Ahead of its 23rd season, SongFest announces a new collaboration with LA Opera, launching the Marc & Eva Stern SongFest-Los Angeles Opera Fellowship Program.

For the 2018 festival (May 12-June 3), a handful of SongFest singers will have the chance to work with artists and coaches from LA Opera for an additional week of intensive work on opera (June 4-10), participating in rehearsals, performances, and masterclasses. Costs for tuition, housing, and meals are covered for the three weeks of the festival, as are tuition and housing for the additional opera week.

It’s an exciting step for the program, which focuses on the interpretation of art song. SongFest is a place where voice lessons, coachings, and studio work between pianist and singer are distilled into the performing of song repertoire - a refreshing bit of clarity in the craft of communicating music and text to an audience.

I’m an alumna of SongFest myself - 2009, if I recall. It was one of the most densely challenging summers of my training, and without a doubt I walked away a better pianist and collaborator than when I began. As an opera-crazed person, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take time out of my “true focus” to work on art song, but it was an extraordinarily valuable way to spend a month. Working with composers and colleagues is the way to a fulfilling career, after all.

And now with their new Fellowship Program, opera junkies can still look forward to meeting - and impressing - the folks at LA Opera.

The deadline is coming up quickly! Online submissions - including recordings - are due March 2, to be sent either via YAP Tracker or to [email protected].