2005 Convention
October is the second month of the opera season, and I hope you are well underway with your plans! Jo Isom, our Classical Singer convention planner, has been hard at work on the Convention for 2005 and has locked it in for the Memorial Day weekend at the Marriott Marquis in New York City!
New York is the city most of you requested. Meeting in the city will give us greater access to some of the presenters you asked for and will make it easier to get more general directors to the convention for the auditions. What’s more, Memorial Day weekend means you won’t have to take time off from work—and gives us great rates on the rooms— nearly 40 percent savings in room rates! (As low as $79 a person, double occupancy!) New York is very affordable on this particular weekend, so we ask you to try to plan your family outings another weekend or bring them along!
If you have ideas for the convention, please send them to me at cj@classicalsinger.com.
During the last half of the last day of the Convention, we will begin something new, exciting, and helpful to the next generation of singers: the Classical Singer College Fair. This will be on a different floor of the hotel than the Convention. We’re inviting colleges with strong opera programs from around the country to set up tables, and we’re inviting high school students and their parents to come to a selection of special workshops and presentations tailored just for them.
If you have students, we want to make sure you are aware of this new dimension and opportunity premiering at the 2005 Convention. We’ll be sending out notification to the voice teachers and universities shortly. We’ll invite the schools to set up early so those of you who are interested in grad school programs can have some time to speak with school representatives before the onslaught! We’re excited to be able to start reaching teens, so they’ll know how to manage their careers right, from the very start.
Getting Feedback
Mark Stoddard, has held several of his marketing workshops and I’m extremely pleased with the response. We’ve needed to do this for a long time—to get out and start having face-to-face contact with singers, dealing with principles, questions and answers that will help get you singing in a way that makes sense for where you are in your life. The workshops help you avoid “pie-in-the-sky” strategies by providing concrete plans to move you forward, get you singing and hopefully, make you money.
The comments I receive from those of you are who have attended the previews and workshops are wonderfully positive. The workshops and Classical Singer Convention are both doing what the magazine just couldn’t do by itself. Continuing education is such a critical part of any business—and it is about time singers had it available to them.
One of the factors singers talk to Mark about time and time again is the need for accurate assessments of where you stand with your “product”—your voice, acting, and presentation—the whole package.
Every singer needs feedback, but it is so hard to hear, perhaps because so few professionals know how to give it well. I’ve had people in the business give me feedback that was positively vicious—so vicious that it took me months to recover! On the other hand, I’ve had feedback that was incredibly helpful and caused me to make major progress. I love this kind of feedback! Do you? If you don’t, your singing situation isn’t going to change.
I think singers who have Mark Stoddard and Cindy Sadler in their corner can handle feedback. Feedback, when presented properly, is not frightening, if someone shows you alternatives! Mark and Cindy’s workshops are showing singers alternatives, doorways and pathways to whole new careers and ways of looking at their world. We’re talking about how to win “The New York Opera Audition game,” but we’re moving far beyond that for singers who are tired of how closed that market can get!
Mark gives singers at the workshop some great ideas on how to get feedback. He recommends that you put on a small recital for a group of people you know. This provides you with several ways to get feedback:
• Watch your listeners’ eyes. Are you bringing your audience to tears (in a good way!)? Are they fidgety, annoyed, engaged?
• Pass out feedback forms.
•Sell your CDs afterward. If your CDs don’t sell, you can bet your feedback is not good. If you sell your CDs, you are definitely on the right track.
Classes on marketing are not just for beginning singers; singers with managers are coming away with new plans on how to jump to the next level. I love to read their comment sheets! If you read Classical Singer cover stories back through the years, you’ll catch clues that all great singers do marketing. They market themselves to audiences every time they sing—and they have marketed themselves like crazy to get where they are. They don’t always spell it out, but they either figured out or were told what sells, and they went after that with guns blazing. The cover stories in the magazine are invaluable. Be a detective when you read them. Once you’ve been through Mark’s class, you’ll start to pick up clues you never saw before. [Contact the office at 801.254.1025 for workshop info.]
Websites
Get your websites up! It takes about an hour (if you have everything ready) and it’s such a great feeling when it’s done. Mine is up. Take a look at www.carlawood.com. (I put it up using my singer name, obviously.) I’ve already used it to get students and it is so great to be able to change it whenever I want. You, like me, have worked hard and it will feel good to see all your achievements in one place. I was able to send a conductor to the site to see my headshot and hear sound clips without waiting for the packet to arrive. It’s only $45 plus $9 a month hosting. Do it now! www.classicalsinger.com, click on “Personal Websites” and you’re on your way. Put it on your business card and let it bring you business for teaching and singing.
One more thing: Those of you who attended summer programs, please go to the summer program forums and write your experiences there for those coming after you. www.classicalsinger.com
—Ms. CJ Williamson, Editor
