Dear Editor: I would like to request an article or something done on universities that offer masters and DMA, etc., graduate programs in vocal performance, etc. Usually, when an article is done on universities, it focuses more on the undergraduate student than on the graduate student’s needs. I am a singer with an MM in vocal performance from Catholic University and am interested in pursuing a DMA in either vocal performance or vocal pedagogy. I think there are many people like me with questions regarding choosing the right school for me, and what the competition of schools are.
—Nicole Lamm, received via e-mail
Dear Editor: I want to thank you for publishing Cindy Sadler’s heartfelt tribute to tenor Jerry Hadley in the September issue. Though I never met Hadley, I had the impression he was as fine a person as he was a tenor. I was happy to read Sadler’s anecdotes about his kindness to young singers. I’ll never forget hearing him in a 1990 Don Giovanni at the Met. He brought nobility and pathos to the role of Don Ottavio, often played as a wimp, and his “Il mio tesoro” was incandescent. What a loss to all of us! Thanks again!
—Susan Dormady, Silver Spring, MD
Dear Editor: I found the article on Ruth Ann Swenson to be most interesting, particularly as Ms. Swenson mentioned having studied with the late Dickson Titus of San Francisco. I was one of the first vocal performance majors Dickson Titus had ever worked with, in the mid-1960s at the Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, in Stockton, Calif. I completed two vocal performance degrees in five years with Professor Titus, after which time I went to Italy to study further and sing in regional opera houses.
I agree with Ms. Swenson when she describes Titus as a fine coach who spoke several languages fairly fluently. However, it was my experience that he was not an experienced vocal technician, and he openly criticized his colleagues at UOP, involving students in his politics.
I eventually studied with several fine coloraturas, including Marianne Weltmann (now of Seattle) and the late Kathryn de Haven (San Francisco), who provided me with the technical expertise necessary to sing for many years. Whereas I understand Titus had a career coaching in the Bay Area, I don’t think it accurate to describe him as a major vocal pedagogue. He left UOP to open his own studio in San Francisco not that many years after he came [to the university]. It was my understanding that his departure from UOP was mutual.
I have been a voice teacher for a great number of years, and I have taken a great deal of trouble not to mentor my students the way Dickson Titus “didn’t.”
—Kathryn Chilcote, DMA associate professor of music, West Chester University, West Chester, Penn.
Errata
In the article “Luana DeVol: An Unconventional Career” in the October issue, Janet Parlova’s name was misspelled.
