LAURIE HARTT
Staff Writer
It’s lunchtime, and you’re starving. You rush out of class, head to the Sandbar, grab your mail, and then make a beeline for the Cafeteria. The average person can walk from the Sandbar to the Cafeteria in a minute or so. Timothy Campbell, a junior Music and Theater contract major, usually takes a good three or four just to make it to the sandwich line, however. It is a rare day that he does not stop and talk to at least five people on his way, pausing in his insanely busy – and hungry — life to care about someone else’s day.
In this simple act alone, Campbell demonstrates his life motto: to live passionately and compassionately. In every aspect of his life, this mission is carried out to the fullest, from basketball to singing to traveling. At only 21, he has already lived and loved with more energy and acclaim than most of his peers can claim.
Born in Woodinville, Wash., to loving and outgoing parents, Campbell began developing this joie de vivre from an early age. He began learning piano in elementary school, continuing his lessons for another 12 years. In high school, he played basketball, baseball, and tennis. When he quit baseball his sophomore year – the year the team won the state championship – to sing in the school musical, however, “people couldn’t understand why.” But his friends knew something was up.
Six years later, that something continues to soar higher every day.
During his senior year in high school, Campbell’s rising talent for music and acting compelled him to audition for several music conservatories. He soon realized, however, that he was really unsure of what he wanted from life. In a search for a more well-rounded education, he applied to the University of Washington and Pepperdine.
Pepperdine won in the end because of its strong theater and opera programs.
Although initially equally interested in music and theater when he first applied to the school, Campbell’s true passion was soon uncovered: opera.
When he starts to talk about this particular art form, his eyes light up and he leans forward in earnest concentration. The great thing about opera, he says, is that it “combines brilliant visual arts with the most beautiful music and beautiful poetry.” Opera also combines acting and theater – other passions of his – with music.
Additionally, it brings to life the French and Italian and Spanish stories. As a lover of foreign languages, Campbell’s involvement in opera presents him with many opportunities to sing in other tongues. “If you can speak the language, you can sing it better,” he adds.
This love of foreign language and culture prompts much travel: Campbell has previously studied abroad in Edinburgh and plans to participate in the Heidelberg music program this summer.
Most important in the field of opera, he says, is the work ethic it demands. “You can’t settle for mediocrity,” he declares. “You have to be superb to be successful.”
In order to achieve that level of perfection, Campbell lists three essential things: a passion for opera and theater, singing talent, and a lifelong work ethic. “Opera demands an extraordinary life,” he explains.
BA Theatre Arts alumna Anaka Shockley noticed especially the off-stage products of that work ethic: “Over the last three years of being in shows with him and around him constantly, I have seen him mature more than I ever expected he would. He is more humble, despite the fact that his skills have only improved.”
Campbell already has an impressive eight Pepperdine shows to date, including Fiddler on the Roof, The Rivals, the Grapes of Wrath, the Music Man, Cosi fan Tutte, Songfest, and Anything Goes. This semester, he sang a leading role as the Count in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, performed in celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday.
Professor of Music Henry Price says of Campbell: “To make it in the operatic field, you need to have many talents. You need a great voice and excellent acting ability. You need to be musical and you need to be a musician – those are two different things! You need to have innate intelligence; you must have a gift for language and perhaps above all, a burning desire to succeed. Tim is the rare individual who scores extremely high in all these areas.”
This talent and dedication is noted by teachers and students alike. Fellow Music Major Joey DeSota concurs: “One of the things I like most about working with Tim on stage is that he is all about precision. He and I both want the notes, words, blocking, etc. to be as close to perfect as possible and I admire that about him.”
Anything Goes costar Christi Thompson also observes this commitment: “He is so passionate about the roles and shows he becomes a part of, and this passion pretty much radiates out of him.”
Outside of his many rehearsals, music classes, and auditions, Campbell has a myriad of other interests. “If I hadn’t been an actor or astronaut,” he notes, “I’d have been a marine explorer.” Since opera is his passion at the moment, such ambitions are put on hold and his free time is spent shooting hoops at the courts, playing beach volleyball, boogey-boarding, and hiking in the hills behind Pepperdine. He is often founding skating around school on his Razor scooter or listening to rock ‘n’ roll in his Lovernich apartment.
When reflecting on his relationships with his friends, Campbell laughs at himself. “I [have] friends in all groups,” he says, “and I’ve been acting like I was 12 since I was 16!”
Friends describe him as talented, lanky, funny, crazy, bold, and kind-hearted, an obvious reflection of the compassion he desires to show the world.
Roommate Keith Colclough attributes their friendship to Campbell’s outgoing personality: “Tim and I were cast in the Barbershop Quartet for Music Man together had about half our classes together. After the show was cast he came into music theory and sat down next to me and said something to the effect of we are going to become best friends, and that has been more or less true.”
Although mostly good-natured, he can be a bit mischievous at times, especially when he’s annoyed. Friend and former roommate Sean Lyons remembers an incident from last year where Campbell sneaked into the bathroom when he was showering and dumped an entire can of salsa on his head. “The shower was pink for weeks,” Campbell remembers with a grin.
This impish side is balanced by his more nurturing side. Shockley recounts a time when he spent 30 hours in a car with her in the period of six days. He’s the only person “who would sit with me and listen to all of the problems I thought I had in my life,” she says.
In his pursuit of passion and compassion, Campbell says that he tries to “live mindfully, alive to every moment.” He values creativity over destructiveness in order to better the world and to love the people in it. For this reason, he says, he loves the movie Gattica, because it’s “all about heart, a wonderful tribute to the human spirit.” He also notes Martin Buber’s “I Thou,” Buddhist teachings, and Kierkegaard as influential in shaping his worldview.
Campbell thrives on productivity and beauty and constantly strives for them in everything. His biggest fear, he says, is “living a normal life.”
An aspiring poet as well as musician, Campbell holds high of hopes of someday writing songs to the poetry of Pablo Neruda, a man he claims was “the greatest romantic poet” of all time. His journals are filled with songs and poems, and he says that although he loves opera and the rehearsals, he “dreams of writing short stories, poems and plays.”
After college, Campbell plans on going to grad school somewhere on the east coast – possibly Yale — and then on to Europe to do opera for the next 40 years.
Colclough says that ten years from now, Campbell will be “either on Broadway, working as a successful opera singer, directing/writing, or living in Guatemala as a poet milking goats and drinking coffee.”
Whether it’s on the stages of New York or in the passenger seat of a friend’s car, Timothy Campbell is a person who seizes the moment in any situation, enriching every day with his heartfelt energy and contagious passion.
03-08-2006