Catching you up

I've been too busy, or rather, I've been held captive by a little boy a lot over the past 3 - 4 weeks and haven't been able to blog about events! So, here's it all in brief:

The group I've been singing with, Raggio di Sol, performed at the Hannover Choir Festival, which took place in the Gallery Hall at the Herrenhäuser Gardens here in Hannover. We did 3 Monteverdi madrigals, Verleih uns Frieden by H. Schütz, and Riu, riu, chiu. We were mentioned in the general review of the festival as one of the highlights. Yay!

I was able to attend Carol's (Baggott-Forte) Masterclasses in Hamburg because someone cancelled with short-ish notice. Of course, the day I left, I woke up with the same throat ick that Dante had had for a week or so. It was ok for the first 3 lessons but the 4th was pretty useless. It was great to see Carol and also the other participants, most of whom I know from previous Masterclasses around Europe. We are a dedicated bunch.

Sang a wedding, near Hannover, filling in for my friend Andrea Doig, a dedicated wedding singer, who got sick. Kind of a new experience for me singing to Karaoke in a church wedding, but that's what they'd hired Andrea to do and so I did my best, singing Caro mio ben, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and Widmung by Schumann (instead of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which is impossible to find in a higher key as karaoke). This was also my first venture driving a car from Stadtmobil, the local CarSharing company. A bit nerve-wracking, but all went well enough. 

I recorded a Flash Fiction story for Tony Smith of StarShipSofa, very last-minute, rush-rush, hush-hush for a Sekrit Projekt he's working on. It's like to run in the feed of StarShipSofa as a bit of teasing. I hope I notice when it's up. For such a spontaneous thing, I'm quite proud of it. I recorded and edited it in less than an hour, the same day Tony asked! Yay me! I hope it's not awful! ;-)

Still working on the next Poetry Planet on the theme of Time Travel. I'm pretty sure I won't manage to finish before Christmas, so I apologize to all the poets whose poetry will be included. It will come out eventually!

Heading off to Italy for almost 3 weeks, where I'm going to become an Aunt again! Magnus' sister is due to have her first child on Dec. 19 and I'm looking forward to cuddling a tiny baby again.

So I wish all of you a beautiful holiday season, whichever holiday you celebrate. Enjoy your families, listen to good music and count your blessings - I'm blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life and to be able to pursue and do the things I love. Thank you for being a part of that!

See you in the New Year!

Carol Baggott-Forte teaching in Germany again

My teacher, Carol Baggott-Forte is returning to Germany and France to do 7 weeks of master classes. Yippee!!

Here are the details:

The Liberated Voice
Master Class Season 2011-2012
with
Carol Baggott-Forte


cours individuels de technique vocale  / Formation de Formateurs (Lyon)
individual singing technique lessons  / Teacher's Training (Lyon)
Einzelunterricht in Gesangstechnik / Lehrerausbildung (Lyon)

• Week 1, Hamburg: 8 - 12 November 2011

• Week 2, Hamburg: 15 - 19 November 2011

Place: Studio Almut Stäglich
Address: Stresemannstr. 140a/Courtyard, 22765 Hamburg

• Week 3, Iserlohn: 29 November - 03 December 2011

Place: Studio VokalForum
Address: Sporenstr. 38, 58644 Iserlohn

•   Week 4, Bremen: 17 - 21 January 2012

Place: Sophie Drinker Institut http://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de
Address: Außer der Schleifmühle 28, 28203 Bremen 

•   Week 5, Wiesbaden: 24 - 28 January 2012

Place: Wiesbadener Musikakademie
 Address: Schillerplatz 1 – 2, 65185 Wiesbaden

•   Week 6, Lyon: 8 - 12 February 2012

•   Week 7, Lyon: 15 - 19 February 2012

Place: Centre de la Voix Rhône-Alpes
Address: Les Passerelles – Parc d’activités de Gorge du Loup, 24 Av Joannès Masset, 69009 Lyon.

Infos et Inscriptions / Details and Application / Auskunft und Anmeldung

The Liberated Voice


I'm hoping to go to Bremen at the very least and hopefully a few days of Hamburg as well.

Masterclasses in Europe with Carol Baggott-Forte

Every time I check the stats on my blog (their not impressive to anyone but me, trust me) I see that one of the posts that gets the most hits is one about a masterclass I took with Carol Baggott-Forte. I'm sure these hits are mostly from people trying to find info on her current schedule and for some reason they think they'll find that information here. And as a result, I'm happy to oblige!

Carol will be teaching on the following dates:
23 – 27 November 2010, Iserlohn, Germany
30 Nov – 04 December 2010, Berlin
16 – 20 February 2011, Lyon, France
23 – 27 February 2011, Paris

More dates might be forth-coming, so I would recommend you go to Carol Baggott Forte's Masterclass website La Voix Liberee, where all the rest of the pertinent information can be found.

