For anyone who has fallen under the spell of an art — be it music, voice, dance, theatre, literature — you know that the muses who transport all that creativity are jealous masters. Yes, they bring priceless gifts, but they demand the artist’s heart and soul, and lots of time and money.
Countless writers and actors and singers who though they are devoted to their art, have found that they want even more. A husband perhaps. Or a wife. A family — and the special kind of joy that comes when what you do every day finds support at home every night.
The Tallahassee Democrat spoke with three talented (in this case) women who are arts “practitioners.” A soprano, a cellist, and a choral director. Each of them is here because their husbands found careers at Florida State University. Yet each one of them has developed their own rewarding career — and made a family to boot.
Carla Connors, soprano: 'Very careful about technique'
The woman standing on the altar steps of St. John’s Episcopal Church appears to be glowing. Her eyes absorb the gothic setting and she smiles. Then as if Bach himself had given the nod, she begins to sing. Accompanied by Tallahassee’s Bach Parley, Carla Connors’ voice is like listening to water drops touch crystal—light, crisply warm.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
She sings poetry and tells listeners with her body and voice a story. Later, Connors says this is her mission—"to share with an audience the joy she is feeling in music and to offer it to them with words.”
Carla Connors is one of the creative musical artists whose husband, FSU Professor Emeritus, Timothy Hoekman, is also a musician — a pianist and composer. Over the years they have continued to perform together. “I think I fell in love with him when I heard him accompany another singer,” she laughs. But though love bloomed, over the years, some decisions had to be made.
Connors had earned an undergraduate degree at the University of South Dakota. Later a Masters and Doctorate at the University of Michigan, and she was earning a living as a professional opera singer — a career that kept her “on the road” much of the time.
“An opera singer usually isn’t hired “as a member of an opera company,” she said. “Rather, each part is auditioned for and you sign to sing a certain role for specific performances or for that season.” And she was busy. “After my husband came to FSU in 1984, for the first three years I was constantly flying around the country auditioning or on tour.”
Her peripatetic lifestyle showed: Singing with the Washington D.C. Opera Theatre; The Miami Opera; a summer in Chautauqua; The Orlando Opera; the Atlanta Opera; and nine months touring with the New York City National Opera as Susanna in "Le Nozze di Figuero" (The Marriage of Figuero.)
But as first one, then the couple’s second son was born, decisions would have to be made. And for Carla Connors, she seemed to have no trouble making them.
“In addition to becoming a mother, I also discovered that I absolutely loved teaching voice.” Connors has had a private voice studio for 37 years. “My job is to bring joy to people through my music, or through my students.” Luckily, she hasn’t stopped performing. “I’ve always been very careful about technique,” she said. “And that I think has elongated my own career. I want that for those I teach as well.”
Today Connors can be heard in recital, oratorios, or guest engagements with orchestra and ensembles. Although she admits that married artists, both with demanding careers, can face a kind of instability, she says that devoting herself to family, vocal performance, and education, and even her long-term work with the Artist Series, has given her the chance to have a “wonderful family life” and even collaborate with her husband in ways many other artists may not ever have.
Kim Jones, cellist: 'together doing what we love'
Cellist Kim Jones and cellist Evan Jones traveled from opposite ends of Canada to find each other and ever since, the music they have made together has brought not only joy to listeners’ ears, but seeded the musical world with the talent they have taught.
Kim Jones was born in Calgary, Canada, into a family of musicians: her father, a renowned Choral Director and teacher, one aunt a violinist, the other a cellist, and a beloved grandmother who first taught young Kim to play the piano. Kim’s mother evidently loved listening to music.
“I began studying cello at about 6,” says Jones. “My elder sister had chosen violin like my one aunt, and I would have felt sorry for the other aunt who played the cello if I’d chosen violin too.” So cello it was. But also it grew into a love affair.
“I love the emotion that can come from a cello,” Jones said. “It can play sometimes in the background, or it can step forward and with its lyrical range, play the melody.” The entire musical family was proud when an almost grown-up Jones went off to McGill University in Montreal and later the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. And her future would soon follow her.
She had met Nova Scotia native, Evan Jones at McGill and like her, he would go on to Eastman. Kim graduated with a Bachelors in cello performance and her Artist’s Diploma and joined him at Eastman where she finished her Masters in Music and won a job with the Rochester Symphony while Evan finished his Masters and PhD in Performance and Music Theory.
