oh, well perhaps I should take a closer look."

"Why sure, of course.

Here, take the book."

"Short term collateral rates of exchange, all these words sound very strange."

"Oh, you'll get the hang of it, you just wait and see.

Pretty soon you'll know all there is to know.

So why don't you trade me for your fiddle and bow?"

"For a book that offers me gold and such?

Well, this old violin didn't cost that much.

If this book is really all that you say, I think I'd be cheating you in a way."

(laughs menacingly) "Such honesty as yours should be repaid.

All the more reason to make this trade.

Why you are the most decent fellow I've ever met.

You deserve everything you're going to get.

If you turn me down, it's a big mistake."

"Well, if you say so, old man, it's a deal.

Let's shake."

The old man hands him the book with a grin and gently takes hold of the violin.

The soldier is reading currency fluctuations, pay on demand.

Ugh, stock exchange averages for Saturday the 31st.

"Hey, wait a minute, today's only the 28th.

This book tells you things before they happen?

That's pretty funny."

"Hey, kid!"

Says the old man.

"This thing won't play.

Come over to my house, what do you say?"

"And what would we do there?"

"You'll show me how."

"Oh, oh, no, no, no, that's something that my two-week leave won't allow."

"Now, come on, you'll give me lessons.

It won't take long."

"But my mother is waiting.

I've been off at war, I haven't been gone this long before."

"She'll be fine."

"And my girl is waiting too."

"If I know you, you'll make it up to her.

(audience laughs) Come on!

Come on!

Come on!

I'll feed you and lodge you like a king, my coach, my servants, everything.

Two days, maybe three.

A harmless detour.

And then you'll be rich, my boy, forevermore."

"Well, what sort of food goes with the deal?"

"Choice prime sirloin every meal.

And to drink, beer, whiskey, ale, champagne, the finest by the pale."

"And will you give me something to smoke?"

"Gold wrapped Havanas, and that's no joke."

The old man spoke the solid truth.

He whined and dined the eager youth.

And then he taught him the intent of this strange book.

And in return, the soldier taught his host to play the violin for hours every day.

Two glorious days, the soldier knew.

And when the third came into view, as the soldier breakfast in bed, the old man said, "Are you ready now?

And what I've promised, you've had?"

"Oh yes, yes, yes.

You have kept your word."

"You're satisfied?

Well then it's time."

And into the old man's coach they climb, the horses spring and off they go.

They fly.

The earth is miles below, the soldier turns white as a sheet, he grabs to the edge of a seat, the churches, the fields, they disappear from sight.

The boy wants to jump, but he's frightened to die.

"How long?"

"How long?

Time without end, time is no more."

Through boundless time and space, they soar.

And then "Look, soldier, look and see where you've come.

You are right back where you started from."

(light orchestral music) Toward his home at Eagle Bay, a weary soldier makes his way.

(light orchestral music continues) Two weeks leave at last in sight, on the go from morn till night.

(light orchestral music continues) Marching on up the hills and down.

(light cheerful orchestral music) Swollen feet and heavy pack, he's so happy to be back.

- I would definitely tell my younger self to trust the process and my path to Curtis and my path to where I am at and what I'm doing every day now was so winding and unexpected.

You know, like I said, I didn't even start pursuing music till I was around 16.

And then I thought I was gonna be a singer.

And now all of a sudden now I'm conducting.

But I wouldn't trade it because, you know, I had so many things that happened along the way that at the time maybe I was like, "Ah, this isn't what I need to be doing to really focus in on my goals."

But, you know, I had to do it because I like needed a gig 'cause I had to pay my rent.

Or I had, you know, little things come up.

But now I'm like, "Wow, I've learned so much from singing with that Renaissance choir or doing whatever gigs that I was doing" that this didn't necessarily feel like the most relevant thing at the time, but really taught me so much.

So I think I would just tell myself to, you know, trust the process.

Don't try to rush anything and trust that you're learning from every single experience you have, musical and otherwise.

And that those things are really important.

(jubilant orchestral music)