Nicole Cabell Leads Master Class For OpTIC In Evanston

The latest recording from soprano Nicole Cabell
features songs composed by Ricky Ian
 Gordon. Click here to purchase the CD.

"Presbyterian Homes’ Westminster Place retirement community will host the Fourth Annual Young Artist Opera Workshop, a month-long opera training program for junior and senior college students, graduate students and young professionals. The workshop will take place from June 17 through July 12, 2013, and is produced by the Opera Training Institute of Chicago (OpTIC) located in Evanston, IL. Workshop classes will be held in the performance spaces at Westminster Place, where its residents are invited to attend. Classes include private voice and coaching lessons, master classes taught by guest artists, acting, aria presentation and audition technique. Additional courses will include yoga and the Alexander Technique of proper posture and stress elimination for optimal vocal delivery, and scenes performance in full costume with piano accompaniment. A special night of arias and songs in concert will take place in Elliott Chapel on the Westminster Place campus on Sunday, June 30, 2013. An opera scenes performance will be held in the same venue on Tuesday evening, July 9, 2013. Among the guest artists leading master classes is Soprano Nicole Cabell, 2005 winner of the BBC Singer of the World competition and Decca recording artist." [Source]

Frederica von Stade Channels Callas Master Class Experience

An early portrait of Frederica von Stade

The famous mezzo-soprano who made her San Francisco Opera debut in 1971 will be appearing in the city this coming Tuesday in a program titled "An Evening with Frederica von Stade." The event will be at the Conservatory of Music promises to "share technique tips with a select group of conservatory voice students on stage, interspersed with personal stories told to the audience..." The singer actually attended a pair of master classes that the legendary master classes of Maria Callas at the Juilliard School of Music in New York during the early 1970s. She fondly remembers, “Callas was humble and committed and devoted with all her might to her art." One singer currently singing on opera stages today that impresses von Stade is Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, "[she] is out of this world and actually started as a Merola and Adler Fellow at San Franciso Opera.” The event will be free. For more information click here. [Source]