Thanks Peter - so honored to have the opportunity to be interviewed by you. I hope it is of benefit to all for whom this will be of resonance as they grow in the art we share and love. One minor note - very early on in the interview mention is made of the famous recording I did of the Chesnokov concerto. Actually it wasn't this work that led to my association with Mr Shaw in 1989, but the work that was the reason for my association with him was of course the Rachmaninov Vespers, about which we conversed here about at length and how the recording we made paved the way for my career. It wasn't until around 2013 that I did the Chesnokov, and this was with the Austin based ensemble Conspirare under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson. Vlad Morisan of Musica Russica kindly gave me a copy of this piece a couple of years prior, saying that this piece was the quintessential piece for oktavists. Craig kindly gave me the opportunity to perform and record it. Again, all a part of pieces and opportunities coming into one's life at the time they are meant to. Thanks again - such an honor to have done this interview, especially in this chapter of my career.
I was part of a chamber choir at an ACDA conference in 1992. The Robert Shaw Chorale gave a concert... The only thing I still remember from that concert is that the basses literally shook the venue! Thanks so much for this chat; it's a blast from the past.
Such an honor to chat with Glenn Miller, one of the world's greatest basso profundo singers! Please enjoy this wonderful chat about music, singing, vocal technique, repertoire, and much more :]
Such an honor to be subbed to you, Peter, and have this opportunity to watch your interview with such a great in the bass singing community. Thank you.
I trained as a basso profundo and his richness makes me jealous; he makes other basso profundos sound like regular basses. My primo passaggio is the same as Glenn's (F#3), but he has so much more resonance down low than I do.
Seeing how amazing glenn low bass now im Proud to be baritone even i could sing below C2 like B1 easily! i can sing some audioslave song or even Aerosmith song without any strain in my throat. I love to sing really high and being loud distorted even tho people around me call me a deep voice guy but fuck it! i sing anything i want soulfully 🤘
@@iandavis69 You lucky bastard. I'm a normal bass (Last chest note A1), but I can't seem to sing above F#4 😞. I'm not a pro singer or taken lessons or anyhting, but still, it's frustrating not being able to sing rock songs.😢
@@johndeeregreen4592 Doesn't surprise me that a basso profundo would have a richer voice than a baritone, training for a a voice type that isn't yours won't do any good.
Absolutely fantastic interview and I guess it's true, doesn't matter how obvious of a bass you are there will always be teachers who look at you and think "lyric baritone".
I met Glenn Miller about a month ago at the Oregon Bach festival, hearing his voice in person really just makes everyone around him sound like a baritone.
Great interview, Peter! Glenn’s great Basso Profundo voice is certainly one of the greatest of our time. As an opera singer, you have mentioned that Cesare Siepi was perhaps your favorite operatic bass of all time. I’d like your reaction to my favorite operatic basso profundo of all time: Kurt Moll. His power to carry Osmin’s low D with such strength, tone, and clarity over an entire orchestra with no microphone was amazing and he could act too. I got to meet him once when I was in Germany and he was so nice and accommodating and perhaps it helped that I spoke fluent German. He also sang Baron Och’s low C on stage many times. I sang both roles myself, but only in college and graduate school, not professionally, as I chose to become an English teacher instead and am now retired. Again, great job here!
Thanks! Peter! This was an AMAZING interview! I really enjoyed this one A LOT! This felt like an interview between a father and son; there was such a perfect connection between the two of you! Thank you so much, Peter, for asking my question! I did not anticipate him answering my question before you asked him! Now we know that he's still going through puberty! There's no telling when his voice is going to stop dropping, lol. Thanks for doing this interview! Can't wait for the next one! May the Basso Profundo Be With You!
Although the term "basso profundo" is commonly heard among English speakers, it's an incorrectly assembled binomial (Italian noun with a Spanish adjective). One should either say "basso profondo" (all Italian) or "bajo profundo" (all Spanish).
