How’s it going so far? If you’re just joining us, we’re beginning month two of our Three Months to a Better Career Do-It-Yourself Summer Program. Last month, we got organized, chose projects, held masterclasses, and did some singing. This month, we are going to concentrate on punching up your portfolio and audition package. We’ll also begin to turn your summer’s work into a fund-raiser for your fall audition season, and of course, we’ll keep right on singing.
Are you making progress? Are you keeping up with the assignments? If you are finding the experience overwhelming, consider joining our online group for added support and guidance. Visit www.classicalsinger.com/magazine/diysummerprgram.php for more details.
Remember your standing assignments? Make sure you have regular lessons and coachings scheduled this month, as well as regular meetings and rehearsals with colleagues (if you are pooling resources and performing together).
July 1-6
Assignment 1: Select performance dates and venues for your next performances.
Your goal is to do a lot of performing this summer, but remember that not every performance needs to be a “big one.” Perhaps you want to plan one more ambitious performance at the end of the summer—a recital, a recording, or even a full opera—but in the meantime, you can find plenty of other chances to get up in front of people and sing. Consider some of the following venues:
• Call local nursing homes and ask to speak to the program director about presenting a series of concerts throughout the summer. These could be short programs or much more involved.
• Check coffee houses and other venues that might have open mics. You and some friends could take over one night with a little karaoke opera.
• Call local church music directors and offer to sing solos for their services. Choirs often take a break during the summer, so they might be very happy to have some professional singing. You should get something out of it too: Ask if you can present a Sunday afternoon concert or scenes program at their church, or get your other performances listed in their weekly newsletter.
• Summer time is a time for gatherings. Offer to enliven a family get-together with a little opera. Schedule an “Aria Abend” with your friends (everybody chip in for the pianist). (Invite an audience and ask them to chip in a couple of dollars, too.)
• Shoot for more performances this month—perhaps two or three smaller appearances in which you sing one or two pieces—but also shoot for a longer, more involved performance at the end of month, such as a scenes program or short recital.
Assignment 2: Take steps towards a healthier lifestyle.
If you’re not already engaged in a healthy eating and exercise program, it’s time to get serious. Beauty and health come in all shapes and sizes, but the reality of the singing business today is that companies prefer conventionally good-looking, trim stars, especially if you play romantic leads. Besides, you want to be at the top of your game physically to deal with the grueling schedule of a performance career. Try an experiment this summer: How healthy and fit can you get?
You may already have such a program in place. If so, great. Now’s the time to recommit. Even if you don’t need to lose or gain weight, chances are there may be parts of your body you could tone or refine, and merely being slender is no sign of a healthy diet. For some reading on nutrition, I highly recommend Dr. Walter Willett’s book, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy (Simon and Schuster Source, 2001), and Dr. Andrew Weil’s Eating Well for Optimum Health (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000).
If you need to lose a few pounds, or a lot, there is no better time to get started. A confession: This is my current soapbox issue. I have been overweight for most of my adult life, and it’s definitely had an impact on my career. At the time of this writing, I have lost more than 87 pounds since September 2007 and am still going strong. (You can check out my story at www.thenext100pounds.com.) I’m not any kind of expert, but I can tell you that if I did it, anyone can do it, and I encourage you to take steps. The Beck Diet Solution by Dr. Judith Beck (Oxmoor House, 2007) has been my weight loss bible, but plenty of help is available out there. Take a look at www.SparkPeople.com, which has helped many, or even a commercial program such as Weight Watchers.
One caveat: There really is no such thing as a diet that works. If you really want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to make a lifestyle change. So spend part of your time this week thinking about how you can do that. What would be sustainable for you—in other words, what can you live with? Take one tiny step this week: review your own eating and exercise program, and think about what (if any) improvements you could make.
Assignment 3: Training
Arrange for a second masterclass or hold an informal performance night in which you and members of your group sing and offer constructive criticism to each other.
July 7-12
Assignment 4: Revitalize your résumé.
Remember the information binder you put together last month? We’ll work with that now. Take a look at your résumé and ask yourself the following questions:
• What kind of work am I trying to get with this résumé? (Opera soloist? Concert-oratorio? Professional chorus? Anything and everything? Not quite sure?)
• Which of my credits are the most important and the most relevant to the type of work I am trying to get?
• If I were a producer looking at this résumé, would I be able to find the most important, impressive information quickly and easily?
• Does this résumé look neat, well organized, and easy to scan? Is everything spelled and capitalized correctly?
• What’s missing from this résumé? What roles and credits do I need to add to interest producers at the next level?
When creating a résumé, you want to make sure the most important credits are right at the top, easy to see. For example, if you’re trying to be hired as an opera soloist, you want to list your full-opera role credits first. Next, list any other full role credits, such as musical theatre or concert-oratorio. Opera scenes and chorus work come next, but only if you need them to fill out your résumé.
List credits chronologically, including dates, unless you have a large gap between the present and the last time you performed a role.
Check and double-check spelling, capitalization, and alignment of the text. You want a neat page, not too cramped, and all the information should fit on one page. If you have multiple pages, you need to prune, or perhaps separate, your résumé into several résumés, one for each type of work you pursue.
When producers read a résumé, they are looking for a certain experience level, for a list of roles that represent your core repertoire and show them who you are as a singer, and show your progress over time. They want to see you doing bigger and better roles with bigger and better companies as the years roll by. If this is not happening for you, or if it’s been a while since you’ve performed, you need to take the time to address what you can do immediately to improve the situation. Perhaps you need to learn and perform certain roles. Perhaps you need to begin performing more often wherever you can and see where it leads you.