They married and had their first child. There was a lot on their individual plates, but with Evan’s appointment to the faculty of Florida State University, it looked like they very well might “have it all.”
And just as she had auditioned (behind a screen before judges) at Rochester, now Kim played for judges at the Tallahassee Symphony. That was almost 24 years ago. Today she is the Assistant Principal cellist with the orchestra. And as Evan began his academic career at FSU, Kim began to teach privately, something “I truly love.” She notes that well over 225 “amazingly talented people,” have passed through her hands and plan on professional musical careers.
Kim Jones hasn’t limited her musical life to the TSO season or students alone. Jones says she has coached the Tallahassee Youth Symphony and has loved playing across the years with the Bach Parley, a baroque ensemble that continues to grow. “I bought a baroque period cello — without an end-pin — and though it took a bit, now feel comfortable with the instrument.” Evan Jones also plays with the Bach Parley as well as with the Tallahassee Symphony.
“That is one particularly good thing about being married to another cellist,” she laughs. “Sometimes Evan will ask me to listen to something he’s playing…just for my comments and to hear how it sounds in front of someone.” Sometimes she does the same.
Looking back, Kim Jones says she can’t think of another place she’d rather be than here in Tallahassee doing what she’s doing. “It’s just the right size. It has the university, the symphony and other musical outlets, and we can be together doing what we love.”
Leslie Heffner, choral director: 'something I was meant to do'
If one were looking for the antithesis of a “diva,” you might choose mezzo soprano, Leslie Heffner, Music Program Coordinator and Director of the Tallahassee Civic Chorale and Choral Director at Tallahassee’s Grace Lutheran Church.
Rather, though Heffner has sung major operatic roles in "Cozzi Fan Tutte" and Benjamin Britten’s "The Rape of Lucretia," and her on-stage presence might be called, “imposing,” her demeanor is that of a confident, accomplished, but most significantly, happy woman. A wife, a mother, a musician with a PhD behind her name, she says that in her life, “there is nothing that is missing.”
Like the other women in this article, Heffner is married to an FSU music academician. David Okerlund, Professor of Voice, runs the university’s Graduate Pedagogy Program and is also an opera singer who has sung around the globe with major opera companies. “For me,” says Heffner, “I certainly did picture myself traveling the world’s stages, singing the great roles. But sights get adjusted and aspirations change!”
Born in a small Ohio town, Heffner’s first introduction to music was at 5 years old at the piano with her grandmother. By middle school and later high school, she had added bassoon and saxophone, and went on to win a bassoon scholarship to Ohio State. But not every bassoon player becomes a professional bassoonist.
“I’d never really sung before,” she says. “Everybody always said I was “loud” when I’d try.” But Heffner joined a choral group at college and says, “It felt…absolutely organic. As if it was something I was meant to do.”
And with that revelation, she switched universities, switched majors and graduated from the University of Las Vegas with a degree in Vocal Education. She would earn her Masters in Vocal Performance at Bowling Green State University, where as luck would have it, one of her teachers was a handsome voice teacher with a Swedish-sounding name. While Heffner began her career as Executive Director of Bowling Green’s Community Music School, the romance between the two singers grew.
“A few years later, when my now-husband came to work at FSU, we tried to maintain the long-distance relationship, but it was hard.” The couple eventually resolved the problem when Heffner entered the PhD program at Florida State and married her former voice teacher!
Today, mother of a nine-year-old daughter, fulfilled artistically and personally, she laughs wondering what life would have been like “if I’d married an architect or accountant. For instance, my husband and I often sing back and forth to each other in normal conversation. We turned our daughter’s bedtime stories into little operas. And of course, we understand singers’ funny ways,” she says. “You might not eat the day before a performance to avoid acid reflux! And you certainly must avoid whispering!”
Other than whispering, Leslie Heffner, says that like the others, she too, “has it all.” Each of the three, committed and talented musicians, devoted wives and mothers, women who chose not to compromise, but to evolve and grow, they set examples for others who choose to follow more than one aspirational star and let both artistic and family brilliance shine.
Marina Brown can be contacted at mcdb100@comcast.net. Brown is the author of "When Women Danced With Trees."
Most Popular
Comments / 0