Imagine being able to list New York City Opera, Greensboro Opera Company, Orlando Opera, or the Alabama Symphony Orchestra on your résumé before you graduate from college. Several universities offer their vocal students the chance to sing with professional companies, thereby increasing their students’ understanding of the music-making world and allowing them to network with singers, conductors, and others. Here are four universities with unique collaborations in their cities and surrounding areas.
New York University
The most qualified undergraduate and graduate students in the vocal performance program at NYU’s Steinhardt School are invited to collaborate with New York City Opera’s VOX program. This annual festival is designed for American composers and librettists, and City Opera’s singers and orchestra perform excerpts from these composers’ and librettists’ new, unperformed operas.
NYU Steinhardt’s voice students workshop some of the music in weekly classes under the direction of composer/librettist Herschel Garfein, whose work was performed at the 2006 and 2007 VOX festivals. Garfein believes that university singers can embrace the challenge of confronting new operas, and that the close interaction between composers, librettists, and performers offers a unique learning opportunity for NYU’s singers. The students attend a final masterclass with NYCO Maestro Gerald Steichen at the New York State Theater.
“Our students benefit from studying works not yet fully realized, so the groundwork of character development and musical preparation [cannot] be gleaned from prior performance,” says Dianna Heldman, associate director of the program in vocal performance at NYU’s Steinhardt School.
The school invited several students to participate in the 2008 VOX@NYU program, including Cara Evans, Kate Amatuzzo, and Marvin Avila. They thrived on the experience. Evans performed a song from Dylan and Caitlin, by Robert Manno and Gwynne Edwards, and worked with Manno.
“He was very open to anything I asked him [by e-mail],” said Evans. “He was so enthusiastic, and I [met] him in person in the dress rehearsal. Very rarely do you get to hear what the composer had in mind,” she continued, aware of the unique nature of interacting with a composer and singing an original work.
Amatuzzo was asked to learn the role of Minette in the “Runaway Duet” from Our Giraffe, by Sorrel Hays and Charles Flowers. She e-mailed both of them to discuss her character and Flowers sent her the opera’s text, enabling Amatuzzo to understand each line in the duet more fully.
“Performing in the VOX program allowed me to participate in one of the most unique musical experiences of my life,” said Amatuzzo. “[Steichen’s] encouragement and guidance made me feel as if the work I had done over the entire semester was validated and complete. I felt such an immense feeling of pride after we presented our masterclass for all of the composers and librettists.”
Avila also performed the “Young Scholar” aria from Our Giraffe. He faced several challenges: a slow tempo, exposed vocal lines, and sudden leaps to the upper-middle range on diphthongs. “The greatest lesson in my experience with the VOX program [is that] I need to know and understand my instrument and be able to maneuver around its idiosyncrasies,” he said.
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
UNCG is able to offer its students singing opportunities with local organizations—such as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Piedmont Opera Company, and Capital Opera—because of its proximity to High Point, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, and smaller cities in the area.
Dr. Richard Cox, director of choral activities at UNCG from the early 1960s until his retirement in 2001, founded a choral ensemble in Greensboro, the Bel Canto Company, in the 1982-83 season. The relationship between Bel Canto and UNCG continues through Welborn Young, the chorus’ artistic director and UNCG’s director of Choral Activities. Many UNCG students sing with Bel Canto, which is the only professional chorus in the area, said David Holley, director of opera at UNCG.
UNCG began collaborating with the Greensboro Opera Company in 1981, mainly because the people who founded the opera company have ties to the UNCG School of Music, especially with Cox.
The opera company has about 30 singers in its chorus; 10 to 15 of them are UNCG students. “Our students are a staple of the chorus for that organization, and the chorus master, Robert Wells, is one of our faculty members,” said Holley. Greensboro Opera also uses some of the UNCG students for comprimario roles, such as Angelotti in Tosca.
