On Feb. 11, after spending an egregious amount of time looking for a table, I sat down in Zeus for another student artist interview. It was a change of scenery from my usual Tjaden studio tour, but I was interviewing a new kind of artist — a performing artist.
Samantha Lockwood ’27 is the president of the Class Notes, an on-campus co-ed a cappella group, and also performs with the Melodramatics Theatre Company. Entertainment is and has always been an integral part of her life. “I’ve been doing theater since I was six, and singing was always just sort of part of that,” Lockwood said, when asked about how she got started. Her first love, theater, is how she defines herself as an artist. Although she recognizes that it’s a controversial stance, given that she’s the president of the Class Notes, Lockwood stands by it. “I’m an actor, and I only get to test the bounds of that in theater. … As much life as I like to give to my a cappella performances, you can only act so much when you don’t have a character to play.”
That isn’t to say Lockwood is uncommitted to a cappella. In fact, she says it has defined her college experience. Coming to Cornell, Lockwood was ready to give theater up. She hadn’t realized she would be able to find that community again on campus, so she decided to pursue her passion through a cappella. “When I was in my freshman fall, I dedicated my life to the Class Notes. It was pretty much all I did,” she shared. It makes sense, then, that as a mere sophomore Lockwood has already inherited the role of president of the group. “A cappella really pushed me out of my comfort zone. … Cornell and the Class Notes have given me the space to learn so many different things about the thing that I love to do the most [singing], that I never would have realized without being here.”
Flooded with positivity from within the group, Lockwood is looking to reform their image on campus, which she casually termed “a bitchy reputation.” Being unfamiliar with the Class Notes’ infamy, I pressed for details. Lockwood laughed as she gratified my curiosity: “We’re a very intense group. Because we work so hard at our craft, I think that oftentimes people misunderstand. With a work hard environment comes a play hard environment. But we’re working on being more approachable. I think we just come off a little scary because of the work that we put in.” Lockwood takes her role as president seriously because song is integral to who she is as a person. “Music is very centered in my life. All my passions revolve to some degree around music.”
When asked about what she thinks makes art so important, Lockwood identified honesty and expression. “Art, for me, is something wholly unique to what you’re feeling in your own circumstance that you want to share with the world around you that you can’t keep inside anymore.” Lockwood chooses to articulate that feeling through singing and acting because “singing expresses what words alone can’t.” To her, performance art is especially potent because “you can never recreate the same show and the same performance multiple times. It makes it unique — like living art — which you don’t really get in terms of other physical art.”
She also wasn’t hesitant to share that, in her opinion, art isn’t just any piece of creation. To Lockwood, art is powerful only when it means something deeper. “I think that if your art isn’t leaving someone with something to think about or a sort of catharsis, you need to question where your art is coming from internally,” she stated. It takes a certain measure of fearlessness to get on stage and really let yourself feel. With every performance, Lockwood hopes that vulnerability leaves her audience with some epiphany.
It’s clear that Lockwood has a deep devotion to her craft and the meaning she conveys through it. When asked if she is going to keep performing professionally, however, she shook her head. “It’s just for now. I never want it to end, but I know that professionally there are other things I can do that are more lucrative and will give me a better shot to enjoy my art without making a living out of it.” I think there’s something to be said about the fleeting nature of art, especially performance art. As Lockwood identified, a performance can never be exactly recreated. That ephemerality is what makes it so poignant, what allows it to express that broad range of emotion that Lockwood believes is crucial to art. Regardless of whether music is a lifelong pursuit, Lockwood recommends “anybody who likes to sing or has a passion to try out for all of these things because it can only serve you. … It becomes such a worthwhile experience.”
If you’re interested in seeing what that degree of passion sounds like in person, Lockwood can be contacted at sjl358@cornell.edu or @sammylockwoodd on Instagram. The Class Notes will be holding a concert on April 12, and Lockwood will be performing in the Melodramatics’ production of Spring Awakening from April 17 to 19.
‘Student Artist Spotlight’ is a column that runs intermittently on Tuesdays, featuring student artists of all kinds on campus. For interest in a feature, please contact Melissa Moon.
Melissa Moon is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at mmoon@cornellsun.com.
