A Little Bit in Love in Hunter
by Thomas Weaver

Darcy Dunn & Mark Singer bring their dynamic art of opera and Broadway hit songs to the Catskill Mountain Foundation Red Barn Performing Arts Center on February 15 at 8:00 pm for an evening of romantic enchantment. Darcy Dunn has been making a splash in the music world for over a decade and, along with her husband, Mark Singer, has performed in opera and original shows with the Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble (MCORE) under the direction of Ray Harrell, a New York-based teacher and vocal coach.

Mark is the son of a cantor and grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home in the mill town of Passaic NJ, about a 15 minute drive from the Lincoln Tunnel. He attended Jewish schools and along with his brother and sister went to Temple where his father sang. Mr. Singer was an excellent cantor with a powerful voice and was an exquisite interpreter of the traditional cantorial liturgy. The congregation was graying and sparse except on the high holidays when 700 people would attend and Mark's Father would perform with a large choir. Mark described it as "very moving and inspiring". He stated that one of his strongest ties to Judaism is through music.

During dinners the Singer family would sometimes sing at the table, although none of the children read music they would try to take one of the choir parts while their Father sang the cantorial part. The children did have very good ears for music and Mark remembers being able hold onto the part his was singing by memorization. Recently he and Darcy performed at a concert during which he sang the Kaddisch by Maurice Ravel that was one of the highlights of the show. Mark continues to study the music for the high holidays and is considering taking a position as a cantor this coming fall for the holidays.

Mark remembers sharing a room with his brother who was a musical theatre freak who was always playing records. Mark picked up a lot of music by ear during that time. His brother would also check out librettos and plays from the library and the three Singer children would read through them on Friday nights. Mark's brother now writes regularly for the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times.

Although Mark loved music, he didn't pursue it until he was finishing an English major at Columbia University. One of the common experiences he and Darcy have is that as kids they appeared in separate amateur versions of West Side Story and each of them experienced theatrical mishaps during the performance. At Columbia, Mark took some acting classes and helped produced and appeared in an original television show for Columbia TV that in Mark's words, "was pretty bad". During his senior year he took voice lessons and found out that he had a knack for singing. His father encouraged him to study with his teacher, but he didn't pursue this avenue until he had a full-time job.

After graduation, Mark took about a year to find a permanent job, temping until he found a position in the Fixed Income Department of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., a Wall Street boutique firm. He joined the firm as an Associate Portfolio Manager and felt the time was right to begin studying voice with his Father's teacher, Ray Harrell. Although he began voice training late, it wasn't too late Mr. Harrell assured him, if he really applied himself. So, he began studying in 1986 and that's how he met his wife, Darcy. Although it would be some time before they clicked.

Darcy was introduced to Mr. Harrell through one of her teachers at Sarah Lawrence, Peter Castaldi. Mr. Castaldi's wife is Gabriella Granados heads Gabriella's American Bolero Dance Company that performed at the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map)'s PAC several years ago. Mr. Castaldi described Mr. Harrell as a wild guy with whom Darcy would love working. Darcy described her first experience with Mr. Harrell's work as, "everybody was rolling around on the floor making incredibly strange noises". So, she naturally started working with him.

Darcy began her journey into the world of music while a high school student in Morristown, NJ where she performed in community theater productions. Works like The King & I, Funny Girl and Jesus Christ Superstar introduced her to the world of musicals. The daughter of a lawyer and teacher, Darcy attend public schools and spent time with her Mother in Libya where she had taken an overseas teaching assignment.

While attending Sarah Lawrence, Darcy auditioned for a solo role in the chorus and the instructor told her that her voice was extraordinary and that, if she wanted, she could have a career as a professional singer. Concentrating on music and voice during college, Darcy performed as a vocal soloist in works like Honneger's Roi David, Bach Cantatas, the Mozart Requiem, the Haydn Missa Solemnus, as well as solo recitals. She also worked with composers to develop new music that ignited a strong interest in performing contemporary classical works.

Fast forward to Ray Harrell's studio where both Mark and Darcy were now jointly studying. "I was immediately attracted to Darcy", said Mark. Darcy was warm and friendly, but that's the way she is with everyone. Mark later learned that Darcy was rather indifferent to him. But, they went out together, once. The date was a disaster. They wandered around during a blizzard trying to find the restaurant that Mark wanted to take her to. Darcy knocked over a glass of wine into Mark's lap and when it came time to pay the bill, Mark had to go back out into the blizzard to find a cash machine. They didn't have another date for two-and-a-half years.

During 1987 Mr. Harrell was teaching a performance class. Mark and Darcy attended, as single acts. It was during this time that they met Julia Mendelsohn, who was the class accompanist. Mark claims that Julia ignored him then and continues to do so, even though today she is the music director for Dunn & Singer. In 1988 Julia produced an evening of scenes and songs from Broadway shows. Mark and Darcy were cast together singing, Birds Do It, Bees Do It and Let's Misbehave by Cole Porter.

By this time Darcy was working as a waitress in the restaurant in which her date with Mark took place and living in a walk-up on 103rd Street off Central Park. Mark's career was taking off at Sanford Bernstein and he was assimilating more and more responsibilities as a Portfolio Manager and Trader.

