Relevant Art Via the Number 2 Train

Editorial

"Between 3 and 30 instruments are playing during each segment of this song. Some instruments play softly (i.e. piano/pianissimo) and some play loudly (i.e. forte/fortissimo.) The number and type of instruments are selected based on that station's surrounding median income taken from the 2011 US Census Data Release. In general, the higher the income, the greater the dynamics and quantity of instruments."

Talking with Singers: Lucia Cesaroni

Interview

Canadian soprano Lucia Cesaroni is one of my favourite singers to hear, and she happens to be equally delightful offstage as well as on. She was even nice enough to give me a heartfelt and honest interview about her life as a singer. She talks about connecting with different types of artists, learning to be her own producer, and about how she found out that singing was just the thing for her.

Talking with singers: Adrian Kramer

Interview

​Like many others in the Canadian opera scene, I first met Adrian Kramer as a baritone in the COC Ensemble Studio. Recently, Adrian made a dramatic and successful shift into tenor singing, and I'm not the only person who heard a truly exciting leap forward.

5 Tips for University Auditionees

How-to

Young singers, as you sing your hearts out for the faculties at the University of Toronto, GGS, Western University, McGill, Juilliard, Eastman, NEC, Peabody, Oberlin, Rice, and Curtis, I offer you tips from your audition pianist.

Music School Auditions: 4 Tips for Parents

How-to

As a follow-up to my recent 5 Tips for University Auditionees, I wanted to extend advice to the parents of young singers. You’re supportive, you travel long distances with your kids, and you wait around all day as they do their audition thing. Here are a few etiquette tips for parents, from the mouths of professional pianists who play auditions all day long.

What comes first, the union or the gig?

Op-ed

Don’t get me wrong, Like I said, unions have their upsides for sure. They protect the artists (anyone doing a community theatre/amateur company production who’s lived through at 16-hour tech day understands) so they don’t become slaves. That’s great. The problem is, once you reach a certain echelon of companies (Canadian Opera Company, Opera Atelier, Pacific Opera Victoria, Toronto Operetta Theatre, et al…) you won’t even be considered for anything if you’re not a card-carrying member.

Chris Mayell: The Opera Career

Interview

Canadian tenor Christopher Mayell is no stranger to Schmopera. This time I asked him if he would chat about the realities of a career as an opera singer. Financial struggles and lost inspiration are part of the opera singer’s trip, and Chris talks about his own experiences in a frank, important interview.

Remounts, or "What did they do the last time?"

Op-ed

A remount is a weird thing for the artists involved. The sets, costumes, stagings, and (hopefully) the music stay the same, but the casting is rarely identical between productions. This means the newcomers have to insert themselves into the movements of another. This may seem like Acting 101, but the catch comes when the new singer is looking for some motivation for their movements, motivation that’s stronger than “that’s what they did the last time”.

Tales from the Score: Zerbinetta

Humour

If there’s one thing that makes me love a composer, it’s word painting. What’s word painting? It’s when you write a musical line for the singer that sounds like the word they’re saying. Example: “Oh no, I am fall-ing down” on six descending syllables. Zerbinetta’s aria from Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos is one of the densest moments of word painting that I can think of. Here are some fun bits:

Bad Editions and the Limits of the Notes

Editorial

When I was thinking about pursuing a Doctorate degree in Collaborative Piano, I had a germ of an idea for a thesis project: to create a piano-vocal score of a standard opera (Le nozze di Figaro, or La traviata, for example) that would be designed for pianists who didn’t necessarily have a strong operatic background. These scores would be edited so that a pianist could play everything they see, and it wouldn’t sound stupid (which is what happens if you play every note you see in, say, a Bärenreiter edition of anything).