By Grace Galarraga
It’s hard for Marie Claire Giraud to describe how much she appreciates using her voice. In fact, there might not even be a word for it yet. “I love to sing,” she said, “I mean there has to be another word- I’ve been trying to discover another word to describe how I feel when I sing other than love because love doesn’t actually describe it correctly. It’s more than that.”
This feeling truly manifested itself one New York open mic night. Beneath soft spotlight and amongst an unknown crowd, Giraud took the microphone between her fingers and as her voice poured out into the audience something spiritual overcame her. “It was like God spoke to me and He said, yes, this is what you’re meant to do.” In the glory of performance, she had an intense feeling sweep over her, one that went on to become “more rooted than the Redwood Oaks in California. It was like nothing could stop me.”
Since then, the singer, writer and actress from the Bronx has been on an intense creative journey. From writing a musical practically in her sleep to performing on Broadway, one thing is clear: Marie Claire Giraud is working hard. This November she’s going to take on the role of Goldie in Tennessee Williams’ play Hello From Bertha. Shortly after auditioning for the play, the world was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Broadway was extremely affected, but with things recently beginning to open up, Giraud received the fantastic call telling her that rehearsals for the show were back on and she couldn’t be more excited. “The more I rehearse the more colors I have to paint with,” she said, speaking in her typical wonderfully lyrical nature. “I don’t paint with just that one row of Crayola crayons, I can paint with three rows now because of rehearsals.”
Living the life of a true artist in New York City, Giraud hops between Broadway rehearsals on 42nd street to performing jazz at Dante’s in the West Village. Her voice spills out four days a week from within the walls of Dante’s, one of those ancient, historically charming New York spots nestled in the city. She sings classic songs from The Great American Songbook, which features insanely well-known artists such as Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, just to name a few.
Giraud may have many talents and interests, but jazz makes up a part of her, especially when it comes from The Great American Songbook. “You could take any song from it (the Songbook) and no singer will sing it the same,” she muses. “You could put your meaning on it and it just becomes something else. It doesn’t change the lyrics or how important they are, but it becomes personally your own song. And that’s what I love about The Great American Songbook.” She notes Ella Fitzgerald as one of her key inspirations, dubbing her “the reason why” she started singing. Giraud also lushes over Cole Porter, naming his work her absolute favorite to perform at Dante’s. “I could sing Cole Porter every day of my life and never get tired of it. This man could string the English language together like nobody else.” His lyrics roll off her tongue almost as if they were instinct, or perhaps Gospel- “How strange the change from major to minor…”
While talking with Marie Claire Giraud, you’ll be able to recognize her as an artist in an instant. She embodies artistry in more than just her voice and her acting, but in her storytelling as well. In her packed schedule she makes sure to find time to work on an upcoming book and a developing screenplay, both products of a life changing sort of therapy she went through during the pandemic. In the vast sea of having absolutely nothing to do, Giraud made sure to do something useful with her time. “Someone finally told me okay, Maire Claire, you need to deal with your issues now, or you’ll never be able to deal with them because now you have been afforded the time to do it,” she said, determined. She was able to move a deep and heavy creative block out of her way and just like that, everything made sense.
From her mental cleansing, Charcoal was born. “I was writing it in my sleep,” she recalled. “I was literally waking up in the middle of the night with my phone to take voice notes because it was coming in my dreams. I was waking up half asleep singing the songs into my phone, so I didn’t forget them.” Charcoal is Giraud’s passion project, a musical centered around a young albino girl born into an African tribe that rejects her for being different. After being brought up by a Priestess who taught her the way of nature and magic, she was taken by the slavers that were pillaging the area. Once she was brought to Virginia, to disguise her appearance, she was covered in black charcoal and oil. “She starts chanting a spell,” explains Giraud, “and that spell renders her charcoal forever and renders her immortal. And the last scene of the musical is the 2020 Black Lives Matters march on Brooklyn Bridge City Hall.”
Giraud plans for the musical to contain several different types of music that change with the different times. Traditional African songs in the introduction, spiritual and churchy anthems for 1700s Virginia, big band jazz for the 1940s, Motown for the 1960s civil rights movement and finally, pop music for 2020. Giraud hopes that one day her musical based on a song she wrote a long time ago will make it to Broadway and get a live performance, but right now she has her focus on different things. Part of her busy work week includes dedicating six days each week to studying opera and preparing for her operatic debut with Maestro Richard Barrett.
In several sessions with her teacher, Giraud’s voice bloomed into something she didn’t believe it could become. “I went to him as a contralto, which is basically the lowest female voice and my voice was in tatters. It was really in bad shape. And he said, ‘who told you you were a contralto, that is not accurate.’” In a vocal experiment gone right, Barrett was able to coax out a secret soprano voice that was dormant in Giraud for her whole life in a little under two years. “I can’t even believe how I sound now,” Giraud said.
With her newfound voice and freshly inspired spirit, Marie Claire Giraud is more radiant than ever. Times are busy, but in a good way and everything seems to be falling into place around her. In a final note, Giraud tells me (and everyone) to “never give up on your dream because that’s the flame that keeps us going, that keeps us young, that keeps us energetic. It gives us youthfulness, playfulness, curiosity. Keep working hard and don’t skip any steps and keep moving forward.” It feels personal, and above all, authentic. While getting to know Marie Claire Giraud, you’ll discover one thing that makes her stand out. She is well aware of the majesty of knowing exactly what she’s supposed to do in her life- and what a life it is.
