AlaNATS 2010

Congratulations to UAB voice students who competed at AlaNATS this past weekend: Tyler Henderson, 1st place senior men Jacob Wooten, 2nd place sophomore men Shane Bloemetjie, 2nd place freshman men Ryan Reese, freshman men semi-finalist Jessica Johnson, sophomore women semi-finalist and to ALL of the singers who represented UAB. We’re very proud of each of you. Bravi tutti!

Move over, SURVIVOR!

Drama about Forth Worth Opera wins... http://fwothescoop.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2432329%3ATopic%3A6450

Our last listening session

For those of you who want to keep a list, here are some of singers we viewed/heard on YouTube during our last listening session: Dmitri Hvorostovsky Simon Estes Thomas Hampson Robert Merrill Jussi Bjoerling Alistair Miles Thomas Quasthoff William Warfield Simon Keenlyside Angelika Kirschlager Agnes Baltsa Susan Graham Jonas Kaufmann Jon Vickers Maria Callas Renee Fleming Kiri Te Kanawa

Acting food for thought, opera singers!

Here's the first installment of acting classes by Uta Hagen, acting teacher extraordinaire.

Three new blogs I found...

Here's a new blog I found through my college friend and colleague, Jean-Ronald LaFond: http://susan-oncemorewithfeeling.blogspot.com/ Read the latest post...good food for thought, young singers. And, for some of the best acting teaching around, nothing beats Ute Hagen. A blog based on her work, including a wonderful link, is at http://respectforopera.blogspot.com/ And a blog on the history of bel canto singing... http://belcantoforum.com/ Read and learn!

Thought for the day

"I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire."--Gordon Lish

Teaching voice...YOUR voice, and YOUR brain!

As most of you know, I've been studying with a renowned voice teacher in Vienna. We've had three lessons a week for two weeks, and it's been a very intensive experience, as you can imagine. I've learned a great deal as a singer, and anticipate this will translate to some interesting changes as a teacher, too. Here's why: I tend to be pretty concrete. Do this with your tongue, watch your alignment, be sure that vowel is a reall "oo," etc. I tend to respond well to this kind of teaching, and (as we learned from my Kolb workshop), my default teaching style corresponds predictably. I do try to meet each of you where you are and speak your language, as it were, but I want to continue growing in that area. Here's what's been so interesting about this summer: my teacher here is extremely abstract. And I mean, REALLY abstract, at least to my mind. No muscles directly addressed, no tongue position, nothing that I might consider concrete. [There is ONE concrete thing, though. We'll talk about pelvic floor later; this has been astounding.] Sometimes I'm not sure what she's talking about, even though our lessons are in English. But I jump in and do it, and am hearing a HUGE difference on my recordings. It seems that even if my conscious brain doesn't always understand, my subconscious does. Or my body does. Who knows? All I know is, it's working. So the question I want to pose to all of you is, how do you learn in lessons? This might be different than standard classroom learning. Which lessons jumped out at you as breakthrough lessons? Where did you hear progress? Would you be open to trying totally new approaches? Talk to me, and please be as free-form as you wish. I'm really interested in hearing what each of you have to say. This could impact our experience together in a powerful way! Please post here, and see what other people have to say, too. Reading other responses might spark something in your own mind that hadn't before occurred to you. Looking forward to your thoughts.