The School of Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., is the largest school of its kind in western Canada. Eighty-six of the nearly 300 students in the School of Music are undergraduate or graduate voice students.
“I think there’s an advantage to being on the West Coast,” says Nancy Hermiston, head of the Voice and Opera divisions. “It’s a very non-traditional atmosphere. We’re not fettered by the way we’ve always done things. … It’s really quite an open atmosphere. We are able to have a healthy enough competition that students can really discover themselves.
“Our kids are getting accepted into some fantastic programs and with the exception of last year, for the last five years, four out of the five winners in Seattle [at the western region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions] were Canadian, most of whom were UBC students. So, I think there is something to being on the West Coast.”
As a university, UBC has more than 30,000 students and is known for its beautiful location.
“Our setting is actually one of the reasons students should come to UBC!” Hermiston says. “We offer one of the most beautiful cities in which to live and have an exciting multi-cultural society in which to participate.”
The School of Music offers a significant amount of performance opportunities throughout the year. The school produces two operas on-campus each year, and co-produces two more in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic, each summer, in which UBC students comprise the entire cast. All four of these operas are fully staged with orchestra. UBC also features galas, concerts, a school touring program, and recitals throughout the year.
The School of Music has many associations with musical organizations around Vancouver and around the province, so typically the department does two or three full operas or operettas in conjunction with local symphonies and festivals. Both graduate and undergraduate students are welcome to audition for any production, though typically, first- and second-year undergraduates are granted roles only if their voices are exceptional, and as their other coursework allows.
“I think we provide a tremendous amount of performance opportunity for our students,” Hermiston continues. “One of our tenors will graduate having done 17 roles with orchestra. Some of them are little ones, some of them are big ones, but between what he’s done here at UBC and over at Usti in the summer, he’ll have a résumé.
“And we do everything in the original language. … They’ll do “Figaro” this year in Italian, they’ve done The Magic Flute in German, Così fan tutte in Italian, Bartered Bride in Czech, Eugene Onegin in Russian, and Manon in French, so they get the experience of singing all the original languages—and I think that’s a very important aspect of their education. Today, if you can’t do languages, you might as well forget it. … They aren’t cast if their voices aren’t ready and then I can’t emphasize enough how much we try to teach them the realities of what it takes to be ready to perform.
“We also make sure they produce the shows,” says Hermiston. “In our own shows, every opera and voice performance student who takes the opera workshop is involved in a technical aspect—say publicity, or building sets, or costumes, or stage management, or surtitles. They get to know the business side of opera. I like that, because it gives them an appreciation for all the different people who go into making them look good on stage. That’s really important for a performer.”
The School of Music pays particular attention to the mandate of the university: “To educate global citizens and to contribute our expertise to British Columbia, to Canada, and to the world.” This is evident not only in the connection with the Czech Republic, but even in the school’s integration within the university. Later this year, the opera program will collaborate with the UBC School of Nursing to do a production of Florence, The Lady with the Lamp, an opera about Florence Nightingale. They will do performances at UBC and again later in the year for a chapter of the Nurses’ Historical Association.
UBC offers scholarships and bursaries at all levels of study.
