Interviewed by Elly Salah & Jamie Manias
Jay Grummel (they/them) was interviewed on September 4th, 2024, for about an hour in the early afternoon. This interview took place in East Hall at Bowling Green State University, in between the rush of classes, in our office (aka the MAR blog editor office). The office is just a short walk from the MAR office, where Jay interned a few months ago.
During this interview, we spoke with Jay about their summer mentorship with Iain Bell. Jay was awarded the Hoskins Global Scholarship for their mentorship. We were amazed by Jay’s ambition and humble nature, which will be incredibly evident in the interview below.
Interviewer:
This is Jay. Senior at BGSU. One of MAR’s previous interns. They were just in London, correct?
Jay Grummel:
Mm-hmm.
Interviewer:
Awesome. My first question is, can you tell me a little bit about your mentorship over the summer?
Jay Grummel:
OK. I applied for the Honors Hoskins Global Scholarship. I was given the scholarship to study writing opera in Europe, specifically London, with the composer Iain Bell. Bell was helping me write a libretto. He is a London-based composer who’s written a couple of his own librettos for his operas. I was emailing a lot of English composers. Iain knows Bowling Green, so he responded.
Interviewer:
So you were just emailing as many composers as possible?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah.
Interviewer:
That is so cool.
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. So, Iain agreed to work with me for July. We would meet up about twice a week for about one to two hours each time. We worked together for about a month. We went through and wrote a few different drafts of a libretto. The project was writing and experiencing opera and musical theater in London instead of the U.S., mainly interpreting the differences between how they treat art over there compared to how the U.S. does. That’s the very best summary of what I did, so I wrote a completed libretto for an opera.
Interviewer:
What you just said was very interesting. What differences were you able to discern between opera and musical theater here versus in London?
Jay Grummel:
London has the Royal Opera House, which is comparable to the MET in New York. And they also have the West End, which is comparable to Broadway in New York. In both instances, tickets were extremely affordable for someone who doesn’t make a lot of income. The audience in the shows was different. Sometimes, in the opera… yeah, you’d get a lot of older people, but it was a lot of young people and young couples on dates. There’s a lot of younger people in the crowd.
Interviewer:
OK.
Jay Grummel:
When I talked to people in London about what I was doing, they understood what I was doing.
Interviewer:
Yeah.
Jay Grummel:
Here, I say, oh, I’m writing a libretto. They’re like, what’s a libretto? Or, what’s opera? Or, isn’t opera dead? In London, you get a very different response when you talk about opera. London tends to really care about art and heritage. It’s not just artists. All around London, they have blue heritage plaques at places where artists, politicians, or people of importance live. Even if the vast majority don’t know them, if they are important to their field, they get a historical plaque where they lived or worked. They save everything, so that’s part of it.
Interviewer:
Is there almost more appreciation for history (in London)?
Jay Grummel:
More appreciation for history, the arts, and culture. Yeah. Anytime I went to see a musical, it was mostly college students or teenagers, both excited. I think art is more ingrained into their culture, and it’s easy to access. All museums are free. I even noticed which is again an observational thing. Kids, especially in Europe, up to high school age were still going on field trips. They’re always on field trips. They were always at museums. They were always outside doing something: seeing shows, seeing plays. I think part of it is that too because we (in the States) don’t normally get out of the classroom too much.
Interviewer:
Wow, that’s incredible. That’s really interesting.
Jay Grummel:
There were really big student discounts on everything too. Overall, it was more affordable too. Even with the currency difference, I would say it’s way more affordable to be in London doing artistic stuff. A lot of artists that I met live on their art.
Interviewer:
Really?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. I mean, Iain’s a very well-known composer, but, him and his husband, they live on their art. His husband is a playwright and an actor. They live on that in London, and the rent’s really expensive.
Interviewer:
That’s so interesting. I mean, I don’t want to make generalizations, but I don’t know if that’s common in the States at all.
Jay Grummel:
I don’t think it is unless you’re very famous.
Interviewer:
Uh-huh.
Jay Grummel:
I would say Iain’s quite well known, but he’s still working in a field that’s not necessarily super well known. Well, I guess, in Europe, it is different. Everyone kind of knows opera, so maybe that’s the difference.