It's a little late in the game, so it might be hard to get a spot, especially at the classes in Germany, but it's definitely worth a try! I, myself, will be attending the class in Iserlohn. My first trip overnight sans baby! I'm excited, apprehensive and really looking forward to the work with Carol! She's the best there is!

See you there?

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Report: 15th Free the Voice seminar in Frankfurt

Near Easter each year, Dr Hochs Konservatorium and the German Musician's Association host and sponsor the singing technique seminar "Free the Voice". Cornelius Reid himself gave the masterclass for the first 10 years and handed the reigns over to Carol Baggott-Forte, when, at 92 years of age, he decided it was too much to travel to Europe. I first attended the seminar in 1996 and have been hooked on Funtional Voice Training ever since. I attended every year when Cornelius was still coming, traveled to New York City to have lessons with him and found myself teachers employing his theories here in Germany. The first year Carol took the masterclass over I was only in town for 1 day, so I listened and was impressed. She seems to channel Cornelius in mannerisms, but she has her own style. She is extremely knowledgeable and yet intuitive, combined with a kind of fearlessness she gets amazing results in a short period of time, just like Cornelius did.

It always seemed to be the same situation, that I was traveling when Carol was in Frankfurt and so I had one lesson with her until 2006. By that time I'd moved to London and was gladly informed that she was doing a seminar in Brighton, just a short train ride away. It was amazing. I had had a bad cold, basically losing my voice and 3 weeks later it hadn't really recovered. I was still having trouble with notes in the upper passaggio and above and I was traveling to the US the week after the seminar to sing concerts with Elysium. Ack! Carol worked magic on my voice, took me in a new direction, which has turned out to be the beginning of wonderful changes in my voice and technique and I felt like I'd never sung better! Since then I've attended nearly every class Carol has given in Europe traveling to Lyon and Paris, France and to Frankfurt and also organized for Carol to teach in Hannover in February.

This years seminar was a good experience. I was able to attend for an entire week, listening to lessons for upwards of 6 hours a day and having 3 lessons myself. Unfortunately, I had had a(nother) cold just after the St. John's Passion concert and was still hacking up pflegm from under my larynx just days before going to Frankfurt. I had a lesson on the first day of the seminar and the cords were still swollen. They decided they were done after about 15 minutes. Until then it was a very good lesson. :-) I waited until the end of the week to take the other 2 lessons and they were great.

I wanted to insert the recording of my last lesson that I made on my phone, but for some reason it won't upload. Sigh.

Listening to lessons is a very valuable experience as well and I always try to listen to as many as I can. It's interesting to hear the progression from one lesson to the next as well. Carol's focus is more and more on professional singers and teachers of singing, so the level of the singers attending is quite high. There's not a whole lot of relevance for my own teaching since I teach beginners, young singers and amateurs for the most part, but it's ear-training which is all-important.

And the great news is that it appears Carol is serious about moving to Europe for at least part of the year. Her husband is Italian and she really enjoys doing these seminars here so they are now taking steps to make it a reality. She doesn't know where they'll "settle", but anywhere in Europe would be really helpful and facilitate any classes she gives around Europe. w00t!!!

La voce libera - Masterclasses in Hannover a Success!

Yes, folks, the masterclass week in Hannover is come and gone and was a complete success! Carol arrived on Monday evening and taught a few lessons (I got one too) at my place on Tuesday morning. Wednesday was the first day of the official seminar and everything went very smoothly. It was great seeing some participants from classes in Paris, Lyon or Frankfurt and to hear their sometimes astonishing improvement. We had one hiccup due to the fact that I'm not really the best of organizers: Instead of 11 lessons to teach on Thursday (already 1 more than prefered), suddenly there were 12 people on the list! Ack! Luckily, I was able to convince a woman from Hannover to come to my house on Saturday for a lesson. Phew, narrowly missed the dog-house there!

I can hardly believe it, but we made it in under budget! That means that our participation fee was just right. Not too low and not too high. Double Phew!

We would love to make these classes in Hannover, Germany a yearly occurance. It depends on Carol's availability and on the other seminar weeks in Germany. It would be best to spread them out logically. Carol and Aldo are considering living in Europe (probably Lyon, France) for a few months of the year in winter. That would make logistics sooooo much easier! Will keep you posted.

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La Voix Liberée - Masterclass in Paris

Last week I was in Paris. I really could have been anywhere for all I saw of Paris, but it was nonetheless the wonderful to be there.

I was there for 5 days of Masterclasses with Carol Baggott-Forte, a singing teacher from Canada. I've talked about her and her work in previous posts, here and here. She works with voices in the same manner as my beloved, late mentor Cornelius L. Reid (no not the baseball player!).