Fantastic and very detailed interview, what an honor to have the great Glenn Miller on here. Great job Peter! Also, to point out, i believe that the Oktavist Glenn is referring to at around the 1 hour and 5 minutes mark must be Viacheslav Pruckich ("Slava" as a nickname i'm gonna guess). Fantastic Basso Profondo, if someone's hasn't heard his voice then check out TheOktavismChannel's videos of him singing "Bandura" and "Our Father". I would also recommend Alex Lukianov (American with Russian Heritage i believe, hence the surname), who is one of the eight Oktavists that has sung with Glenn in PaTRAM Institute, most notable for his performance/solo on Memory Eternal, Op. 9 No.15 by Chesnokov here on TH-cam.
Everybody in the comment section claim themself as a bass but now i'm really proud to claimed myself as a true baritone after hearing how glenn hit a G1 like nothing.
What an amazing interview!! These just get better and better! You were totally in your element on this one. Mr Miller seems like someone anyone would want to sit and talk with over lunch. Well done, once again!!
I finally listened to this interview because you love this guy & have so much respect for him. I need you to go back & do an analysis of the interview. I don’t know a lot of the words. I still enjoyed the interview. My dad used to listen to the kind of music he came from. I knew the name Robert Shaw & Glenn Miller! 💜💜💜
Hey! Thank you so much for getting these interviews of bass singing their insights and techniques!! I’m known as the “Bass Freak” around my friends and family 😂 been using resources like yours and others for chest vocal and a little sub harmonics as a party trick. PLEASE keep them coming!
I said it in a previous comment, a while ago - With your background in opera, you're a perfect bridge between the classical and contemporary eras of music. And I am so glad you're using this privilege to its fullest. Looking forward to future episodes of Vocal Arts!
Such an awesome interview! You seem so comfortable, and it was really nice how naturally things bounced from biographical stuff to technique to repertoire to performance. The man has had some incredible performance experiences! The shop-talk was pretty fascinating. Vocal things like overtones, vowel color, being the person everyone is tuning to, maintaining consistency (petting the cat vs hitting the cat, which made me laugh), and also the performance things like knowing the translation and the soil from which the music has grown. And if I ever meet any overzealous young basses, I'll make sure they know they "shouldn't be singing Wagner at 32!" 😁 Now I need to look up the distinction between a basso profundo and an oktavist.
It is so cool that you do stuff like this for us Peter getting all this information from the people you interview but also from You! Please continue what you are doing on here even when you are an world famous singer, the community needs you! Also just an idea, how about interviewing Elliott Robinson, he seems like such a nice guy he always takes time and responds to comments on his channel, helping out others like you do.
So glad I got to listen to your conversion with Glenn! Now could it be a possibility if you are able to have interviews on this podcast with guys like Tim Storms, Avi Kaplan, or Richard White (who is the voice of Gaston in the animated film Beauty and the Beast and an operatic baritone singer)?
Mr. Miller actually performed in choir with my highschool choir director while he was doing his masters degree. I wish I had the opprotunity to hear him perform live, i hope I can some day. Another thing, listening to him speak about his range in highschool and how he had reliable low E's / F's: in highschool there was a time where i had a reliable low D at any time and i feel like i can barely manage one today unless conditions are perfect. I still sing them and I still sing 2nd bass, i just feel like my voice has started to get just a bit higher which kind of makes me a bit sad. I was happy with the direction that I thought my voice was heading, but I don't know if it's gonna go down or keep creeping up and it's scary.
It would be so helpful if there could be links to this wonderful man's voice in different pieces. Those of us who are untutored in music would be so helpful!❤❤
I had a college professor who was good friends with Phyllis Curtin, who created the title role of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, and he told me what she said about basses: "Most basses aren't tall and they don't sound like real basses, but they sound like baritones." Would you agree with that statement, Peter? My professor is also a friend of Samuel Ramey.
