Vocal Gymnastics in the Form of a Bumblebee

Because I couldn't help it.....

COSI in Italy: Summer 2010

The Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI) has developed an undergraduate-friendly program for 2011.

COSI 2011 is undergrad-friendly!

So few of the Canadian opera programs are making room for undergraduates, despite the young singers' ready willingness to participate! There is a need for recommendable places for my own students (though we remain grateful for the ones that are recommendable!). We have therefore adapted COSI to serve both the advanced, career-ready singers, and the undergraduate singers who are building their skills, learning roles, getting their stage legs, and developing a sense and stylistic abilities.

We have really fortified COSI's capacity and curriculum for undergraduate singers this summer.

Excellent coaching, lessons, loads of solo performing opportunities in our courtyard and piazza concerts (at least 8 of those!), Italian lessons, master classes, and chorus work in Don Giovanni, L'Elisir d'Amore, and Petite Messe Solennelle. That's not even to mention the exposure they get to experienced young artists, the COSI Voice Competition for Young Singers, and our superb international faculty. This is a powerhouse program!

Auditions are in Toronto on December 4 &5 and Queen's undergrads may alternatively submit an informal DVD.

www.co-si.com

Where to find your next Bach Cantata

I have been meaning to share this information since I blogged about the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library!  This is the go-to place on-line for everything Bach including pdf downloads of scores.

The Bach Cantatas Website (BCW) is a comprehensive site covering all aspects of J.S. Bach's cantatas and his other vocal works. The BCW contains discussions and detailed discographies of each cantata and other vocal works, performers and general topics. The BCW also contains texts and translations, scores, music examples, articles and interviews, and over 7,400 short biographies of performers of Bach's vocal works and players of his keyboard and lute works, as well as of poets & composers associated with Bach. There are also other relevant resources such as the Lutheran church year, database of chorale texts & melodies and their authors, detailed discographies of many Bach's instrumental works (solo keyboard, lute, Art of Fugue, Musical Offering, etc.) and piano transcriptions and their performers, reviews and discussions of Bach’s instrumental works, books and movies on Bach, terms and abbreviations, schedule of concerts of Bach's vocal works, Bach Festivals & Cantata Series, guide to Bach tour, Bach in arts and memorabilia, thousands of links to other relevant resources. The BCW is an international collective project, being compiled from various postings about the subject, most of which have been sent to the Bach Mailing Lists.

Make sure you check it out!

Measha here, Measha there, Measha EVERYWHERE!

With pop-star-like marketing and a voice like velvet, Measha Brueggergosman is surely owning the Canadian opera market these days!  Last night she opened the International Vocal Recital series at Roy Thompson Hall.  This weekend, she appears as part of the Queens Performing Arts Series.  So...for those of you who missed the drive to TO, get your tickets and hear her Sunday, November 7 in the intimate Syddenham United Church at 8pm performing works from her newest CD Nights & Dreams.

French Resources for Singers

During the past few years as a teacher of singing at the university level, I have found that singing in French has been one of the most difficult mountains to climb for young singers.  Whether it is the complexity of harmony of some of the repertoire, the visual cluster of vowels to make one sound (think "aux", "eaux", etc), the frustration in dropping the [n] or [m] in a nasal sound or a general struggle to connect vowel sounds, French can be a nightmare to a young singer! It would seem that even in Canada where French is our other national language, we don't seem to have it in our ear.

Well, look no further for a wonderful source in the French Vocal Diction website created by French-American mezzo soprano Claudine Carlson.  You can download 145 different french texts that are recited in a slow, easy to imitate manner.  

I hope that with this site and other resources (like the Hal Leonard's The Vocal Library that include a CD of text and accompaniment tracks) singers will be better able to manage the challenges of the French language!

  

Spotlight on Repertoire: Allerseelen

In honour of All Souls Day, here is the great Kiri Te Kanawa and Sir George Solti performing Allerseelen by Richard Strauss with poetry by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg.

Translation:

Place on the table the fragrant mignonettes,

Bring inside the last red asters, and let us speak again of love,

as once we did in May.

Give me your hand, so that I can press it secretly;

and if someone sees us, it's all the same to me.

Just give me your sweet gaze,

as once you did in May.

Flowers adorn today each grave, sending off their fragrances;

one day in the year are the dead free.

Come close to my heart, so that I can have you again,

as once I did in May.

Canadian Soprano Lyne Fortin in Master Class

Canadian soprano Lyne Fortin will present a masterclass on Sunday, November 14th from 1pm to 4pm at the Conseil des Arts de Montréal's Studio de musique, 1210 Sherbrooke East (formerly the Montreal Central Library).

The details:

The class starts with a 25 minutes warm-up for everyone. 
Lyne will then work with 5 singers, 30 minutes each. 
Fees: $20 to attend, $50 to participate.
$20 Deposit is necessary to reserve your place.

For more information:  masterclass_fortin@hotmail.com


Lyne Fortin is one of Canada's leading sopranos, with appearances with L'Opera de Montreal in the title roles of Agrippina, Thais, La Traviata and Romeo et Juliette, Elvira in Don Giovanni, Mimi in La Boheme, Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffman, Leila in Les Pecheurs des Perles, Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Olga in Fedora, Gilda in Rigoletto,and Micaela in Carmen, Vancouver Opera as Mimi, Leila andMicaela, Opera Saskatchewan, Calgary Opera and Edmonton Opera as Violetta in La Traviata, Opera de Quebec as Donna Anna inDon Giovanni, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Gilda in Rigoletto, Mimi,Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow, and Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, and Opera Hamilton and Edmonton Opera as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and Edmonton Opera as Violetta and for all three heroines in Les Contes d'Hoffman, and Opera Hamilton as Violetta, Leila and La Voix Humaine. Last season, she will return to Montreal and to Opera Ontario as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. In recent seasons, she made her role debut in the title role of Carmen for the Edmonton Opera, and return to L’Opera de Montreal and Opera de Quebec as “Stella Starlight” in the spectacle Starmania..and Erwartung for Opera de Quebec. This season, she will return to Calgary as Donna Anna.