We convened in the Canadian Student House on the campus Cité Universitaire in south Paris. They had a nice big room with a grand piano. Unfortunately, it was colder than the dickens, because we had to keep the loud, rattling heater off during lessons. But I digress. There were several people I knew from other classes Carol has given in various European cities (Brighton, Lyon and Frankfurt), it's one big family. We are trying to bring more people into the family, but it is slow going. I was especially pleased that my friend Alexa from Toronto made the trip over. We had fun and formed a nice mutual admiration society together with Thomas from Hamburg.

I had 5 lessons in 5 days. Hoo boy! Are we getting into some tough stuff with my voice. It's a really good thing too, because it's starting to cause problems. I'm confident we are on the right path and that my voice will sort itself out. I will get a couple more lessons while Carol is here in Hannover, so we can continue the work. I would really like to go to Canada and have lessons for 2 weeks straight. Will have to consider that.

It was also incredibly worthwhile listening to Carol teach and I learned some new tricks for my own pupils. Unfortunately, most of the participants in Paris were advanced singers or singers familiar with the work and with a high degree of musical experience and musicality. A lot of it doesn't apply to my own students at the moment and I'd love to pick Carol's brain or hear her work with a beginner with a limited amount of talent. Now that would be interesting.

While I was in Paris I stayed with my good friend and Prosperity Girl Sue and her husband Xavier. It was so kind of them to let me crash at their place, eat their food and take off everyday for most of the day. Of course Xavier had to work and Sue had things to do during the day too, so it wasn't so tragic, but still. They were very tolerant. I had a great time with them. We watched the inauguration together and cried together! :-)

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Belcanto - La voce libera (or the singing seminar I'm organizing)

It appears that I haven't blogged about the progress of the seminar with Carol Baggott-Forte. Or indeed anything at all!  A gross oversight!

My teacher, Carol Baggott-Forte, who is one of the most advanced teachers following in Cornelius Reid's footsteps, is making a trip to Europe to teach classes for a few weeks. She normally resides near Niagara, Canada.  When I heard that she was planning to teach in France again for 2 weeks, I quick spoke to my colleague and fellow Reid-ite, Tobias Tiedge and we decided we should tried to get Carol to come to Hanover for a seminar at the same time (in order to consolidate costs of flights, etc.).  She said she was willing and we agreed she would come after her classes in France for a period of 3 days.

Tobias and I worked out the details, I created a poster and a brochure/registration form and we sent them out to all our contacts, put notices up on the 'net, hung the poster all over town and posted the notice on the German Functional Voice Forum on Yahoo. That was about a week before Christmas. 

There have been some minor bumps in the road along the way, but at the moment things look very good indeed. 

We have room for 10 active participants taking 2 or 3 lessons with Carol over the course of 3 days, and as of this writing we have filled the course. Our desire is to give preference to singers from Hanover, Berlin or Hamburg and/or to those who've never done this sort of work before. Unfortunately, we haven't had many random inquiries, but a couple.  The rest who've applied are all individuals who have either worked with Carol or Cornelius previously. 

Tobias and I are meeting today to work out final details and perhaps decide on the actual participants, considering we have one more applicant than there is capacity. Registration closes on Friday, so who knows who might still contact one of us.

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14th Annual Free the Voice Seminar

I just got back from Frankfurt yesterday, where I attended the voice seminar offered by Carol Baggott-Forte. This is the same seminar that was once taught by my mentor, Cornelius Reid. The work is the same: Functional Voice Training. And let me tell you - it was FANTASTIC. Unfortunately, I only had 4 lessons myself (I thought I was going to have 6, but there you go), but they were so good. Carol is so amazing. I feel like I took another huge step towards vocal freedom. At the same time, I listened to her teach throughout most of the seminar 10am - 1pm, 2:30pm - 5:30. It's the most fascinating thing to listen to these people singing and hear what she does with them. Her explanations are always clear and concise and I learn soooo much. The progression of the singers is phenomenal, even in the course of one lesson, but especially at the end after they've had 4 lesssons. Now I just have to incorporate what I learned into my own teaching. My first course of action is going to be to be more adventurous with my pupils. I hope that I can inspire them to sing better, more reflexively and to trust their bodies and their ears!

Want to know more about Functional Voice Training? Go to Carol Baggott-Forte's website: www.liberatedvoice.com

Singing and Short Stories

So, things are flowing nicely around here. I'm up to 4 pupils now with the possibility of a 5th in a couple of weeks. I'm off to Frankfurt next week for 9 days - I'll be attending a voice seminar with Carol Baggott-Forte and seeing some friends. One of the stories I narrated for the StarShipSofa's BSFA series - Lighting Out, by Ken MacLeod - won the award! Congrats, Ken! I have a couple of more narration projects in the works - Tideline, by Elizabeth Bear (which is up for the Huga Award in the short form category) still needs to be edited and then I'll do my biggest project to date: Three Days in a Border Town, by Jeff VanderMeer. Eventually, I'll get around to doing Storm Constantine's The Green Calling and then I'll be doing a recording of some Dr Who FanFiction (by Jeri Massi). After that? Who knows. Hopefully, I'll also be singing before too long now....

