Soprano Susan Razavi is the founder of Alta Classica, a Manhattan company promoting classical Spanish music and zarzuela. Alta Classica features three performances per year, along with a vocal competition, master classes and an arts education performance. With a history of performance success and grant-writing experience, Susan gives some of her tips to singers thinking about starting their own company .
Some time ago, Classical Singer received an e-mail from a subscriber who shared the story of founding her own opera company and her subsequent struggles and successes. We recently caught up with Susan Cooke of the Cambridge Lieder & Opera Society. Her story is one of determination, insight and hard work—a true labor of love.
Incorporation as a nonprofit company need not be quite as daunting a task if you go into it with all the information you can find, knowing what to expect. Here are a few tips.
Some singers aren’t waiting to be hired, but are banding together to create performance opportunities. That can mean anything from a few singers hiring a pianist to perform a concert version for friends and family, to the all-out effort of putting together a viable opera company with orchestra, sets and costumes.
How do you take control of your life and your career? Is it possible? One artist who has done that from the beginning is Polish contralto Ewa Podles, featured in
Thoughts on Littleton, CO Dear CS: Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to bring back the lives of those who were senselessly massacred. What we are given, however, by
How do you manage all your information so that you can find what you need when you need it? Soprano Chris Winward describes a typical stack of paperwork and how she manages to keep it organized and routed where it needs to go.
What are they? Remember Star Trek (the original), when Yeoman Rand or some other mini-skirted beauty was always handing Captain Kirk an electronic stenopad to sign? Fast forward to the
I’m not the most organized person in the world, but with Kevin and me working together, we do just fine. In the beginning, our parents helped us a lot. When
CONTACT MANAGERS: ACT! What are they? Contact managers are essentially databases: Combination address books and personal organizers with calendars, appointment books, and to-do lists, combined with a few other timesaving
It’s 7:00 a.m., and Michele McBride is already on the go. At a time when many singers are still in bed, McBride is leaving for a day that will include 140 miles of driving and at least two jobs, before coming home again late enough in the evening that sometimes she doesn’t see her children before bedtime.
Getting Organized: As the opera season closes, you have a small window of time to fix your life’s infrastructure! That is why our focus this May is to help you