Interviewer:
So Iain agreed to work with you and do this mentorship with you over the summer. Does he teach classes?
Photo caption: Iain Bell and Jay Grummel
Jay Grummel:
No, he’ll mentor people occasionally. He’s mentored a couple other composers, but he’s never mentored a librettist (before Jay). He’s written libretto before, but he’s never mentored a librettist. I was that first for him, but, no, he doesn’t teach at a university or anything.
Interviewer:
OK.
Jay Grummel:
He didn’t go to university at all. He doesn’t have an undergrad or anything. I think he believes more in the untraditional sense of learning.
Interviewer:
That is so interesting.
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. I know he’s working on more operatic projects than anything else, but I don’t know if he does orchestral or chamber.
Interviewer:
OK. One second. You just said, this is also not the next question, but you just said orchestra, chamber and opera. Are those different things?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. Orchestra is a piece for an orchestra. Chamber is a piece for a smaller ensemble, I guess. So, the orchestra usually is more than 60 people. I don’t know what the average number is. I’m trying to think of what the BG orchestra is. The chamber is normally five to 10 people. They’re all different things, but they’re musical terms. They get a little complicated.
Interviewer:
Opera is just singing, right? Or not?
Jay Grummel:
No. It’s similar to acting. Have you seen Phantom of the Opera?
Interviewer:
No…
Jay Grummel:
OK. Musical theater is derived from opera. The difference between what people will say about musical theater and opera is… opera has a specific type of singing and tends to not have dialogue. Some operas have lines where they’re speaking, and some don’t. So, for example, older operas tend to not include dialogue. Usually, in an opera, the entire time they’re singing. Instead of musical theater, you’ll get dances. Dialogue and stuff. Not a lot of operas do dances. There’ll be some scenes where there’s dancing, but it’s very specific.
Interviewer:
I am sorry. I tried to look at some of the terms beforehand just so I wouldn’t be so…
Jay Grummel:
You’re fine. I’m also not amazing with the terms, so I don’t really… You don’t have to hold yourself back. It’s, they’re tricky though. They are tricky. They’re almost purposely complicated because, yeah. Classical arts and music and stuff to me are a little pretentious. Some of the terms you don’t really need to know because they’re a little… Even saying libretto instead of text to me really annoys me. Because you say libretto to someone in America and they’re like, what the fuck is that?
Interviewer:
I see.
Jay Grummel:
But, if I say, I write the lyrics. Yeah. Then, they know. In the context of the opera, people know what you are talking about. But, people in the opera world for some reason are really anti the idea of calling it lyrics.
Interviewer:
Interesting. So, really keeping to tradition.
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. It’s a very traditional art form. I know people are trying to break out of tradition. A lot of new composers and new librettists are writing about things that are a little bit non-traditional. The one I wrote about is LGBTQ+ based.
Interviewer:
Yeah.
Jay Grummel:
In older opera, you were way more likely to have just men instead of women like you’ll have one woman to five men. That kind of thing on the stage. In my opera, I wrote it split 50/50, but the main characters are all women. I know a lot of people are trying to break tradition, and a lot of opera houses are trying to take on things that are breaking tradition. I know rural opera houses are trying to become less pretentious, but it’s still there. I know Americans view it as way more pretentious than Europeans do because Americans view it as almost a European export for some reason.
Interviewer:
Do you think that is influenced by the sort of romanticized view that most Americans have of Europe?
Jay Grummel:
I think so, and it’s also because when opera migrated to America, it was an upper-class thing, which is why any professional opera house is expensive to go to. Maybe, Americans know opera came from Europe, so we knew it as this higher-class thing brought over by higher class people.
Interviewer:
I see.
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. My partner, he’s a cellist, and he mentioned because a lot of these small towns in America would have opera houses, but they didn’t actually have the funding for opera singers or to put on the opera. So, a lot of these small towns have the opera house to be viewed as higher class even though it wasn’t being used for traditional opera. Sometimes, (the opera houses) they’re used for community theater. BG used to have one.