I'm not exactly sure what she means. Some choral basses and other non-operatic basses can sound like baritones since range is more important than color in those settings, but operatic basses tend to sound like basses, otherwise they wouldn't be singing the bass repertoire. As far as height, more basses I know are taller than average, but it's certainly not a dead give away
@@PeterBarber Well, when my professor told me what the soprano Phyllis Curtin told him about the bass voice in her opinion, what she meant was how a real bass should sound like in terms of opera, choral, and theatrical singing. But more than that, I think your explanation to that situation is similar to Curtin's. So, it could have made sense to that. When I was in my undergrad years, I sang 2nd bass in a student choir and they were trying to lighten my voice in the same manner as Glenn's case. One piece I sing that has some low D notes was the O Magnum Mysterium and it was challenging for a low bass to hit those notes with my natural sound. Instead, I used a Slavic sound in the piece so it enabled me to project some lower notes in my register when going way down to that passagio in parts where the low D for 2nd bass is required. I had a friend who heard me sang the bass part and he told me I sound like Boris Christoff. I took it as a compliment, but I usually listen to recordings of him as a singing reference and idol. What a voice he had. He was just as talented as both Ramey, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Ezio Pinza, Cesare Siepi, and another singer I enjoyed listening to a lot: Marcel Journet. But other than that, thank you so much for bringing out Glenn Miller. I hope you get a chance to do an interview with a real opera singer one day: Maybe Sam Ramey, Christian Van Horn, Morris Robinson, Solomon Howard, Ferruccio Furlanetto, or even James Morris. And maybe Eric Holloway or Vladimir Miller in the future.
At 13:22 Glenn starts to talk about "Ping notes" and something about "when it's not time to ping yet" and I've never heard that ever, just went and tried to find information about it but can't. What is it?
Hello Mr. Barber. I have one question - I just asked it to another person who also uploads videos on yt and is a in classical... Namely: Ok, let's see - I propose you a music challenge (without a sponsor). What do you think about Leonard Cohen? No cover, only Him.
Very good interview. It doesn't seem like Glenn is a lover of Opera, especially Italian. Pinza and Siepi are the most important names of the last hundred years among the Bajos, although there have been many very good ones, Bulgarians, Russians, etc.
It's just a common knowledge that speaking higher is less straining on your voice and it keeps your voice healthy. It's never recommended to speak at your lowest.
3:10 Back then not being able to sing above middle C was my struggle, even though I am no true bass at I am a baritone (not sure which type). Many tenors probably struggle above middle C at the beginning of training I'm sure.
Their speaking voices are pretty similar! I could mostly tell after awhile who was speaking even if just from context clues, but sometimes I had to double check the visual too. I tend to enjoy these interviews more podcast-ish than video-ish to fit them in, but this is the most I've had to pay attention in that specific way lol
Thanks Peter - so honored to have the opportunity to be interviewed by you. I hope it is of benefit to all for whom this will be of resonance as they grow in the art we share and love. One minor note - very early on in the interview mention is made of the famous recording I did of the Chesnokov concerto. Actually it wasn't this work that led to my association with Mr Shaw in 1989, but the work that was the reason for my association with him was of course the Rachmaninov Vespers, about which we conversed here about at length and how the recording we made paved the way for my career.
It wasn't until around 2013 that I did the Chesnokov, and this was with the Austin based ensemble Conspirare under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson. Vlad Morisan of Musica Russica kindly gave me a copy of this piece a couple of years prior, saying that this piece was the quintessential piece for oktavists. Craig kindly gave me the opportunity to perform and record it. Again, all a part of pieces and opportunities coming into one's life at the time they are meant to.
Thanks again - such an honor to have done this interview, especially in this chapter of my career.
The honor was all mine -- such a pleasure chatting with you, Glenn!
Create a youtube channel
You must be a great guy to chat with, love it!
I was part of a chamber choir at an ACDA conference in 1992. The Robert Shaw Chorale gave a concert... The only thing I still remember from that concert is that the basses literally shook the venue! Thanks so much for this chat; it's a blast from the past.
I love you Glenn Miller!!! Can I interview you? Watch my other interviews to see if you think I'm good enough for you!
Such an honor to chat with Glenn Miller, one of the world's greatest basso profundo singers! Please enjoy this wonderful chat about music, singing, vocal technique, repertoire, and much more :]
Such an honor to be subbed to you, Peter, and have this opportunity to watch your interview with such a great in the bass singing community. Thank you.
