Do colleges nuture great voices, or kill them?

College Majors Music Majors
1

<p>Now that DD is interesting in VP, my long-held belief that American colleges kill great singing is being put to the test.</p>

<p>Setting aside this board’s focus on college admissions, or perhaps challenging it, how many great voices have come out of the US college system?</p>

<p>Dawn Upshaw (Ill. Wesleyan) comes to mind, but she’s the only one: all my other favorite voices are European-trained. Maybe Milnes.</p>

<p>I look at the great resumes for the Met, but can barely stand to listen to the wobbly baritones and the scooping sopranos. </p>

<p>Is there something about US college training that sucks the life out of American voices? Am I about to pay $150,000 to smooth out a unique voice, just to get into some regional production of Fledermaus?</p>

2

<p>Didn’t Kristen Chenowith graduate from Oklahoma? I actually LOVE her voice.</p>

3

<p>What do you mean by current great voices? Opera? Musical theater? pop? Opera voices take longer to develop. Current stars graduated in 80’s to 90’s.
For a few:
Denise Graves: Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory.
Susan Graham: Manhattan School of Music</p>

<p>Renee Fleming: State University of New York at Potsdam with a degree in music education, Eastman School of Music MM. Julliard post graduate</p>

4

<p>Kathleen Battle is a CCM product.</p>

5

<p>Joyce di Donato-Wichita State,AVA, 3 AMERICAN Young Artist Programs(SF, Houston&Santa Fe)
Nathan Gunn-U of ILL (Champaign-Urbana), Beverly Sills Award, Lindemann Award,Met Aud, winner
Deborah Voight-Cal State Fullerton, Met Council Finalist, SF Young Artists Program
Frederica von Stade- Mannes
Isabelle Leonard- Jullliard, Met Council Finalist Santa Fe Young Artists program
Stephanie Blythe-SUNY Potsdam (Crane)
Thomas Hampson-Eastern Washington U (for govt!!!), protege of Leonard Bernstein
Lawrence Brownlee-Anderson University, MS from IU, many awards for young singers and Met Council Auds, Young Artists Programs in Seattle and Wolf Trap
and known for MT, although they all have VP training
Kristen Chenoweth- OCU
Kelli O’Hara- OCU</p>

<p>and let’s not forget Juan Diego Flores and the countless number of Chinese and Russian singers who are trained at Curtis
'Nuf said!
Audra McDonald- Julliard</p>

6

<p>MSUDad, you started off by saying that there are few current U.S. trained opera singers with extraordinary, unique, memorable voices, and more of the “great” opera performers are from Europe, or at least trained in Europe. I see that people are responding with lists of renowned U.S. trained opera singers, and I am not sure based on what you said that you personally would like all the voices on the lists. </p>

<p>But I am responding to what you said about the prospect of paying $150,000 to “smooth out a unique voice, just to get into some regional production of Fledermaus.” I am confused by that comment, since it is not clear whether you meant that if the $150,000 was spent on vocal performance study in Europe rather than in a U.S. music school, the same student might end up performing in the Metropolitan Opera rather than the regional opera or only that the voice resulting from the European training would be more interesting than most. </p>

<p>Maybe I misunderstood you, but the way you used the word “just”, it made it sound like getting the role in the regional production was an unimpressive outcome of spending $150,000. After reading that featured thread on this site about “how many music and voice performance majors find jobs,” I think the singer with the role in the regional production of Die Fledermaus should be considered to have achieved some measure of success. I don’t mean to single out vocalists, I think the same thing would be true for pianists, violinists, etc. in terms of getting professional solo performance work at the regional level. I hope that is not incorrect to make that comparison, since I consider the individual roles in an opera to include involve both solo and ensemble performance.</p>

7

<p>You will be doing a disservice to both your daughter and yourself if you try to compare her here-and-now, in terms of voice, with what’s currently out there in terms of successful performers. You do have to be careful at the undergraduate level that you have your daughter in a program that is geared completely to the nurturing of the younger singer. And both you and she will have to be patient with the process, understanding that she won’t be at her vocal prime until potentially decades from now.</p>

8

<p>Speaking about opera.</p>

<p>Okay, as to the list provided. I don’t care for Renee Fleming. </p>

<p>Thomas Hampson and Nathan Gunn – competent but boring. </p>

<p>Hampson and Fleming are two of the exact examples I would point to: scooping sopranos and baritones that are a dime a dozen.</p>

<p>Okay, I like Flicka, forgot about her. I don’t know most of the others. </p>

<p>Pointing out “awards” and “finalists” is a bit beside my point (or perhaps proves it?) because it’s the insular nature of the American vocal scene that I writing about: what would American teaching do to a young Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Byrn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Domingo, Pavarotti, indeed, what would they do with a Sherrill Milnes (Northwestern) if he showed up today? Would they say “you have to do X and Y because you’re competing in regionals next year?” That certainly happened to me and others I knew.</p>

<p>I believe that English teaching creates a “house sound” too - purity of tone valued over individuality. My question is whether US teaching does the same thing. I hope not, but I don’t know.</p>

9

<p>MezzoMom: I should have said “thank you” for taking the time to compile that list.</p>

10

<p>Singersmom, I have a couple of Susan Graham CDs that I’ll take a listen to … I seem to recall liking her.</p>