Interviewer:
Oh wow! I didn’t know BG had an opera house.
Jay Grummel:
Yeah, in Europe, there are a lot of older opera houses still in use. I went to the Deutschland opera house in Germany, which is really old. But, people can afford to go there. It’s not like the way that America has viewed it for so long. In America, the genre has just become a hollow symbol of class.
Interviewer:
Really?
Jay Grummel:
People in New York will literally buy Met tickets and only be there for an hour or 30 minutes to make face. The socialites of New York for some reason do that, and it has become really ingrained into the culture. However, in Germany, if tickets haven’t been sold before an opera, then two to three hours for the show, they’ll decrease the price to 5 euros for people under thirty.
Interviewer:
Wow, would you say art’s almost (in Europe) treated as a necessity?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah, I would say that.
Interviewer:
How did the mentorship contribute to your personal and professional growth?
Jay Grummel:
Well, I got the mentorship by finding composers online and emailing them. I explained in the emails what I wanted to do, and why I wanted to do it. I also offered to pay them for their time, which I did with the Hoskins Global Scholars Fund offered by BGSU. Honestly, not a lot of people responded. Very few people responded, but Iain did. Iain was the one that worked out the best. Now, I’m very close to this composer. It’s like name drop whenever you want. Networking was really helpful for the professional side.
Interviewer:
Wow, OK. How did you decide that, if we can really go back, how did you decide you wanted to be a librettist?
Jay Grummel:
My partner’s a cellist, and he loves opera. We were watching The Met on Demand when I started to think I don’t know, I was interested in the poetry of the text, at least the English versions. You can hear the poetry of the text. It’s interesting, I thought I could put something that I had already done which is poetry to a narrative, a stage, and form with music, which is kind of a lot going on. But, I liked the idea of collaborative art because poetry is very solitary. Poetry is very intimate. Even with readers, they’re reading it by themselves most of the time, it’s a very one-on-one kind of work that you do outside of workshops. But, with opera, you have singers. You have directors. You have composers. You have the orchestra. You have all these artists in one thing. All these artists in one thing making it what it is and I thought that was interesting and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted a collaborative community, and I enjoy hearing different people’s opinions on how things are interpreted. A lot of my research before Hoskins was how music adds to the story. Like, the example of Harry Potter was the easiest one that everyone knows. In the beginning of the movie, you know you’re in a different world because of the fantastical music, right?
Interviewer:
I do know that one.
Jay Grummel:
You’re watching a bird fly around, and nothing about that’s super magical, but the music in the background is immersing you into this fantastical feeling. I had an example from Tosca, but it’s really hard to explain. Yeah, I like to use the Harry Potter example because it’s super easy, and I show a video of Tosca because I’m like here’s how it works with opera, right? In Tosca, she’s realizing that the person she thought was alive is dead. You feel it from the music before anything is said. The music goes silent and then it starts slowly back up intensely, and you feel the grief happening before she even realizes that the grief is happening. It’s a way to immerse people into the art at an almost subconscious level.
Interviewer:
In a dramatic irony way?
Jay Grummel:
Yes. Then, you have to think about how the composer took the story and then did that with it. I think that’s really interesting, but that’s basically it. I kind of joked around about it being my honors project with Abby, and Abby said, I mean, you can do that… and I said, oh, OK!
(Abby = Abigail Cloud, Editor-in-Chief of MAR)
Interviewer:
Wow! When I first heard about you going to Europe, I really thought, these Handshake jobs are getting crazy. But, it’s so much more than that. It’s incredible and shows so much ambition that you really created an opportunity for yourself. That’s amazing.
Jay Grummel:
It was yeah. It was hard because it was lonely because it wasn’t like school or anything. I had to sublease an apartment, and I had never been to Europe prior to this. I just showed up in London by myself. I had no idea how the train system worked. My credit card stopped working… It was a whole thing.
Interviewer:
How do you feel about the tubes now?
Jay Grummel:
I love the convenience, but there are too many damn people in that city. I unfortunately flew in and got to the tube station at 8 a.m., which is rush hour for work. I was just there with this giant suitcase. People would just touch you. Like, you’re there, it’s just packed. There is nowhere to go, and people are mean.