The man who makes your average bass sound like a baritone 😅
I can't wait for this interview!
I trained as a basso profundo and his richness makes me jealous; he makes other basso profundos sound like regular basses. My primo passaggio is the same as Glenn's (F#3), but he has so much more resonance down low than I do.
Seeing how amazing glenn low bass now im Proud to be baritone even i could sing below C2 like B1 easily! i can sing some audioslave song or even Aerosmith song without any strain in my throat.
I love to sing really high and being loud distorted even tho people around me call me a deep voice guy but fuck it! i sing anything i want soulfully 🤘
@@iandavis69 You lucky bastard. I'm a normal bass (Last chest note A1), but I can't seem to sing above F#4 😞. I'm not a pro singer or taken lessons or anyhting, but still, it's frustrating not being able to sing rock songs.😢
@@johndeeregreen4592
Doesn't surprise me that a basso profundo would have a richer voice than a baritone, training for a a voice type that isn't yours won't do any good.
Absolutely fantastic interview and I guess it's true, doesn't matter how obvious of a bass you are there will always be teachers who look at you and think "lyric baritone".
Absolutely 😆
Yeah I wonder why
exactly. i can literally sing a full projected B flat 1 across a room and my singing teacher said im more of a baritone.
I met Glenn Miller about a month ago at the Oregon Bach festival, hearing his voice in person really just makes everyone around him sound like a baritone.
Have you ever heard Eric Hollaway speaking??He makes Glenn Miller sounds like higher bass!!
@@manwithmonstervoice1100How about Mikhail Zlatapolsky? He sounded like an ancient swamp monster😂
@@laurellebasanal6081 😂😂😂 he was the lowest and heaviest bass on the planet Earth .
Great interview, Peter! Glenn’s great Basso Profundo voice is certainly one of the greatest of our time. As an opera singer, you have mentioned that Cesare Siepi was perhaps your favorite operatic bass of all time. I’d like your reaction to my favorite operatic basso profundo of all time: Kurt Moll. His power to carry Osmin’s low D with such strength, tone, and clarity over an entire orchestra with no microphone was amazing and he could act too. I got to meet him once when I was in Germany and he was so nice and accommodating and perhaps it helped that I spoke fluent German. He also sang Baron Och’s low C on stage many times. I sang both roles myself, but only in college and graduate school, not professionally, as I chose to become an English teacher instead and am now retired. Again, great job here!
Thanks!
Peter! This was an AMAZING interview! I really enjoyed this one A LOT! This felt like an interview between a father and son; there was such a perfect connection between the two of you!
Thank you so much, Peter, for asking my question! I did not anticipate him answering my question before you asked him! Now we know that he's still going through puberty! There's no telling when his voice is going to stop dropping, lol.
Thanks for doing this interview! Can't wait for the next one!
May the Basso Profundo Be With You!
Thanks so much, Isaac! Glad you enjoyed this father-son chat 😆
Although the term "basso profundo" is commonly heard among English speakers, it's an incorrectly assembled binomial (Italian noun with a Spanish adjective). One should either say "basso profondo" (all Italian) or "bajo profundo" (all Spanish).
Fantastic and very detailed interview, what an honor to have the great Glenn Miller on here. Great job Peter! Also, to point out, i believe that the Oktavist Glenn is referring to at around the 1 hour and 5 minutes mark must be Viacheslav Pruckich ("Slava" as a nickname i'm gonna guess). Fantastic Basso Profondo, if someone's hasn't heard his voice then check out TheOktavismChannel's videos of him singing "Bandura" and "Our Father". I would also recommend Alex Lukianov (American with Russian Heritage i believe, hence the surname), who is one of the eight Oktavists that has sung with Glenn in PaTRAM Institute, most notable for his performance/solo on Memory Eternal, Op. 9 No.15 by Chesnokov here on TH-cam.
Everybody in the comment section claim themself as a bass but now i'm really proud to claimed myself as a true baritone after hearing how glenn hit a G1 like nothing.
Not only is Glenn Miller, an epic bass, but he is so personable as well. Thanks again for the interview.