“[These experiences get the students] out in the public to share the stage with people [who sing] for a living. They get to hear great singers, and they get to observe how these artists prepare and how they comport themselves. It’s quite a revelation, as opposed to a typical university production, where it takes three months to put something together,” Holley said.
In addition to the chorus and comprimario roles, UNCG students are part of Greensboro Opera’s educational outreach.
“One of their main education endeavors, which they’ve done for the past two decades, is to bring opera to every fifth-grader in the county,” said Holley. “Since 2002, they have collaborated with us, so we do a 45-minute version of a major opera, like The Magic Flute or The Mikado—something I feel will be attractive to students.”
Every spring, Greensboro Opera hires UNCG Opera Theater for the performances. Holley designs and stages the production, and the opera company brings in the students from around the county. “Our students [are] under the auspices of the opera company for the community. That’s a very exciting collaboration,” he said.
Holley is also eager to mention Opera Carolina in Charlotte. The company has asked UNCG for recommendations to fill openings in its Young Artist Program. “For about the past six years, at least one of our students has moved out of our graduate program into the Young Artist Program. Last year, there were two,” said Holley.
Jonathan Blalock, who graduated from UNCG in 2007, was one of those recommendations.
“I enjoyed my time as a Young Artist at Opera Carolina [during the 2007-08 season],” said Blalock. “It was a tremendous year of learning and growth. I was able to sing Frederic in a touring production of The Pirates of Penzance.”
Blalock earned his master’s in voice at UNCG, and during a masterclass impressed Darren Woods, general director of the Fort Worth Opera and artistic director of the Seagle Music Colony, the oldest summer training program in the United States. Woods admitted Blalock to Seagle and hired him to sing Normanno in Lucia di Lammermoor in Fort Worth this past May. Then, in June, Blalock sang Ferrando in Così fan tutte for the Living Opera in Garland, Texas.
Blalock points out that Capital Opera in Raleigh has held several auditions at UNCG. Holley adds that UNCG has hosted auditions for Young Artist Programs and summer programs such as Opera North, the Martina Arroyo Foundation, the Seagle Colony, and the Brevard Music Center. “[Capital Opera’s] general director enjoyed my singing in a UNCG production and then asked me to sing for one of their galas,” said Blalock. “I went on to sing roles with their company in two different operas. I sang Yamadori and covered Goro. The next year I sang the role of Ferrando.”
The University of Central Florida in Orlando
UCF students are among the younger singers that Orlando Opera Company has hired for its Affiliate Artists program. The collaboration between UCF and Orlando Opera started years ago when members of the opera company management taught at the university. Thomas Potter, director of opera at UCF, teaches several freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors who have sung in the Orlando Opera chorus and the Affiliate Artists program, both of which provide opportunities to gain experience as professional singers.
“This sort of experiential learning—being right there for many of the key rehearsals and observing the interactions of professional soloists with stage directors, stage managers, conductors, and administration—is something that simply cannot be duplicated in a classroom, or even in our own opera productions here at UCF,” said Potter.
John Teixeira, a 2008 UCF graduate, has been involved with this outreach program for three years and sang roles including Papageno in The Magic Flute, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, and Osmin in The Billy Goats Gruff. “I was encouraged to try the outreach program, was accepted, and discovered that I really enjoy it. The program gives students at UCF an opportunity to get paid and start singing professionally through the university,” he said.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
The Alabama Symphony Orchestra frequently invites the University of Alabama’s choir to sing in major choral works that require large forces. Philip Copeland, associate professor of music and director of choral activities at the university, directs the UAB Concert Choir, UAB Chamber Choir, and UAB Women’s Chorale, and he has been appointed director of the Birmingham Concert Chorale.
Recent performances include Verdi’s Requiem, Brahms’ Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Orff’s Carmina burana.
“The choral experience is one of the things [the students] value most in this world,” said Copeland. “The students see the world through tours, they experience making music at a very high level, and they sing music of some of the greatest composers.”
