By Claudia Friedlander
I invite you all to look back on your careers and education and ask yourselves this question:
What is the most valuable piece of feedback you have ever received for your singing?
For nearly all of you, I suspect that it wasn’t a compliment. I’m willing to bet it was a useful dose of criticism.
Here’s my story:
In the summer of 1994 (regrettably, the year before Marilyn Horne took the helm) I attended Music Academy of the West. Gaining acceptance to this prestigious YAP made me think I had really arrived. Edward Zambara was the resident voice teacher for the first half of the program. I showed up to my first lesson excited, ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work. He vocalized me for all of about three minutes before furrowing his brow and asking me, “What did you perform for your audition?” He then had me sing through all of the rep I had offered the previous December, after which he sighed thoughtfully and looked a little embarrassed. “You clearly have an excellent instrument,” he began. “There’s a warm, dramatic color, and you’re a very committed musician and actress. But – you have no technique. You’re just… (he paused, reaching for the right word, and then kind of gave up) – ‘Singing’.”
All my vanity drained right out of me; I knew right away that Zambara was speaking the truth. I asked him, “What should I do?” He responded, “You’ve got the rest of the summer to work with me and the rest of the staff here, and to learn from your colleagues. Make the most of it. After that, you have to find a teacher you can trust. One who knows what they’re doing.”
That was my watershed moment. I became determined to learn what it really took to develop a solid singing technique, why it was possible for a dedicated and talented musician like me to find myself one year away from completing an MM without having a clue what “solid vocal technique” even meant, and to someday become an outstanding teacher so that fewer singers would ever be in the position in which I found myself at the beginning of the summer. That conversation sowed the seeds for everything I was to become as a singer and teacher.
So, what was it that steered you in the direction of excellence?
Share your experience with us by emailing info@classicalsinger.com.
About Claudia: My studio includes professionals, emerging artists and avocational singers who perform everything from opera to Persian classical music to death metal. I contribute a regular monthly column, “Musings on Mechanics”, to Classical Singer Magazine, and I oversee The Voice Studio Group on Carnegie Hall’s interactive educational web site Musical Exchange. I earned my BA in Music at Bennington College, MM degrees in both Voice and Clarinet Performance at Peabody Conservatory, and a DMus in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy at McGill University. Voice teachers who have significantly influenced me include William Neill, Dominic Cossa, and of course my beloved mentor and colleague W. Stephen Smith.
