Always something to love. Ella Taylor.
“I’m just finding myself unable or unwilling to accept anything less than what I need to be nourished and what I deserve.” That. Ella Taylor, soprano (there’s a joke in there - you’ll have to read the post!) is in the room - to sing, to be respected, like everybody else. Our chat with them gave us the artist, the human, the soul. And some rather fine zoom etiquette. Enjoy!
photo: emma brown photography
Who are you?
I’m Ella Taylor. My pronouns are they/them. I’m a freelance classical soprano.
Why singing?
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of doing anything else. I’ve been singing in church choirs since I was ten. One of my parents is a freelance professional musician, the other one is head of music at a secondary school. My grandad studied music at university, builds his own viola da gambas (or, he used to). My uncle plays recorders (don’t ask me why)…
So, I didn’t stand a super good chance of not being in music at all. It turns out I’m pretty good at it and I really like doing it.
If I start a project or I start learning something and I think ‘this is going to be awful’, I find that there’s always something to love that makes me love the whole thing. Even if it’s just one bar, you can find a way.
If your path was predestined, did it ever occur to you to step out of line?
I would say that, just around now, I’ve realized that you don’t have to do what everybody else does. In the strictest sense. Recently, I was filming an improvised piece, with a bunch of singers, who were from gospel to musical theatre to house. And they were all trans. And, really, our voices had nothing in common, apart from the fact that we wanted to come together and do some cool stuff.
If you’d had told me, when I went to music college, that that would have been something that I would get paid for, I would have probably said, ‘No. I only want to do contemporary classical music. I like singing stupid hard notes.” But you know what? Sometimes, when you’re improvising and you land on a major chord and you just vibe that major chord out for the whole thing. And you just create something beautiful.
I think if you don’t try and forge your own path, you’ll never be satisfied.
Was this a conscious choice or ‘I found myself here, it’s kind of cool, I’ll just keep doing it’?
I’d say that I discovered that there was more music that I liked singing - even if it was merely Mozart (!). As for where I landed with this filming – I know a lot of classical musicians because I’ve been surrounded by them my whole life. I didn’t feel like I knew anybody trans and I was deeply feeling that loneliness. I know a few people, and they’re brilliant. But I wanted that community. And I really wanted it in a way that was making music, because that’s what I love to do most. And I love being trans, so…
That wasn’t really a conscious decision. There was a call out for it and I thought - that could be fun. It would be something completely different. and I’d get paid doing it, which is kind of a nice bonus.
Every year of my life that passes, I’m just finding myself unable or unwilling to accept anything less than what I need to be nourished and what I deserve.
As you go forward in your career, how many decisions about what you do and with whom, are informed by ‘we’ll have Ella, because Ella is the poster child for trans musicians/it will make our production look really cool”?
First of all, I would say (completely without ego), is that I’m aware of the position that I’m in and the person that I am and the responsibility that that holds and the poser that that could have. Therefore, I do think that it’s very important that the work that I will take on in the future (or – am taking on now) is done with the knowledge that those thoughts about being the first trans whatever or whoever (which probably isn’t true half the time) – those thoughts will be put on to me by other people. I won’t be putting those thoughts onto myself.
I’m very proud of what I’m trying to do in this industry and I think people put a lot on that sole part of my identity without considering who I am, as an artist, as a whole. the work that I’ve been trying to create for myself – that’s great. I do that to uplift that trans part of myself, I do that to uplift other trans voices. But the more ‘traditional’ work that I do, where I’m just being hired to go and sing something that is already pre-existing or I can’t curate – I’m just there to sing it.
I’m in the room, to be respected, just like everybody else. If you really think you’re going to sell more tickets to a show by having a trans person in it, then you have not taken stock of the hostile environment towards trans people in 2021 in the UK. Is what I think.
I just can’t help but feel like - maybe performers who are also minorities will always have this complex around this. It would be all well and good to say (and maybe it should be) that “I’m Ella and I just sing.” That would be lovely. But, until the Royal Opera House hires any other trans singers, if you’re the only one on the stage, that automatically becomes a message. Partly because of how lacking the rest of the stage is. I notice it. Mostly with how white most castings are, to be honest.
It becomes a political choice because you’re othering them because you’re the only one person. There’s also a sense of ‘yeah, I want to make it better’. I want more people to be able to do that.
How much of this is your responsibility?
I don’t know – is the honest answer.
How much of the responsibility are you willing to take on?
I’m definitely not willing to take on as much as it takes. I’m not a selfless enough person for that act. If all I did was be an activist to get more trans people in opera, I wouldn’t do any singing. I’d just be an activist. And I like singing, so I’d like to do that as well.
I you didn’t sing, what would you be doing?
I cannot even imagine. I wouldn’t live in London if I wasn’t singing. I wouldn’t have met my partner if I wasn’t singing, so I wouldn’t be with her. I wouldn’t have studied music – no, I probably would have studied music! (I was never good at anything else!)
I wouldn’t have lived my entire adult life if I wasn’t singing. So it’s hard to know. Also, I have no memory of my childhood. that whole thing with trauma where you block out years of your life. So there’s that. I don’t know. Maybe I’d just be in a regressive teenage state…
This past year and a bit of pandemic – what did it give you?
The first part of it gave me zoom etiquette.
There was just a lot of silence. I didn’t really do anything. I won’t say it’s the first time in my life I’ve been unmotivated to sing. I really, really just couldn’t and didn’t want to. Everyone was like – “I’m going to learn SEVEN operas.” Why??? Why would you?! why do that, when you could not?!
I don’t know how I got started again. I had the National Opera Studio still in my life. That thing that you find so annoying at the time – having to be somewhere at a certain time and do a certain thing, is actually a very good structure when, suddenly you look out your window and you can’t do anything.
Honestly? The rest of the pandemic – it gave me work. Here’s the caveat – I’m very grateful for it. I’m less grateful that I have to say that I’m grateful. It’s good to have work. And I’m sorry for people that don’t have work. But work is very tiring. Let’s not pretend that work isn’t annoying, sometimes.
In that silence, before you got the work, was there a reflection on this path that you’ve taken and where you’ve ended up?
Definitely. If you’re a performing artist, who performs to people, who are you when that audience goes away? Who are you performing for? Like I said, why are you learning seven operas, when you could just not? Some people were working on the craft of what we do. But I feel like there’s only so much of that. You can only ‘craft’ yourself so much before you just have to be thrown out to wolves and do it.
Who were you when the performing went away?
I think I was a naïve, young artist at an opera studio. Who thought their path had been laid out before them and that everything would be fine. And then, I was still a young artist at an opera studio, but I was having zoom coachings on repertoire, that I was learning for, seemingly, no reason and I didn’t know what to do.
I auditioned for the 2020 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, maybe four days before everything shut down. I forgot about it. I thought I’d sung terribly, anyway. I told my pianist to fly home to New Zealand. And then, I got into the semi-finals and suddenly I had something to think about that wasn’t - ‘what happens next’.
It became the way I like to work (which is probably not the best) – slightly rushed, lots of stuff to learn, just get it done and it will all turn out alright in the end. It worked, so that was good!
I think if I hadn’t had that opportunity, I really don’t know where I’d be now.
Who are you?
Whenever my friend Richard sees me, he always says, “It’s Ella Taylor, soprano!” I am a person who likes to sing, who like to cook, who doesn’t like when people don’t understand what it means to be an intersectional feminist. Until people understand that and get their ass in gear, I’m just going to have to keep being a soprano who also has to call people out for their bullshit.