And a wonderful organist and choral conductor
Thank you Peter for bringing such a legend to talk with us mere mortals
What an amazing interview!! These just get better and better! You were totally in your element on this one. Mr Miller seems like someone anyone would want to sit and talk with over lunch. Well done, once again!!
Paciencia. Gracias Mr. Gleen Miller.
Thank you, Mr Miller. Great job, Peter!
I finally listened to this interview because you love this guy & have so much respect for him. I need you to go back & do an analysis of the interview. I don’t know a lot of the words. I still enjoyed the interview. My dad used to listen to the kind of music he came from. I knew the name Robert Shaw & Glenn Miller! 💜💜💜
Hey! Thank you so much for getting these interviews of bass singing their insights and techniques!! I’m known as the “Bass Freak” around my friends and family 😂 been using resources like yours and others for chest vocal and a little sub harmonics as a party trick. PLEASE keep them coming!
I said it in a previous comment, a while ago - With your background in opera, you're a perfect bridge between the classical and contemporary eras of music. And I am so glad you're using this privilege to its fullest. Looking forward to future episodes of Vocal Arts!
Even though you're both obviously excited, I'm struggling to stay awake as the low tones of your voices create such a soothing feeling.
your are excellent man ---can't wait you interview tim storms!!
Such an awesome interview! You seem so comfortable, and it was really nice how naturally things bounced from biographical stuff to technique to repertoire to performance. The man has had some incredible performance experiences!
The shop-talk was pretty fascinating. Vocal things like overtones, vowel color, being the person everyone is tuning to, maintaining consistency (petting the cat vs hitting the cat, which made me laugh), and also the performance things like knowing the translation and the soil from which the music has grown. And if I ever meet any overzealous young basses, I'll make sure they know they "shouldn't be singing Wagner at 32!" 😁
Now I need to look up the distinction between a basso profundo and an oktavist.
Thanks so much for watching and listening (and for this great comment)!
Oktavist(A1- min low forte), Basso-profondo(C2- max low forte)
It is so cool that you do stuff like this for us Peter getting all this information from the people you interview but also from You!
Please continue what you are doing on here even when you are an world famous singer, the community needs you!
Also just an idea, how about interviewing Elliott Robinson, he seems like such a nice guy he always takes time and responds to comments on his channel, helping out others like you do.
Yes, please!
Great interview, thank you Peter😊
thanks for watching/listening!
I did catch part of the premiere but knowing I can watch the whole deal when time freed up ....... AWESOME!!!! An easy listen at that!!!! Be Safe
So glad I got to listen to your conversion with Glenn! Now could it be a possibility if you are able to have interviews on this podcast with guys like Tim Storms, Avi Kaplan, or Richard White (who is the voice of Gaston in the animated film Beauty and the Beast and an operatic baritone singer)?
Most definitely possible 👊🏼
@@PeterBarber thanks
A little demonstration of Do not reject me in my old age by Mr.Glenn at 30:40, fantastic🎉🎉🎉
I can't wait for this one!
Mr. Miller actually performed in choir with my highschool choir director while he was doing his masters degree. I wish I had the opprotunity to hear him perform live, i hope I can some day.
Another thing, listening to him speak about his range in highschool and how he had reliable low E's / F's: in highschool there was a time where i had a reliable low D at any time and i feel like i can barely manage one today unless conditions are perfect. I still sing them and I still sing 2nd bass, i just feel like my voice has started to get just a bit higher which kind of makes me a bit sad. I was happy with the direction that I thought my voice was heading, but I don't know if it's gonna go down or keep creeping up and it's scary.
Im confused Is low E a E2 or E1?
@@BangYongguk-sf8ly In this context, "low" is the second octave
Fantastic interview! Thank you so much for this...
Always good to see Glenn Interviews, I was lucky to get one in way back
🔥
Thank you for this very informative and very interesting discussion! I always learn from you, Peter! 😊
Great interview!
Thanks a lot Peter!
It would be so helpful if there could be links to this wonderful man's voice in different pieces. Those of us who are untutored in music would be so helpful!❤❤
great interview Peter. at minute 9:00 talking about the Finnish composer's Verpers. can you tell me what the work is?
