6 minute read
Sounds from the Thunder Room
Deborah Kavasch Shares Her Talent as a Soprano, Composer, Violinist and Educator on a Global Scale
By Lori Gilbert
Deborah Kavasch’s late husband, fellow musician and composer John Marvin, had a “Thunder Room” in all his homes — a place to produce “thunderous music.”
When they moved into the Turlock home they would share until his death in 2018, they converted the attic, its peaked ceiling providing great acoustics for a Thunder Room. Whether Kavasch’s music is thunderous is a matter of interpretation.
Her most recent composition has soaring sections, then gives way to an emotional softness.
"The Peace of Wild Things: A Reflection," inspired by a Wendell Berry poem, will be recorded in June by the London Symphony Orchestra and feature Italian violinist Davide Alogna, playing a Stradivarius on loan from the Italian government.
Watch STAN Magazine Feature: Dr. Deborah Kavasch
The composition by the Stanislaus State professor of music theory and composition was commissioned by Parma Recordings, which also arranged for her work “Desert Storm” to previously be recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and other works to be recorded by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
“They sent me a contract and I didn’t read it as carefully at first as I should have,” Kavasch admits with a laugh that comes easily. “I was meeting with my librettist, Linda Bunney-Sarhad, and she mentioned the poetry of Wendell Berry. As she read ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ out loud, I started hearing music.”
Upon reviewing the contract for the commission more carefully, an environmental theme is called for. The choice for the text could not have been more perfect.
“Wendell Berry is an environmentalist. Every time I read the poem, I’m practically in tears by the end. It really affects me.
“I wanted to have this buildup of tension and anxiety and despair in the poem. It’s built into the first three minutes of the piece, and the last two minutes are the calmness. The poem is written so that maybe the first three lines deal with despair and waking in the night, and the rest is about seeking peace and calm of wild things.
“I’m really, really happy with this piece. I wanted it to have an emotional reach to people.”
Kavasch also accepted a commission to compose for the Greece-based Galan Trio, and it will be performed in Snider Recital Hall on April 26 during the group’s tour of California universities, all of which had professors who accepted commissions from the trio.
Kavasch’s piece is based on four poems about water by former Modesto Poet Laureate Salvatore Salerno.
Another piece, “Feather on God’s Breath,” with words by Bunney-Sarhad and written in 2003, was recorded in early March by an a cappella group called The Crossing. The piece was originally written for the Stan State Concert Chorale’s 2003 tour of France, under the direction of Daniel Afonso.
It’s somehow fitting that in her final semester as a fulltime instructor after 45 years — she'll begin the Faculty Early Retirement Program in the fall — Kavasch will have one of her compositions recorded by one of the most famous orchestras on the planet and another debut on campus.
It’s how her career at Stan State has played out.
In between teaching theory and composition, and for about 20 years, voice — she’s a soprano who has performed around the world — Kavasch always has composed.
I hope I always keep a hand in helping young people.
- Deborah Kavasch
“Much of what I wrote in the beginning was for myself to perform,” she said.
She earned rave reviews, with one writer noting her resemblance to Meryl Streep, which makes her laugh.
She participated in new music concerts, festivals and womenin-music conferences — meeting Marvin at the Ernest Bloch Symposium in Newport, Oregon — and conducted research on extended vocal techniques in choral music as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Stockholm.
In doing all of that, Kavasch never sacrificed her teaching, which she discovered she loved as a graduate teaching assistant at Bowling Green State University.
“I think what has consistently been true, and for which I’m grateful, is the students have been wonderful all these years,” Kavasch said. “I keep teaching, because I love these students. You couldn’t ask for a better place to teach students who are excited about learning and grateful and appreciate everything you do. I’ve just been blessed.”
She’s a world-renowned talent, but as she sits at her keyboard in the Thunder Room and talks, you wouldn’t know it, until you hear her music. There’s no diva in this star. She creates an easy rapport with visitors, and more importantly with her students, sharing stories of her travels and performances.
Kavasch’s musical tastes may not fully align with the taste of her students. She’s a Mozart fan, although she did title one CD of her compositions, “The Dark Side of the Muse,” a nod to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”
With a lighter workload, Kavasch will do more composing and she’ll perform. She plays second violin for Opera Modesto, for which she was commissioned to write two operas, her first such undertaking.
With Bunney-Sarhad, her collaborator for some 43 years, Kavasch wrote the opera “The Race,” a humorous mashup of five Aesop's Fables, and then "Annabel," based on Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee."
The two began collaborating in 1981 when Kavasch, at a conference in Cleveland, was commissioned to write a piece for soprano and viola based on the story of Heloise and Abelard.
“I came back thinking, ‘Is there anybody in the language department who is a specialist in French medieval literature?’” Kavasch said. “Here she was. That was how our collaboration began.”
Bunney-Sarhad was an adjunct language professor at Stan State, then became the Director of Global Affairs.
Together, at the request of President Emerita Marvalene Hughes, the pair wrote Stan State’s alma mater in 1994.
The majority of her 50-some pieces are relatively short, except for the operas.
The first notable piece she composed was “The Owl and the Pussycat,” based on the poem by Edward Lear. She composed the piece as a doctoral student at University of California, San Diego, for the Extended Vocal Techniques Ensemble, which she’d helped form.
“We were really pioneers,” Kavasch said. “I wrote the first doctoral dissertation on extended vocal techniques.”
From there, Kavasch moved on to a splendid career: compositions, vocal performances; returning to playing the violin, the instrument that earned her a scholarship to Bowling Green University, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and teaching.
She is known worldwide as a musician. At Stan State, she’ll always be known for the alma mater, as well as the countless lives she has touched. But she’s not finished yet.
“I hope I always keep a hand in helping young people,” she said.