The spring of 1989 found Darcy traveling to Indonesia for several months. While in college she had studied Indonesian Kung Fu, called Silat, and was becoming good at it and wanted to study more intensively for an extended period of time. Before leaving, however, Mr. Harrell had offered her the role of Mercedes in a production of Bizet's Carmen that he was directing at the Mannes School of Music. She had previously appeared in a La Traviata that Mr. Harrell had directed.

Darcy returned from Indonesia just in time for rehearsals of Carmen. Mark was offered the roles of El Danciario and Morales. When Mark saw Darcy for the first time since her return, he thought "Wow, she looks really good". He said it was "love at second sight" for him. They spent a lot of time together during rehearsals, although not dating. Another woman in the cast asked Mark out for the final night of the show. He called Darcy and told her that he didn't want to go out with the other woman—that he wanted to go out with her. They did and they've been together ever since.

Over the next five years, life was intense. The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble was formed with a demanding schedule of rehearsals three nights a week and on weekends. Business meetings for the group were on Wednesday nights. It was a performers' cooperative. In 1990 Mark was made a partner of Sandford Bernstein and became a Senior Portfolio Manager.

He worked from 8:00 am to 6:30 pm and then went to rehearsals until 10:00 pm. Grabbing a bit to eat and drink afterward then home to wake the next day and do it all over again. It was a grueling pace of life. During the summer of 1991 MCORE received a positive review from The New York Times for a show it presented at the now defunct Theatre of the Open Eye. It was the MCORE performances that laid the groundwork for what Dunn & Singer do today. During that time they were also working with contemporary music that has been particularly important to Darcy.

MCORE flourished, as did Mark's career at Bernstein. Darcy and Mark's relationship also blossomed. During 1992, The New York Times reviewed a two-week performance series at the Theater at St. Peter's Church in the Citicorp Building singling out Darcy as "alluring both vocally and physically" in the lead of Ned Rorem's A Childhood Miracle.

In 1993 MCORE was invited to be the resident opera company at New York City's avant-garde La MaMa Theatre. A performance of a bizarre Gypsy Carmen received less than favorable notices from the Times, but Mark was complimented as an "expert, playboy Escamillo". By this time he had been promoted to Chief Operating Offer of Bernstein's Fixed Income division and was managing 60 people.

During a client meeting in Boston in June 1994 he felt the weight of his responsibilities at Bernstein and the responsibilities of his performing career when he almost passed out. It was four weeks before his and Darcy's wedding. Mark under went emergency ulcer surgery and although he looked a little pale he and Darcy wed as planned.

His brush with illness convinced him to reduce his responsibilities and cut back on his performing with MCORE. He and Darcy did perform at the 70th birthday tribute to Ned Rorem at Merkin Concert Hall, after which the MCORE company was disbanded due to financial problems. It had produced two CDs and numerous performances.

After MCORE folded, Darcy continued to study with Ray Harrell and had a number of prestige engagements, including performing the role of Laura in a production of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta at Town Hall in New York City and also was the mezzo soloist with the New York Symphony Ensemble in Mahler's Second Symphony, plus the title role in a the world premier of a new opera, The Boy from Deerfield by Martin Halpern.

Mark performed a solo recital at the Society for Ethical Culture in Manhattan during which he began to perform the eclectic blend of vocal music that will be presented during the Hunter, NY concert on February 15. Dunn & Singer first performed at the Red Bar at its opening concert in November 1998.

Mark became a senior shareholder at Bernstein in 1997 and felt in 2001, when the firm was purchased by Alliance Capital, it was time to leave. He felt it was time to concentrate on his love of music and performing and began studying with Daniel Ferro, a highly regarded teacher who taught at Julliard for over 30 years. For the past year, Mark has been the Executive Director of the Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York.

Mark and Darcy own a home in Prattsville, NY and are eager, along with their piano accompanist Julia Mendelsohn, to pursue performance opportunities as a trio. This fall, Darcy is slated to appear in a solo recital at Ned Rorem's request, honoring his 80th birthday. Akiva, Mark and Darcy's son, starts kindergarten next fall in New York City and loves spending time in the mountains. He recently took his first skiing lessons.

Julia Mendelsohn's son, Connor, is pursuing a successful acting career having performed principal roles on Broadway, television and film. He most recently was featured in Law and Order and had a long run success in the musical The Full Monty.

Mark, Darcy and Julia will perform selections of Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, Rogers & Hart, Cole Porter, Ravel, Benjamin Britten, Lerner and Loewe, Kander & Ebb and other during an evening of Broadway and Opera hits. For tickets, please call the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map) at 518 263 4908 or log onto the Web site at www.catskillmtn.org for a peak at the Foundation's cultural offerings and other businesses of interest, including the farm market, bookstore/gallery and two state-of-the-art movie theaters. Tickets for Dunn & Singer are priced at $10 for CMF members with advance purchase, $12 for non-CMF members with advance purchase and $15 at the door. For information about becoming a member of the Catskill Mountain Foundation (map) or to request a copy of the newly published Subscription Brochure/Calendar of Events, please call 518 263 4908, extension 202.

^ Top