A master’s guide to singing
A renowned interpreter of the great American songbook and musical theater repertory, Barbara Cook surprised the audience during her opening remarks at a recent Harvard master class by quoting a maverick music-maker. “The great jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker once said, ‘Music is your own experience — your thoughts, your wisdom. But if you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.’” On Broadway, Cook was the original Cunégonde in 1956’s “Candide,” composed by Leonard Bernstein ’39, and Marian the Librarian the following year in “The Music Man,” created by Meredith Willson. Over her career, she attained legendary status as a performer on concert stages, the cabaret circuit, and recordings. In 2011 she received Kennedy Center Honors, which recognized the now 85-year-old for her “purity of tone, warm timbre, jazzy timing, and impeccable diction.” But in the Farkas Hall rehearsal studio last Thursday during the master class sponsored by the...