On her next album, Franklin will take on classical music.
“My teacher is a student at Juilliard and she knows the Juilliard technique, so I get it,” Franklin said.
With nothing to prove at this point, Franklin says that she is still working and still growing.
“Oh, absolutely. You never stop growing and reaching out for bigger and better things,” she said.
The classical genre came naturally for Franklin.
“I always heard it. My sister Erma used to play classical piano at home as children. And she played the ‘Flight of the Bumblebee.’ So I’ve heard it all my life and loved it, but I just started singing gospel and secular first,” she said.
I read it here.
Will people respect her more or less if she goes classical? Hmmm.
She has sung opera, of course. Here’s Nessun Dorma:
OMG!!! I can’t take it! If Placido Domingo tried to do R.E.S.P. etc., he’d be ridiculed and laughed off the stage and probably rightly so. There is such a thing as appropriate style, and with all due “respect” to Aretha, that is horrendous. I’m not sure I’d say it’s the best thing to try and become an opera singer at this late date. Maybe in the shower is where she should keep it like lots of other people.
I’m not sure she is planning on being an opera singer. Just a “classical musician”. So who knows if she’ll do Nessun Dorma again.
I still say it seems that very often pop artists want to cross over into the classical world and classical artists want to do the opposite. I think it’s our human nature to want to do what we aren’t doing much of the time, actually.
In any case, we’ll see what happens. She’s studying with someone at Julliard. I suppose if we knew who that was (a student there) we’d know more about her plans.
Michael Jordan wanted to play golf and baseball professionally because his success and fame in basketball made him feel he was qualified; that didn’t quite work out. Actors become singers and politicians because they have the connections and name brand to try. Joaquin Pheonix has announced that he’s retiring from acting, effective immediately, for a singing career(I don’t think his Johnny Cash was that good!). That occasionally works, but the more training it takes to enter the field they try to jump into, the more likely they are to fall on their face. If you like Bach with soulful melismas and a heavy backbeat, then it’s too bad she can’t team up with James Brown. Aretha recently was upset with another pop Diva for stealing her “Queen of Soul” label. There’s a lot of ego to go around the celebrity world.
I don’t limit ego to the celebrity world. We all have it, it seems. After all, the world revolves around each one of us in our own little eyes.
Yet we all turn to dust. Go figure.
if she wants to try classical, good for her. there are plenty of people who’ve gone the other way. and if she introduces a few of her fans to classical and opens their minds to its possibilities, i’m all for it. in my mind, the more musical sharing, the better.
I don’t mind people “crossing over” at all, Gabrielle. It’s just difficult to make it happen well. So if she can do it and do it well, I’m all for it.
People in either camp (if we can call them that) mock someone trying to make it in the other camp. Snobs exist everywhere. (This is why I laugh when classical music lovers are called snobs by others … those doing the name calling are usually snobs in their own way. Heck, we are all snobs in something, I think!)
In any case, I’m not making a judgment on what she is doing. Just hope if she does it she does it with quality.
All that being said, I’m not going to cross over into heavy metal with my oboe. 😉
I would love to see someone who’s spent an entire career in either one of those worlds switch and do it successfully. Of course, you can argue about what successfully means, but at that point, I’m done.
I wasn’t very impressd with that rendition of Nessun Dorma. Have you ever heard Freddie Mercury’s recording of opera with..umm.. Maria Callas, I think. Interesting try and I thought he was an awesome musician(Actually attended 2 Queen concerts in ’89 and 90′), but it didn’t do anything for me.