What could be even more unique than having one of the rarest voice types? Try having an extended range for that voice type—a range that got the attention of the Royal Academy of Music, one of the most prestigious and selective music schools in the world.
Mikah Meyer—who grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Memphis this past spring with a major in vocal performance—has spent the better part of a decade nurturing and developing a countertenor voice that, in his words, “makes jaws drop.” Compared with the traditional “choirboy” sound that has been associated with countertenors over the years, Meyer describes his voice as resembling a mezzo-soprano. “Mine is big and loud, with a three-octave range,” he says. His range extends from an octave below middle C to two octaves above middle C.
In fact, his course of study at the University of Memphis was so focused that he was the first undergraduate countertenor in the history of the university’s Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music. According to Lawrence Edwards, director of the university’s choral program, countertenors usually receive their undergraduate training as tenors or baritones so, for the voice faculty, training a freshman as a countertenor presented new challenges.
“After he left the audition room, we had a lengthy discussion about if or how we could effectively train this talented young countertenor. We wanted to be sure we could develop this young voice in the direction he wanted to go,” Edwards relates. Associate professor of voice Pamela Gaston, a mezzo-soprano, was confident that she could guide Meyer in his studies.
As he advanced through the vocal performance program, Meyer became more determined to pursue both his training as a countertenor and a possible career as a countertenor, and he set his sights on London for his master’s degree. “I call London the ‘mecca for countertenor study’ because, for most of the great countertenors and for most of the jobs, London is the center for the countertenor tradition,” he says.
During Spring Break in March 2008, he visited all of the major conservatories in the city, and the Royal Academy of Music was his first choice. “One of the biggest reasons I like the Royal Academy is . . . Professor Nicholas Clapton, their main countertenor teacher. I was blown-away impressed by his honest style of teaching and his theories on countertenors,” Meyer says. One of Clapton’s theories is that countertenors should sing both traditional and nontraditional repertoire, which fits perfectly with Meyer’s desire to explore nontraditional music.
“[The Royal Academy] focuses on a singer’s individual strengths and interests. They do not assume anything about a singer,” Meyer says. He received his acceptance letter from the Royal Academy on December 26, 2008.
Looking ahead, Meyer has several goals. He hopes that his master’s program will enable him to collaborate with composers who can arrange spirituals—his favorite music to sing—for countertenors, then to record an album of those arrangements. His major career goal is to join Chanticleer. “I want to make music at a level that high, and I want to sing with other countertenors,” he says. However, he also wants to effect change with the American public.
“One of my big goals, aside from performing, is to educate the American public about the countertenor. Right now, our culture doesn’t know what a countertenor is because of lack of exposure. I want to be able to go anywhere in the country and sing as loudly as I want, [confident that] people would know I’m a countertenor,” Meyer says. When traveling, he has received vastly different reactions about his voice type from people in Europe, whom he says understand what it means to be a countertenor.
Ever since he started to sing, this son of parents whose careers involved music knew that his voice surprised people. Meyer’s voice lessons began in eighth grade, when his voice teacher called him “a freak” for reaching an octave above high C. Then, during his junior year of high school, he was told that he sounds like the men of Chanticleer. “No note was too high for me,” he says, especially when he auditioned as a tenor. He continued to hone basic techniques during his high school voice lessons.
Meyer’s private voice instructor in Nebraska during his junior and senior years of high school was Jim Koudelka, who had also studied as a countertenor. Koudelka helped Meyer explore his lower voice and, essentially, worked with Meyer as if he were a mezzo-soprano. “There’s definitely a masculine sound, but I feel that the countertenor voice has much the same timbre as a mezzo,” Koudelka says.
He wanted to make sure that Meyer’s vocal placement was solid, and he guided him through literature that was appropriate for his voice, including selections from Messiah and music by Mendelssohn. They spent quite a bit of time on arias within oratorios as well as melismas, focusing all the time on skills that would develop the countertenor voice, not just the tenor voice. “Mikah knows what he wants, and he’s proud of it. Plus, his stage presence and acting ability complement his vocal abilities,” Koudelka says.
