In March, performer-composer MFA Rachel Epperly presented her mid-residency recital Learning to See at CalArts’ The Wild Beast. The recital featured music and poetry she wrote and composed for her voice, in addition to using movement, fabric, electronic voice-processing, and playing the piano and accordion. Learning to See also featured CalArts music MFA students Michael Echaniz, MaryKate Glenn, and Margo Harms.
Anne LeBaron, music faculty at CalArts, described her recital as “exceptional” and a “mesmerizing one woman show.”
“The influence of pansori on Rachel’s singing style is remarkable, and she has adapted it into her highly individualistic way of vocalizing,” LeBaron said. “She has an enormous range and exquisite sensitivity to a spectrum of timbres. She is also a gifted composer with solid training.”
Epperly’s training and research in pansori, a Korean musical storytelling style, can be credited to her studies of the artform as a Fulbright Research Grantee for 10 months in South Korea from 2019 to 2020. Pansori consists of a singer, accompanied by a drummer, who narrates epics with a guttural vocal technique.
“During my grant, I studied pansori privately with pansori performer-composer Park In Hye and began my original one-woman opera, Spider Lily, which is informed by the vocal and storytelling technique of pansori,” Epperly said. “I was enamored with the dynamic pansori community in Korea, specifically the community of female pansori artists who reinhabit the genre’s patriarchal narratives to reflect their contemporary experiences, aesthetics, and emotions.”
Original source can be found here.
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