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The end of December marked the end of the teaching semester for Sung-Ha Shin-Bouey, the professor responsible for voice and choral music in the UPEI Department of Music. Vocal training is important because the classical repertoire makes such technical demands on singers, and because it requires such a wide vocal range, but there's more to it than technique. Her challenge is often to improve student's expressivity and interpretation—to help them learn to truly perform.
“I tell them, ‘You've learned how to pronounce in German…now you need to learn to communicate.' You can't just stand there without a change of facial expression, when you're singing ‘I like you today, but I might like someone else another day.'”
She teaches students with a wide range of vocal experience, from students with no training to students with 12 years of lessons. “Voice is a mysterious instrument,” she says. Its mechanisms are embedded in muscle memory. “But if you're passionate about music, you can jump right in and enjoy singing. You can enjoy it from day one.”
“You can't enjoy the violin the first day,” she notes.
“I still quite enjoy performing, every chance I get. Not just professional performances, but family gatherings or with friends. . . . I was given a talent, and I like to share it with listeners,” she says without pretension—adding, with a laugh, “I never ever ever had a problem showing off what I could do.”
Like some of her UPEI students, Sung-Ha did not begin formal voice training until she was twenty, but had a strong background in music. As a child in Korea, she was influenced by a musical family. Her father, a singer, played operatic records. (She remembers, “I heard only the best people sing.”) And her mother was one of the most sought-after piano teachers in Korea. She fondly recollects family singsongs. They occasionally included Korean or international popular songs, but her family's repertoire came mostly from well-known classical and folk songs, often in Korean translation.
Her family emigrated from Korea so her pianist brother could avoid mandatory military service. His best friend had lost two fingers to a pistol he was cleaning, and this became her family's nightmare. At the time they applied to emigrate, Korean emigrants had no choice where they would be sent, and the Shin family was sent to South America, ending up in Argentina.
This move was fateful for Sung-Ha, who had had an early passion for Spanish songs. A film she had seen as a child featured a ten-year-old pop singer singing Spanish songs, and Sung-Ha was enchanted. “I came home and remembered every song. I played them on the piano. I went on top of the big table and did my flamenco dance. I said to my mom, ‘Mom, can I be like that—can I be a Spanish singer?' When I was nine years old in Korean dance class, I remember being scolded, ‘Why are you dancing like a foreigner?'”
Even yet, she says, “I am trained to sing all types of repertoire, but my favourite repertoire is Spanish vocal music.” She frequent closes concerts with a Neapolitan song, “La Spanola,” another favourite from family singsongs. “It is so me,” she says. “It's a simple song, but the whole package is in how I deliver it. Audiences respond to the passion.”
Her new album Beautiful Dreamer is sentimentally named for one of the songs from her family singsongs, but she admits to being disappointed with the English lyrics and finding her voice opening up in the song when she sang a verse in Korean. She says the Korean lyrics translate, “After you wake from a beautiful dream, look towards the sky, and look through the stars that are shining for you.” As she sings the words, her arm arcs gracefully skyward, and her eyes follow.
“The song is very positive to a child who loves music or songs,” she says. Since her childhood, Sung-Ha Shin Bouey has not lost her desire to communicate her love to students and audiences. She is still dreaming, waking, reaching up.