The Open Ears Project - Episode Three: On Making Grandma Proud

CLEMENCY BURTON HILL: You’re listening to the Open Ears Project. This is day three.

[Music - Ave Maria by Franz Schubert]

Connie Viglietti: Did you ever have a moment like that where you're like, ‘Oh right, this is what I'm supposed to be doing’. Ave Maria is that for me. 

I'm Connie Viglietti. I'm a yoga teacher, and I’ve worked as an actress and singer for a very long time in New York City. And the piece I've chosen is Schubert's Ave Maria. 

I studied music theater in school, and then I auditioned for a bunch of things and didn't get them. And really, I started to get down on the grind and pounding the pavement and hearing 'no' and feeling so elated when I would book jobs and then feeling so disappointed when I didn't. And that's when yoga came into my life and I was able to channel my ability to make people happy off the stage. 

But music has always been in my life and my grandmother, Ginger, was an incredible singer. 

[Grandma Ginger singing] 

We would just dance and sing in the living room growing up and I would remember, she would record herself on a cassette tape singing. 

And when she passed, I got all the tapes. Um... She made everything look like she was dancing on a cloud. You know, she just had little ditties for everything, you know she would be like, (sings) ‘do you want any lemonade’, we would all just, you know, die laughing and now that she's gone, and we do these funny little ditties, it's like she's... She's still with us, you know. 

Um… She had a stroke, and her speech went, and her movement, and one of the things that I would do with her towards the end of her life was we would sing. And she still had those damn high notes, and I looked at her and I remember one time saying, like, ‘Nana like, I can't believe that you've had a stroke and you're 82 years old, and listen to how your voice is still hitting those notes’. 

So um, I got to do what she always wanted to do. You know, she wanted to dance, she wanted to sing... But you know, I haven't sung in a long time. And when I go back to singing, this is kind of like the piece I go back to, and I think about her voice because she used to sing this. 

There's so much in between every note, in between each phrase. I don’t know I just find myself there, I find... It feels like home.

You know, music connects us… Music is always there for us. We just need to reach out and connect with it. So for me, music is my grandmother: Grandma Ginger. She was the gift of music in my life and she still is with me through music. 

You know I... I'd like to think she'd be really proud of me. And I think for many years, I felt like I was letting her down when I walked away from a career in singing and acting. On her deathbed, she reached for me before I left, because I think she knew that it would be our last moment, and I whispered to her, ‘I promise I'm gonna make you proud’.

[Music - Etude No. 2 by Philip Glass]

CBH: Connie chose Schubert’s Ave Maria, and if you want to hear that in full it’s coming up shortly. If you’re enjoying what we’re doing, by the way, we would love it if you’d subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and maybe consider giving us a rate and a review, it really helps other people find us. And if you’re not already, do sign up for our daily companion email newsletter, which is filled with all sorts of cool stuff, including today, where to go practice yoga with Connie. Alright, take a listen, go hug your grandmother if you can. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Copyright © 2019 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.Note: The copyright date for any new transcripts should reflect the year the transcript is created. Also, for transcripts being created now for shows in the past, and send out or posted now, the language should be on the transcript (again, with the copyright date the transcript was created). For example, any transcripts created between now and the end of the year would have the copyright date of 2019, even if the show was made in 2018.