Interviewer:
They don’t have that midwestern kindness. This is just a tidbit question, but what is the thing you miss most about Europe now that you’re back? And, what did you miss most while you were there?
Jay Grummel:
Mexican food. There’s no Mexican food in Europe. It’s horrible and really sad. I’m not a Tex-Mex person all right, I’m a Lupita’s person. I like traditional Mexican food. When I was there, I just wanted a burrito that didn’t taste like shit. I’m going to think of an actually good answer.
Interviewer:
I also love Lupita’s. (For anyone reading that’s not from BG, Lupita’s is a staple.)
Jay Grummel:
I also miss the appreciation that people have for heritage. In London when you tell people that you’re a writer, they’re like, Oh my god, that’s so cool. I’m so happy for you. You tell people you’re a writer in the States, and they say, what the heck are you gonna do with that? How do you make money?
Interviewer:
Oh, yeah!
Jay Grummel:
Yeah… But, I miss the birds.
Interviewer:
Can you share any accomplishments or contributions you’re particularly proud of from your mentorship?
Jay Grummel:
I also get to work with Griffin Candey. He’s a composer and advocate for LGBTQ+ voices. Griffin is nice and cares about new opera. He was also a resident artist at the Cleveland Opera House. And, Iain and Griffin are friends. Iain was actually Griffin’s mentor as well for composition which is different from libretti. I felt like I got to bring a fresh American perspective to the table. Iain said something along the lines of admiring American determination. He said something like, a European wouldn’t have emailed me randomly and been like hey please work with me.
Interviewer:
Well, I don’t think most Americans would do that either.
Jay Grummel:
Hm. Well, Iain said something about how he loves that Americans will do anything for art. I think he may have met some really nice Americans. But, I guess, coming from a place like America that views opera as unreachable or untouchable… I’m trying to put my voice into this space, especially as someone who comes from a lower-class family. I’m not necessarily the kind of person or from the kind of family where someone would find themselves in opera or even in Europe at all.
Interviewer:
OK. I just want to go back to that one thing you said. Do you feel making that community or building community was a big accomplishment?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. I felt like I finally found a community of people and artists that understood what I really wanted to do.
Interviewer:
Do you think with writing an LGBTQ+ focused, woman-focused opera, do you think that it was important that your mentors were also advocates?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah. I think with Iain being LGBTQ+ and an advocate for more women in opera that helped a lot with his understanding of what I wanted to do with the piece. I thought it was important. Like, if it had been a mentorship with a more traditional composer or librettist, it would be a little bit of a different conversation. So, Both Iain and Griffin are really focused on LGBTQ+ stories and women’s voices. Iain wrote a Jack the Ripper opera with no Jack in it. It’s about the victims.
Interviewer:
Wow, that’s incredible.
Jay Grummel:
Iain also wrote for the New York Opera a Stonewall commissioned opera about the Stonewall era. He’s been a very big voice for women and LGBTQ+ in opera for a very long time. Iain was understanding the direction I wanted to go in. Like, you know how sometimes you can get a teacher whose more pushy with the direction they want things to be written?
Interviewer:
Mm-hmm.
Jay Grummel:
Iain was more like a therapist, almost. He was asking me very vague questions, and I’m answering them, and then, suddenly, I realized, oh, that’s what I want it to be. But, he was not pushing me in any direction which I thought was really helpful.
Interviewer:
You’ve written a lot of poetry, right?
Jay Grummel:
Mm-hmm.
Interviewer:
Let me ask about voice. Do you feel this experience, this mentorship, helped you find your voice as an artist?
Jay Grummel:
I would say yes. This mentorship helped me find my voice as an artist, but it also kind of helped me find my voice as a person. For example, when I came back, a lot of people mentioned how I became a bit more confident. I think with opera, finding your voice as an Artist is different from in poetry where it’s strictly your voice in a poem. But, in opera, you’re finding your voice hidden within the layers of the characters, and I think that’s really pretty.
Interviewer:
That’s gorgeous.