Voice Studio

What a joy it is to be teaching again! I didn’t realize how much I missed it really. I spent most of my time in London trying to find singing work, or a teaching job, that I didn’t really try hard to find private pupils. So, as a consequence, I didn’t teach much at all. I had a couple of people call me (they saw my entry in an online teachers list) asking for a lesson to prepare for an audition they had coming up. But they weren’t interested in learning how to sing. Later, close to the end of my stay in London I took on 2 pupils, one a Canadian who I met at Carol Baggott-Forte’s course in Brighton, and the other a woman who’d found me through the internet. I was very sorry to leave them in the lurch like that, having only just started teaching them and leaving town just a few short months later.

But now, here in Hannover, I have tried a little harder to find pupils right away, but not much. I hung a few notices in Libraries and such and put up entries on various classified type websites, but that was it. And as of now I have 3 pupils who’ll come regularly and one who’s coming after Easter for a trial lesson, but who seems keen! Not bad.

Now if I could just find someone to hire me to sing sooner rather than later, I’d be happier than a clam.

Sad News

On Sunday 3 February 2008 my beloved teacher and mentor, Cornelius L. Reid, passed away just short of his 97th birthday.

Of course, one knows that it is inevitable, but in a way, he seemed immortal to me. Afterall, I met him when he 86 - already a ripe age! But in the heart of my heart I think I'd always hoped he would live on forever. I was never able to work with him as much as I wanted to. It was made difficult by the very fact that we lived on different continents. At the beginning though, he came to Frankfurt, where I was living, on a yearly basis, and I made that into an opportunity for intense study. I took several lessons from him myself and listened to his teaching all day, every day for 2 weeks. In addition, I had work in Philadelphia on a yearly basis, which allowed me to travel to NYC for lessons, which I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford.

Nevertheless, I learned more from this great man (and not just about the voice and music!) than I learned from any one person - save perhaps Robert Fountain at the UW-Madison. His ideas are so unique and yet so sound, I don't know how anyone can doubt the truth of what he re-discovered!

I consider myself blessed for having known him and hope, with all my soul, that I will prove a worthy "disciple" in carrying on in the spirit of his work.

Luckily, I began working with Carol Baggott-Forte, one of Cornelius' long-time students and a fearless teacher of singing herself. She is much younger than Cornelius and very fit and comes to Europe several times a year. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that I'll ever be able to take advantage of proximity and take lessons from her in Canada, but one never knows.

I miss you Cornelius!

The Liberated Voice - Carol Baggott-Forte

Last week I flew to Lyon, France for a couple of lessons with Carol Baggott-Forte. She is Cornelius' successor and she is just a fabulous voice teacher. I was only able to stay for 2 days and take 2 lessons, but they were very worth it. I wish I could've had more...The level of singing at this seminar was very high. There were several teachers from the Centre de la Voix (Center for the Voice) where the seminar was held. And I think she might have been able to "convert" a couple of them over to functional voice training. I also saw my old friend and fellow Academy Alumna Imma in Lyon. It was wonderful to see her again and spend some time with her. Meeting Thomas Maxeiner, a tenor from Hamburg and getting to know Ignacio Jarquin, the organiser of the seminars in Lyon, Paris and Brighton were other highlights of the trip.

At the seminar in Brighton in February I met another student of Carol's who lives in London - Sarah. She had asked if I teach as well and we made tentative plans for her to come by for a lesson. For whatever reason, we didn't manage until yesterday!!! But, it went very well, I think we will work well together, and that I can help her become more comfortable with her powerful singing voice.

Nothing much

Frustratingly, I have nothing much exciting to write about here. Haven't been doing much singing here, unfortunately. However, I have been busy trying to get Elysium concerts and our recordings out to the public and things like that. There is, of course, a huge lag time involved in securing a concert in a series or at a festival. If I manage to get us performances here in the UK it won't be until 2009 most likely! Ugh! But look for our recordings to be available on OnClassical.com, an online distribution service similar to Magnatune. I'm still waiting to hear from those guys!

Good news is that I have a concert on the horizon! I'll most likely be performing Sad Hotel again in Heidelberg in November. Hopefully, we'll get a good recording out of it and I'll be able to put us up on MySpace. That might help things along on that front!

Also, I'm planning on attending Carol Baggott-Forte's voice seminar in Paris: www.lavoixliberee.org