This part of the tour is always too much of a whirlwind. Too many good singers, and too few hours in the day. It was a quick 8-hour turnaround from Wednesday night’s arrival in Cincinnati to our morning departure from the hotel. And Thursday was dense, with only a half-hour for lunch, and a dash
Read MorePosts Categorized: Blog
Chicago: The No Caffeine Zone
We’ve settled into a new audition space in Chicago for 2 days. The management at Classical Symphony Hall is taking very good care of us, and we appreciate being able to listen to voices in a space that doesn’t fight against us. The acoustic isn’t luxuriously live, but the ceilings are high, and the sound
Read MoreInterlude: MONC Auditions
I’m on a mid-audition-tour busman’s holiday this weekend, judging the Metropolitan Opera National Council Western Region auditions in Los Angeles on the beautiful campus of USC. A high level of singing, enjoyable colleagues, and marvelously friendly and efficient MONC staff and volunteers make it a pleasure. Today we were in the Newman Recital Hall of
Read MoreTechnology in the Audition Room
We kicked off the fall audition tour with a strong start in Los Angeles, and as I was emptying my portable office of its seemingly endless gear, I was reminded of this NY Times article from last summer. I bookmarked it with a reminder to revisit this topic during the audition tour, and this seems
Read MoreSweating Small Stuff… Seeing Forests for Trees… Wholes Being Greater than Sums of Parts …
As we prepare for our California auditions, I thought this would be a great opportunity for a guest post. Joshua Winograde, Artistic Planning Manager for LA Opera, is a great friend and colleague of the WTOC, and he spent several chunks of his career so far with us – as a Filene Young Artist, as
Read MoreAudition Room Protocol
Don’t spend a lot of time obsessing about how to relate to the audition panel. Auditions aren’t cocktail parties, and other than avoiding the appearance of being extraordinarily grumpy and crank, there’s not a lot to worry about. Greetings First of all, there’s no reason to walk to the opposite end of the room to
Read MoreHiatus
It’s a good thing I’m not getting graded on the audition season mini-course, for I’ve fallen off the wagon in a big way this week. It was delusional to believe that we could process and review 1,000 audition applications and keep up with the blog at the same time. In spite of (and somewhat because
Read MoreExpert Friday: Chicago
It’s a good thing it’s Expert Friday, because I have been rendered completely inarticulate by the last 50 hours of application processing. Can’t even hold a simple phone conversation. Have no English. David Holloway is the Director of the Apprentice Singers Program for Santa Fe Opera and Head of the Voice Department at the Chicago
Read MoreDon’t Pace & Don’t Land the Plane
What does your audition aria look like from behind the table? Singers worry endlessly about the extent to which they can move in an audition situation. Should You “Block” Your Aria? Well strictly speaking, no. You shouldn’t perform your audition in the same way you would approach a staged performance. But the exercise of staging
Read MoreExpert Friday: East & West Coast
Part of a weekly series, in which my colleagues responsed to an email request for anything (or 2 or 3 things…) in the way of advice they would like to give to auditionees. First, Don Marrazzo, Director of Casting & Artistic Operations at Glimmerglass Opera. I have always felt that audition “do’s and don’ts” can
Read More