I was so confused. When I first heard of this guy, I was thinking of Alton Glenn Miller, who died in 1944. I was thinking "he was a bass?".
I had a college professor who was good friends with Phyllis Curtin, who created the title role of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, and he told me what she said about basses: "Most basses aren't tall and they don't sound like real basses, but they sound like baritones." Would you agree with that statement, Peter? My professor is also a friend of Samuel Ramey.
I'm not exactly sure what she means. Some choral basses and other non-operatic basses can sound like baritones since range is more important than color in those settings, but operatic basses tend to sound like basses, otherwise they wouldn't be singing the bass repertoire. As far as height, more basses I know are taller than average, but it's certainly not a dead give away
@@PeterBarber Well, when my professor told me what the soprano Phyllis Curtin told him about the bass voice in her opinion, what she meant was how a real bass should sound like in terms of opera, choral, and theatrical singing. But more than that, I think your explanation to that situation is similar to Curtin's. So, it could have made sense to that.
When I was in my undergrad years, I sang 2nd bass in a student choir and they were trying to lighten my voice in the same manner as Glenn's case. One piece I sing that has some low D notes was the O Magnum Mysterium and it was challenging for a low bass to hit those notes with my natural sound. Instead, I used a Slavic sound in the piece so it enabled me to project some lower notes in my register when going way down to that passagio in parts where the low D for 2nd bass is required. I had a friend who heard me sang the bass part and he told me I sound like Boris Christoff. I took it as a compliment, but I usually listen to recordings of him as a singing reference and idol. What a voice he had. He was just as talented as both Ramey, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Ezio Pinza, Cesare Siepi, and another singer I enjoyed listening to a lot: Marcel Journet.
But other than that, thank you so much for bringing out Glenn Miller. I hope you get a chance to do an interview with a real opera singer one day: Maybe Sam Ramey, Christian Van Horn, Morris Robinson, Solomon Howard, Ferruccio Furlanetto, or even James Morris. And maybe Eric Holloway or Vladimir Miller in the future.
Mega cool❤❤
At 13:22 Glenn starts to talk about "Ping notes" and something about "when it's not time to ping yet" and I've never heard that ever, just went and tried to find information about it but can't. What is it?
Wait, what the heck happened at 30:45? Did he just sing the notes loud enough to force the camera mic to adapt or something?
Hello Mr. Barber.
I have one question - I just asked it to another person who also uploads videos on yt and is a in classical...
Namely:
Ok, let's see - I propose you a music challenge (without a sponsor). What do you think about Leonard Cohen? No cover, only Him.
Из России- привет! Классная тема. спасибо...🌹🥀🌺🌻🌼
Very good interview. It doesn't seem like Glenn is a lover of Opera, especially Italian.
Pinza and Siepi are the most important names of the last hundred years among the Bajos, although there have been many very good ones, Bulgarians, Russians, etc.
How did you manage to get ahold of him?
Sometimes he drops so low, the mic thinks it's backround noise lol
When was Glenn born?
They speaking voice is lower than my lowest note lol.
Btw my lowest note is F2
Glenn speaks high comparing his low range and easily drop the octave it freaks me out
It's just a common knowledge that speaking higher is less straining on your voice and it keeps your voice healthy. It's never recommended to speak at your lowest.
3:10 Back then not being able to sing above middle C was my struggle, even though I am no true bass at I am a baritone (not sure which type). Many tenors probably struggle above middle C at the beginning of training I'm sure.
Westminster Choir College graduate.
no way!
He talks like Tom Norello, just that one octave down jjjaja
You know!!! 😂😂
So you have a cap with your name of it ~~~~
gee
Im sorry peter i love this but its very hard to listen too. You both sound the same lol
Their speaking voices are pretty similar! I could mostly tell after awhile who was speaking even if just from context clues, but sometimes I had to double check the visual too. I tend to enjoy these interviews more podcast-ish than video-ish to fit them in, but this is the most I've had to pay attention in that specific way lol