As you may or may not know, Meghan De Jager is one of the most talented musicians in Goderich! At the age of only 18, she recently "cleaned up" for grade ten voice at the provincial level of Kiwanis Music Festival. Unfortunately, the pen and paper (or in this case, text on a screen) is not nearly enough to capture her dazzling charisma and personality. For grammatical reasons, many of her sound effects have been omitted, but where the sounds are easily reproduced, they have been translated into such stunning travesties of the English language and civilized communitication such as "ummmmm and woooo!" sounds such as "yyyyy" have been omitted.
Alex: How does one begin their career as a classical singer?
Meghan: Ha! How does one begin their career as a classical singer? Uh, one takes lessons. That’s pretty much it. Well, okay, I did choir first. Choir is always good. I did choir when I was seven or eight – I don’t exactly remember. But I started singing lessons when I was nine or ten, and then just kept going with it. Don’t quit cause then that’s not going to happen.
A: What do you think would be an ideal age to begin singing?
M: Singing? The way I did it is decent. If you’re starting with choir first, it’s good to get singing, but you can’t really get serious about lessons until you’re nine or ten – your voice isn’t developed enough to even take any effect really. So if you go in a choir and get used to singing before that age, that’s fine but you wouldn’t want to start singing lessons much earlier
A: How does your age have an impact on what repertoire or styles you choose?
M: Well it’s too hard and the voice just isn’t developed enough to put the right stuff into it I suppose.
A: Can you please highlight some of your recent accomplishments?
M: Well I sang in a whole bunch of festivals and stuff and won some stuff there, and I won the provincials for grade 10. I also did my grade nine singing exam and my grade 3 harmony and grade 3 history exam. I do my grade 10 singing exam and my grade 4 history exam in a couple of weeks and my grade 4 harmony exam is in May.
A: Besides the exams, what else are you working towards right now?
M: Well university auditions are soon enough so, you know, it’ll be fun to get an education. That’s about the biggest thing. I have a whole bunch of other stuff coming up though, but none of it really going towards my future.
A: Are you worried about the auditions at all?
M: Not really. They shouldn’t be too nerve-racking. I’ve been performing for a long time so it’s not a big deal to sing in front of some people, even if they are a little scarier than usual. It shouldn’t be a big problem.
A: Once you are in university, do you have any fears or excitements?
M: Ummm. I don’t think I’ll really know until I get there. At this point, I’m just pretty excited, you know. Should be fun.
A: You want to do honours in performance?
M: Yes. If I do any teaching, I don’t think I want to do it at a school, I can do it from a studio. I’ll have to get my ARCT after university anyway. I might still go to teacher’s college, but I don’t know what I want to do for a minor so that might make things a little complicated.
A: Can you illustrate for our readers how honours in performance would vary from a different honours program with respect to vocal?
M: Well performance allows more actual singing time as opposed to theory or history in which you would have more time to go towards you theory or history, obviously.
A: If you do honours performance in vocal, are you exempt from choir?
M: No. Choir is usually mandatory depending where you go.
A: Would you consider a career in performing after university or is it just teaching?
M: I would consider a career in performing and teaching from a studio. Performing is a little more risky because you don’t have a steady income. As for performance, there are about six million sopranos in the world, probably more, so sopranos are about a dime a dozen so it’s not really easy to get a job in performance.
A: Would you be looking more at classical or would you be looking at opera?
M: Both. I hope I can be in some operas in university and some after. I really like oratorios. Oratorios, you get lots of money for not doing very much. You come for a practice, sing your two solos and get paid like a thousand bucks.
A: So December is rolling around and Christmas is about the busiest time for musicians. What’s on the table this year, Meghan?
M: As far as music goes, it’s not awful. This weekend I’m off to do a concert in Gravenhurst with my choir. Sound of Goderich on the 7th, the Messiah on the 12th, and a history exam on the 10th as you would know as you have an exam too. Plus coffee house cause you have to arrange everything which is taking a while.
A: Lastly, Would you say singing has affected your personality?
M: I don’t know. I think the arts in general would affect your personality. I don’t know about singing itself. Well, technically yes now that I think about it. The voice is something that is really personal to you – one of the hardest instruments to put out there because you are like “this is ME,” not, “This is my old banged-up tuba that I’m playing. Woooo!” It makes you put yourself more out there and I think it helps develop confidence.