Take some time to analyze the problem and come up with specifics on how to defeat the challenge. For example, if you’re missing roles, perhaps you should prioritize learning one or two this summer. You can add them to your résumé as Roles in Repertoire, and then target those roles in upcoming auditions by researching where they are being produced and applying for auditions.
Making the most of your résumé can be very simple, or very complicated. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Spend some time checking out résumés online—not Renée Fleming’s, but singers who are at your level or a little above. Ask the highest level professional to whom you have access—a teacher, conductor, or a singer who’s further along in his or her career—to look over your résumé and make suggestions. You can also find career consultants who do this work professionally. (See the resources page at www.thebusinessofsinging.com for a list.)
July 13-19
Assignment 5: Initiate your fund-raising effort.
Why not capitalize on your summer’s work by doing a little fund raising for your fall audition tour, a recording project, or next season’s supply of lessons and coaching? Fund raising works best when you have a specific project to fund and a specific amount you want to raise.
First, write a proposal. Encapsulate what you are trying to accomplish. For example: “Fund Fall 2008 auditions in New York City for an up-and-coming local opera singer.”
Include a brief paragraph about yourself, including information about your education and ties to the community, your projects, any charity work you have done, and your goals and dreams. Be sure to mention that you are currently engaged in a do-it-yourself summer program, a sort of blitz to prepare yourself for a successful fall.
Include a paragraph briefly describing the life of an aspiring artist and why you need financial help.
Next, list the expenses you expect to incur in an audition season, and don’t be conservative. If anything, err a little on the side of generosity. Think about things such as airfare, ground transportation, hotels, audition fees, accompanist fees, food, coachings, lessons, etc. Total it up. (Try not to be alarmed.)
Now that you have a total, divide it up again, this time into giving goals. For example, if you need to raise $5,000, you might think about raising the money in increments:
• 50 donations of $20
• 20 donations of $50
• 10 donations of $100
• 4 donations of $250
• 2 donations of $500
Next look at your database of supporters. Who is most likely to chip in $20? Who can you count on for $50? Divide your list into groups according to how much you think each person might be willing to give. Don’t worry. You don’t have to ask them yourself. You do have to get addresses for each person, but that’s part of next week’s assignment.
July 20-26
Assignment 6: Appoint a campaign manager.
Look over your database of supporters. Who on that list is a good businessperson? Who sits on the boards of arts organizations, on committees at church, is in social organizations, even the PTA? Who is a friendly soul who can talk to any stranger and turn them into a friend? That’s the person you want managing your fund-raising effort.
With your proposal, giving goals, and list of supporters in hand, approach this person and make your case. You’re not asking them to do the footwork, but to be your spokesperson, your advocate. They will approach your supporters and perhaps even use some of their own contacts on your behalf, and try to sell them on investing in you.
Be sure to give your campaign manager a list of upcoming performances to which he or she can invite supporters and potential new fans. If he or she can be present at some of them, that’s a great time to solicit for donations. At intermission, have him give a short speech and preside over the passing of a hat. Also, be sure to pass a guestbook at your performances—you want to collect snail mail and e-mail addresses so you can notify supporters of future performances, successes, and giving opportunities!
Assignment 7: Select and begin to polish your Top Ten.
Conventional singer wisdom requires that everyone have their “Top Five” audition arias, the tried-and-true pieces they can whip out any time. In the real world, five is not enough. Ten to 15 is more realistic. If you’re just out of school and barely have five arias you can count on, don’t sweat it—you are where you are, and expectations are different on the YAP circuit. But if you’ve been out of school for a while and you’re still singing the same old five, it’s probably time to refresh that list and add a few more.
When you’re selecting your audition package, naturally you want to consult with your teacher and coaches about best choices. Keep in mind that only YAPs and competitions require certain languages and styles. When you’re out as a pro, you sing what you sing best. If that’s three Italian pieces, two of them Puccini, so be it. Try to show some range of character, style, and language; but mainly, show what you do best. Also, make sure that standard arias from your core repertoire are well-represented. It’s great to have some esoteric pieces, if they really show you off, but producers also like to hear the standards from the operas they produce the most.
Take each piece and think about the aspects of performing it. What needs tweaking? How’s your diction? Do you know what every word means? Have you coached it dramatically? What technical aspects still need attention? Draw up a schedule and work each aspect of each aria in rotation, every week.
July 27-August 2: PERFORMANCE WEEK
Assignment 8: Rework your biography.
Biographies are often a weak point for singers. This is a shame because some producers prefer to read your accomplishments in prose form, rather than in résumés. A bio for hiring purposes is a little different from a program bio in that regard. You need both.
Ideally, your bio should read like a newspaper feature about you. Like your résumé, you want to lead with your brightest, best accomplishments and mention anything you have upcoming right off the bat. Keep the paragraphs short, and avoid long lists of roles and unimportant details, such as the month in which you performed a piece. Also, try to avoid notorious singer clichés, such as: “one of the fastest rising stars in opera today.” If you were really a young star, some high-priced publicity agent, or manager at IMG or CAMI, would be writing your bio. Instead, lead off with an accomplishment or a great quote from a review, or if you haven’t had anything impressive recently, mention the type of repertoire you do.
In the second paragraph, go into a little more detail about your credits or repertoire. In the third, you can give a little background about your education and personal life. It’s always great to end with a personal note or a blurb about where you’ll be performing next.
The last week of the month is also, hopefully, a performance week for you. Use it to prep for your performances and also to tie up any loose ends from previous assignments.
Next month, we’ll continue work on your portfolio and fund-raising efforts, your image, your audition arias, and of course, your performances. I’ll show you how to write a great cover letter, launch your fall audition blitz, and get the most out of your final summer performance.
