Ariel Bybee, the renowned opera singer, was nearing her sixtieth birthday when her daughter Neylan, who wanted to surprise her mother with an extraordinary gift for that occasion, asked me to create something that would commemorate her mother’s life.

Ariel, a mezzo–soprano, had a distinguished career as a soloist, voice teacher and opera director, singing more than 450 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. To her audiences she is the voice behind everyone from Madame Butterfly’s Suzuki to Annio in the Met’s premiere of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.

Yet to others, she is Ariel (her father chose her name from Shakespeare’s Tempest and the biblical Book of Isaiah), a mother, a friend and an individual whose warm personality and depth of soul impress everyone who knows or meets her.

Studying articles written about her during her career, as well as personal testimonials from family and friends, I devised five handmade books, each one taking the viewer through different parts of her life, and each named after a song from The Sound of Music. The books are unified in their form but differentiated by their color and content.

Music is the thread running through each of the books, which are accompanied by handmade envelopes created from music–imprinted vellum. These open envelopes encourage browsers to take out the newspaper clippings, performance programs, and old letters. The selection of music that appears on each envelope is relevant to the theme of the book it accompanies. Metallic and pearlized paper lends a note of glamour to the books, reflecting something of the magic of the world of opera.

Accompanying my books, Ariel’s family created a special birthday program for the birthday event in which was printed a quotation from The Tempest: “…to answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly, to swim, to dive into the fires, to ride on the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all her quality.”

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Lisa created a series of books for my mother for her 60th birthday, one book for each era of her life. Lisa artfully and respectfully positioned letters and pictures from my mom's friends within each of the books. The result was marvelous. Far from any ordinary concept of a "scrapbook", each of the books was a true work of art with contrasting textures and a variety of colors. Yet the books also worked together as a whole. My mom treasures the books and I really can't imagine a better artist to have created them.

"To Answer Thy Best Pleasure"—Neylan McBaine