This article is part of the July 2022 issue of Classical Singer magazine. Click HERE to read all of the articles from this issue or visit the Classical Singer Library.
This issue marks one year since I became the editor for Classical Singer. It has been a tumultuous one for our industry. When I was a college voice teacher, I started every semester telling my students, “You are responsible for creating a supportive, encouraging environment for your colleagues and yourselves.” I told them that by the end of the semester, they’d be sick of those words, but that I hoped the sentiment would be a habit in their daily lives.
The choice to be kind, to be encouraging, to support one another is not an easy one to make on a daily basis in an industry that thrives on competition and metrics of success that don’t always align with our artistic values, and it always cheered me to hear from other professors how my students would repeat those words in other classes and situations.
Our cover artist, John Holiday, is a fine example of creating a “supportive, encouraging environment” with his commitment to sharing the “overflow” in his life. His success in both opera and pop is evident in his ability to cross genres with healthy, gorgeous singing. Jeanie LoVetri also promotes high-level professional voice development, with 20 years at the LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™, addressing vocal function and technique across a range of styles.
Natalie Weiss has harnessed the power of online formats to share riffing techniques, giving classical singers a greater palette of vocal styles in an ever-changing business environment. Leyerle Publications has made the Nico Castel Opera Libretti available digitally, helping singers access important translations and lyric diction guides that are a gold standard for our industry. Tara Melvin shares the importance of storytelling, both the stories we tell our audiences and the stories we tell ourselves about what success is. And we explore intimacy direction as an essential part of rehearsal protocols.
I believe that success means creating art on the terms that bring you the most joy and peace in your life, and that supporting and encouraging those around you helps contribute to that joy and peace.