With Gaston as his private voice teacher at the University of Memphis, Meyer first worked on his natural tenor voice, and then he concentrated on developing his countertenor voice by singing many art songs. “It didn’t take long for Mikah to discover that he had a real top in his voice when it had enough breath behind it. He is a generous mezzo, and people often encourage him to sing the soprano roles. Sometimes people push him to use the brilliance from his top range in the middle range. I don’t think he is a soprano, nor will he develop into one. I don’t want to see the middle range overloaded that much, particularly in a countertenor,” Gaston says.
Meyer also sang as a member of the first alto section in the university’s choir. “One of Mikah’s vocal strengths is his ability to sing, even in his register, with a true sotto voce production,” Edwards says. In addition to performing with the university’s vocal groups, Meyer enjoyed other accomplishments as a college student.
In 2007, as a result of his own experiences auditioning for undergraduate programs, and to help the university recruit a larger pool of high-quality singers, he founded the Annual Memphis Singers Workshop. “I learned that the schools I liked the most were the ones who gave me the best access to information about their programs,” Meyer says. This day-long workshop, created for high school juniors and seniors and students transferring between colleges, helps showcase the university and prepare these singers for their college auditions. The schedule includes masterclasses, lessons with university faculty, and other activities.
“The faculty loved the idea because it helps recruit top singers and teach future applicants how to audition properly, thus improving the quality of auditions,” Meyer notes. In addition, he felt it was important that the program continue to be operated by future students. “[The program] is set up to pass the leadership position to an undergraduate student so he or she can have an opportunity to learn about arts administration first-hand,” he says.
To be accepted into the workshop, a singer must pass a pre-screen audition with one foreign language song and one English song, so that he or she can start polishing the same songs they will use for their college auditions. “It’s a chance for both the teacher and singer to see what the other has to offer, before making a commitment about enrollment,” Meyer says.
Another memorable event took place in February 2008 when, at the request of the university’s president, Meyer sang the National Anthem at a basketball game between the University of Memphis and the University of Tennessee. This proved one more opportunity to introduce his unique voice type to many who most likely had never heard the term “countertenor,” much less heard a real one sing.
This past spring, he made his debut as an operatic lead in Handel’s Partenope, an experience he is grateful to have under his belt at this early stage of his career. “Mikah is completely at ease on stage, and his portrayal of his character was excellent, which only heightened his singing,” Koudelka says of the production.
“As a countertenor, I felt so blessed to be given the opportunity to sing a leading role as an undergraduate. Many universities do not produce Baroque operas, so countertenors find it difficult to get practical stage experience in school. Performing the role reaffirmed how much I love performing and gave me the confidence to pursue Young Artist auditions,” Meyer says.
He has also sung with choirs and a cappella groups in Memphis and, in March 2008, he appeared with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra as the alto soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Meyer also organized the university’s choir awards (naming them “Larrys” in Edwards’ honor), and he has won several awards of his own. These include the Nebraska Young Artist Award (2003), presented by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to recognize talented high school juniors in Nebraska, and the Encouragement Award (2008) at the West Tennessee/North Mississippi District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He also won the West Tennessee District (2006) in a competition sponsored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Having concluded his years at the University of Memphis, however, Meyer is now facing the challenge of how to pay for the Royal Academy of Music’s two-year master of arts in voice performance program, which costs $100,000. So far, he has received a Rotary International Academic-Year Ambassadorial Scholarship for 2009-2010 for $24,000. Meyer applied for three graduate scholarships—the Marshall, the Fulbright, and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarships—that would have allowed him to attend the Royal Academy in the fall of 2009. After being denied the Fulbright and the Marshall, he learned in mid-June that he also did not receive the Cooke scholarship.
And so, Meyer’s London plans are on hold, for now. He enrolled in September 2009 at McGill University in Montreal, putting his Rotary scholarship to good use. Currently, he is reapplying for the Marshall Scholarship, which is sponsored by the British government, and he hopes to attend the Royal Academy in the fall of 2010.
For more information, including videos of Meyer singing in recital and singing the National Anthem, visit his website at www.mikahmeyer.com.
