02 December 2009
International Opera Singer Fuses Classical and Cherokee Elements
San Francisco — Calling on her years of experience performing opera around the world, dramatic mezzo-soprano Barbara McAlister sang a beautifully lilting melody in the traditional language of the Cherokees, an American Indian tribe from the southeastern United States.
Serene and floating, the tune conjured up images of lush prairie and star-filled black skies. But what do the lyrics say? “It’s a children’s song,” McAlister explained, laughing. “The words mean, ‘My grandmother has dirty ears.’”
From operatic repertoire to playful, traditional American Indian songs, McAlister has used her global singing career to learn more about her Cherokee roots — and to share that knowledge with others through performance and teaching.
Her international success began after she won the Loren Zachary National Vocal Competition for Young Opera Singers in Los Angeles. McAlister soon auditioned for, and landed, a spot performing regularly in Germany, where she sang more than 35 different operas. “It was 10 grueling years that I loved,” she said.
After her decade in Germany, and performances in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, McAlister returned to the United States, settling in New York City. She began singing at such prestigious venues as the New York Grand Opera and Carnegie Hall — and also began to delve more deeply into her Cherokee roots, both as a singer and as a student.
“I did some work for the Oklahoma State Arts Council,” she said. “I was on their touring roster. I had found a traditional Cherokee lullaby and wrote a song called ‘Night Star.’ I also put ‘Amazing Grace,’ which was said to have been sung on the [forced American Indian relocation] Trail of Tears, into the Cherokee language and performed it.”
McAlister’s involvement in Cherokee music, and with the Oklahoma Cherokee community, continued to grow, and she relocated back to her home state in 2008. Now she teaches singing to young citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
McAlister was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1941, the daughter of a physician father and pianist mother. “My father also trained as a singer,” she said. “He helped put himself through medical school [by] singing in church.” McAlister began singing in church, as well, at age 13, and started studying voice soon thereafter with a local teacher.
“We were mixed-blood Cherokee,” McAlister said. “My father’s mother was Cherokee and his father was a white man. From his parents, he had inherited Cherokee allotment land, and he always told me the legend of the big bear and little bear. He was very proud of his mother, who died very young, and for a while, that’s all I knew. We weren’t full-blooded, and I think the mixed-blood [people] back in those days just didn’t talk a lot about it.”
FUSING OPERA AND AMERICAN INDIAN MUSIC
Though they sprang from disparate cultures, traditional Cherokee music and European opera repertoire have much in common, McAlister said. “I sing the Cherokee music in my classical voice,” she said. “So when I perform, there’s little difference. Cherokee is a beautiful language. The vowel sounds are very open and Italian, so while the words may be different, it’s very much like singing in Italian.”
These days, McAlister performs frequent recitals that include American Indian music. “I do several traditional Cherokee songs, and I’ve written one or two of my own,” she said. “Most Native American songs are short, not more than a minute. One I wrote was about the legend of the little bear, and the words came from a Cherokee history book. Somewhere a century ago, there was an original melody, but it’s been lost.”
Many Cherokee songs survive in lyrics alone, their tunes and rhythms forgotten. “Once Europeans landed on these shores, the Cherokees became Christianized, so most of the melodies you hear are from religious hymns like ‘Amazing Grace,’” McAlister explained. “It’s almost impossible to find songs that are true, traditional Cherokee.”
In place of original Cherokee compositions, McAlister sometimes incorporates songs into her projects that have other significance to American Indian heritage. “It’s been a lot of fun trying to find songs with historical value to the Cherokee Nation,” she said. “Rosebuds of Ceremony Hall was a show I did a couple of years ago. It’s the history of the Cherokee Female Seminary in Oklahoma, and I sang operatic arias. We tried to do music that was performed at the seminary by the young ladies who attended. In my research, I also saw that there was a Russian prince, Edwin Dolgorouki, who fled the Crimean War and ended up in Cherokee country, so we put him in too. He was a pianist and he taught piano at the seminary.”
McAlister will be using a similar strategy on one of her newest projects. “I’ll be doing shows with Cherokee storyteller Robert Lewis,” she said. “I heard that in 1761, three Cherokee chiefs went to England to hear the opera Xerxes by Handel. I believe it was the first time that Native Americans heard opera, and I’ll be performing songs from that score in our shows.”
For McAlister, learning more about Cherokee music and growing as a performer go hand in hand. “I’m still hoping to find more traditional melodies to include in recital programs or for my own knowledge,” she said. “They must exist.”
Michael Gallant is a composer, musician and writer living in San Francisco. He is the founder of Gallant Music and serves as editor at large for Keyboard magazine.
Photo Gallery: American Indians in Modern Times