Associate Professor of Voice Kendra Colton, OC ’83, has had a robust performance career during her 20 years at Oberlin. With a focus on classical and Baroque performance, she has also premiered and recorded many modern works. She gave a recital with Collaborative Pianist Tatiana Lokhina on Feb 16 and will be performing four songs by Schubert Feb. 28 in Finney Chapel with the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. This is her last year as a professor at Oberlin.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the inspiration behind your recent recital?

Last fall, I sang this program at a retirement community where the parents of my long-time friend and pianist, Kayo Iwama, OC ’83, live in New Jersey. I came here as a pianist and I left as a pianist and a singer, but my degree is in piano. She and I were in the same studio. That was the beginning of our singer-pianist relationship. Kayo can talk me into many things. And last fall, she knew that I was getting ready to stop singing and said, “Come on, Kendra, let’s do a recital. Let’s do a recital. Come on, it’ll be fun. You can sing whatever you want. We’ll do it at my parents’ retirement home.”

So, I said, “OK, I’ll sing for your parents, and I’ll just pick stuff that’s easy for me.”

We did the program there, and people liked it. Then after the program, she said, “You know, Kendra, you should do this recital in Boston for your friends as a musical farewell to them.”

I go, “Well, I already have this learned.” And then Tatiana Lokhina found out that I was retiring. She said, “Oh, Kendra, can I play for you, please, please, can I play for you?”

I said, “Well, I do have this program ready, so I suppose I could do it.” And she did a great job.

That was gonna be the end of it. My first singing recital was on Kulas stage, and my last singing recital was gonna be on Kulas stage. Close the book. Finito. Then Kayo calls me up and says, “Kendra, can we do it at Bard?”

So I said, “Well, it has to be pretty soon, because I’m gonna be done practicing.”

Is there anything else that you’ve been doing in your final year that’s exciting or that you’re proud of?

I don’t know that I’m doing anything new and exciting this year, but I’ve had a fabulous 20 years here. You see all these recordings? Two [albums] I did before I started teaching, but all the rest of them I’ve done since I’ve been here. A lot of my career, I sang Bach cantatas, so these [six albums] are Bach cantata arias and duets. 

Oberlin, in its vast wisdom, has a fund that you can apply to for projects. So all of these, except for the two that I did before I started teaching here, have funding from Oberlin, for which I am eternally grateful.

Are there any mentors that you’ve had that you want to highlight?

The woman who made it possible for me to get started is Lee Dougherty. I moved to Milwaukee after grad school, and she was there. She was a family friend and I stayed with her for a short time. She knew everybody in town — absolutely everybody — and she said, “You need to send a tape to this person. You need to send a letter to this person,” and at the end of the day she would check up on me to see whether or not I had done that. I sang with every organization in that town. Then it was time to move on.

I got a rotary scholarship. I moved to Europe. I lived in Zurich, Switzerland for five years, sang in the opera chorus over there, made a ton of money, didn’t want to sing in the chorus, so I quit. I came back and moved to Boston, and my friends in Boston said, “You need to sing for this and that,” and so I’ve been in Boston ever since — I commute. I was hired as halftime faculty because I was still performing a lot, and it gave me the time that I needed to go off and perform. But now that I’m older, I’m not performing as much, so I have more time to be here.

Do you have any plans for after you retire?

One of my life goals is to visit all the national parks. I’m a third of the way there. I want to catch a fish larger than I am. I want to build a wooden rowboat. I want to learn how to do graphic design — I love taking pictures. I wanna learn how to paint with acrylic. I want to become fluent in Italian at last. It’s a stupid time to do it, but they say learning a language is a great way to keep your brain from atrophying. I want to drive across the United States.

I like adventure. Right after I retire, I’m going whitewater rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Then in the fall, I’ll be hiking around Mont Blanc. I want to go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. I want to go to Patagonia. I wouldn’t mind going to Antarctica. My parents have been to all of the continents.

I’m ready to quit singing. It’s time for the younger kids to have a chance. I’m gonna be 65 years old, and who wants to hear a 65-year-old soprano? It’s not as supple and easy as it used to be. It’s like being an athlete. No matter how much you train, you can’t keep doing it the way you could when you were 30 or 35, and I miss that. With everything that I know now, why can’t I have that, you know? It’s a bit frustrating, but I get to share with them what I know, and hopefully they’ll put it to use with what they have.

Is there anything you want to see change at Oberlin once you’re gone?

I want to see full scholarships for every student in the Conservatory. I don’t want money to have to interfere with the ability to recruit students. It’s a great school, and I’ve seen it from both sides, and you won’t get this education anywhere else. You won’t get the opportunities anywhere else. You will leave Oberlin better prepared than any other institution will prepare you. I firmly believe that.

The other thing I’d love to see is for every graduating singer to be able to sight-read anything. Singers get a bad rap because their instrument is about five years old. So during their time here, the trajectory of their learning curve has to be basically straight up to catch up with all the pianists and violinists who’ve been playing their instruments since they were five. It’s a little unfair for the singers who have to learn how to use their voices that are so new, learn about music theory and music history, and get exposed to all this music that they’ve never heard before. They have to learn languages, how to move on stage, how to collaborate. It’s unbelievable. But if they could leave being able to sight-sing, that would be a great tool for them. I’m thinking about making a scholarship for sight-singing for singers to inspire that.

Is there anything else you want to share?

If you had asked me when I was a student if I thought I would ever teach at Oberlin, I would have said, “Oh, no.” Even 21 years ago, if somebody had asked me “How would you like to teach at Oberlin?” I would have said, “I’m not good enough to teach at Oberlin,” because my memory of Oberlin is that everybody here was a god, and I don’t feel like I’m a god. But I’m very happy that I came and I had this opportunity.