Jay Grummel:
Opera is a kind of combination of two understandings: lyric and narrative. As a poet, you are already kind of thinking about the bounds of the English language and what would sound well musically. As a poet, I’m big on the musical sound of a poem.
Interviewer:
Yeah, that’s really interesting, so kind of going back to what you said about finding your voice hidden within the layers of the characters that you’re writing. You’re writing these characters in the libretti, right?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah.
Interviewer:
Do you think that looking back at your poetry or even poetry you’re writing now with the knowledge of opera bleeds into your poetry? Can you find your voice hidden in the layers of the poems you write, or is it less?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah, I would think so. I tend to write poetry that’s a little bit less direct. My poetic voice kind of rests in this weird, surrealistic kind of feeling. But, even in poems where I’m not consciously thinking about its meaning while writing, I find parts of myself layered throughout the poem. If somebody reads my poetry, it feels to me, at least, that it’s distinguishable as my poetry. You could pick it out of a lineup.
Interviewer:
It seems these experiences are building on themselves for you as an artist. You’re sort of in this funnel, and everything is culminating.
Jay Grummel:
Well, it started freshman year. These things (experiences as an artist) keep tumbling into a bigger & bigger thing. It’s kind of become a tumbleweed at this point.
Interviewer:
So, you’ve already thought a lot about your love for these two things, right? How are you able to balance these two fields of art? That also leads to our last question. Has your work in opera/music impacted your creative writing?
Jay Grummel:
I think so because before I started really messing with opera, my poetry tended to be more, I don’t want to say self-centered, but… descriptive, direct experiences about my life. Then after starting opera, my poetry became more like I was writing from a third-person perspective where I’m watching a character and writing that way. And, now, I focus a bit more on the music of poetry as I mentioned. I focus on how the lines sound out loud more than anything else or I think, how would this sound if there was a background sound to it? I think I’ve kind of hybridized the two art forms together in my brain unconsciously.
Interviewer:
Yeah.
Jay Grummel:
I love it. I think poetry and music should be combined more. Not even necessarily written together. When someone writes a poem, and the same person takes it and writes it to music which is something that composers have been doing for a long time. I think it would be way more interesting if done collaboratively. A lot of times a composer would find a poem and say, I like that, and I’m going to put it to music, and the poet doesn’t get a say in any of it.
Interviewer:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so interesting. But it’s got to rhyme.
Jay Grummel:
No.
Interviewer:
Oh!
Jay Grummel:
No! Opera barely rhymes.
Interviewer:
What?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah, that is the difference between musical theater and opera. Musical theater does rhyme, because it’s more based on the American version of songs.
Interviewer:
Songs over there don’t rhyme?
Jay Grummel:
I mean, they do now. I don’t know about other languages. But, operas barely rhyme, most of them don’t rhyme. They just sound good and make words sound good together without necessarily rhyming. At least, not end-stopped rhymes. A lot of opera doesn’t do end-stop rhymes. Sometimes there are slant rhymes, but when that appears, I think it’s a more natural thing.
Interviewer:
OK, and this will be my last question. I think. You just mentioned opera barely rhyming. That reminds me of craft terms because a lot of older poetry would rhyme and use meters. So, with librettis, are there craft concepts that you go back to? Does libretti have its own craft terms?
Jay Grummel:
Yes, I think so, but in a more narrative way. For example, they choose to do, people singing over each other in a duet. That would not be a traditional duet. Like, in a musical where they’re singing at each other. In an opera, two characters singing over each other could create a large amount of tension or emotion. I would say the craft elements, at least, that I learned for libretti is more the script. It’s more the structure of how people are singing and when they’re singing. Or, where the composer places the Aria or solo, either at the end or the climax. Sometimes, people start an opera with an aria. Some people have feelings about starting an opera with an aria. Craft in opera tends to be more focused on the structure of whose singing, when, and how they’re singing it. It’s all important for the emotional timing of it.
Interviewer:
OK. Thank you! Well, that was our last question. Could you send along some photos of your experience for the blog?
Jay Grummel:
Yeah, I do have a photo at the opera house with Iain. I have a lot of photos of birds. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I love the birds more than anything else.
Photo Caption: Jay with a bird