11

<p>MSU Dad-</p>

<p>I think your post is a bit unfair, on many levels. You complain that US colleges “ruin” singers, that all the great opera singers are European trained with the implication that US schools turn out only people able to get into regional opera productions, and when Mezzo puts together a list of Opera stars, you then complain that you don’t like them. That is a matter of personal taste, not reality.</p>

<p>You may not like Renee Fleming, but many Opera critics love her (some don’t), and she is a mainstay, not just in the Met and other US opera houses, but around the world, including in places like La Scala where the people really are critical (you haven’t lived I understand until you go to the Opera there…more like a baseball game then the rarified air of the Met).</p>

<p>Susan Graham plays all over the world, and is considered one of the top Mezzos out there. Stephanie Blythe likewise performs all over the world at top opera houses, and Deborah Voigt is considered,if not the best around, one of the handful of top Wagnerian Sopranos around (and having heard her perform, all I can say is I have to agree, even though I am not that much into Opera).</p>

<p>You seem to like Pavarotti, yet many critics claimed that while personally charming, he was not that great a tenor (I disagree), many of them think that compared to Placido Domingo or Jose Careras (his 3 tenors companions), he was more fluff then substance<em>shrug</em>.</p>

<p>I am not enough of an expert on voice, but if it is anything like the world of the violin, it has to do with liking a particular style of singing that comes out of one school or the other. In the violin world, for example, there are differences in violinists trained in the old 'Russian School" of playing (Maxim Vengerov in this generation, Ostraikh in the past, Heifetz, etc) or the Franco/German style/Belgian Style, (of people like Julia Fischer, Christian Tetzlaff,Ysaye in the older generation, Max Rostal; often these days associated with Juilliard violin pedagogy). There are severe differences of opinion on which they like better, there are pedagogues who, for example, totally reject the russian school as ‘old fashioned smush’ while there are those who call the modern Franco/Belgian/German school as being “music played by robots, with an obsession on sterility”), and it really comes down to preference. </p>

<p>My disquiet is in using your personal preference for a particular vocal style or dislike for others and associating that with being “ruined”. You specifically talk about spending 150k to have your daughter end up in a regional opera, and what you are impying is if people don’t sing the way you like it, they will be doomed to mediocrity, and that simply isn’t true (and I want to apologize, I am not saying being in a regional opera is mediocrity, not at all, any more then being in a regional orchestra is ‘mediocre’.) </p>

<p>Mezzomom gave a list of people, some of whom you don’t like, who have achieved by any means stardom in the opera world (Renee Fleming, besides her work on operas, has put out recordings of other kinds of music, much as Pavorotti did). Kirsten Chenoweth right now could be easily called the queen of broadway musicals,she basically has her pick of projects and is considered a bankable property in that world…it is unfair to denigrate US programs because you don’t like their style when they have turned out performers who are at the top of the pack, who have become so successful. What really worries me is if your Daughter picks up on that attitude, and decides that because she is at a US college that somehow she should resign herself to being mediocre, that can help create a self fulfilling prophesy. One of the things about music is that it is so damn difficult, especially to make it at the higher levels, that one thing that is required to make it (at any level) is a rock hard confidence in themselves, and if you give her the impression that by going to a US college she is doomed to lessened expectations, she can take that in and it can sabotage her,and even if you don’t say it to her outright, kids tend to pick up vibes from their parent’s attitude. It is like someone constantly telling a kid they can’t do something, pretty soon the kid starts believing it and give up.</p>

12

<p>This ends with an excellent point about how your attitude can affect your daughter’s.
You will obviously want to be visiting colleges in person, and be sure to give yourselves time to really get a sense of the programs, and meet with key faculty.</p>

<p>One issue is the simple reality of professional performance. One thing that did turn my DD away from musical theater was the realization that students were being taught to sing in virtually the same exact way. There is, of course, a reason why – because producers want to be able to have smooth casting transitions. No doubt there is a similar concern in classical venues.</p>

13

<p>Musicprnt: you quoted “ruin” and “ruined” when I used neither of those words. Fairness is not my objective here; I’m trying to gather information.</p>

<p>In the middle of your post you get near the point I’m driving at with my question:</p>

<p>“I am not enough of an expert on voice, but if it is anything like the world of the violin, it has to do with liking a particular style of singing that comes out of one school or the other. In the violin world, for example, there are differences in violinists trained in the old 'Russian School” of playing (Maxim Vengerov in this generation, Ostraikh in the past, Heifetz, etc) or the Franco/German style/Belgian Style, (of people like Julia Fischer, Christian Tetzlaff,Ysaye in the older generation, Max Rostal; often these days associated with Juilliard violin pedagogy)."</p>

<p>My experience as a VP major at a top program (Michigan) was that they were pushing us to remove some of the qualities that gave our voices character. In a contest between Hvorodovsky and Hampson, Hampson would win every time in a US program. Similarly, I think there is a recognizable English house sound (Simon Keenleyside vs. Terfel)</p>

<p>So, my question is not whether Fleming, Hampson, et al are “good” or whether people buy their CDs or whether they win awards, but whether a US school will try to change my D to sound like Fleming, instead of like MSUDadKid.</p>

<p>By the way, I heard Vengerov in concert and he was terrible. Phoned it it (sure, he moved around a lot, but still). I have possibly 30 Heifetz recordings, 10 Ostraikh, a Russian LP from Vengarov when he was 10 years old, etc., so I think about these things a bit.</p>

14

<p>VicAria: that’s what I’m trying to avoid: today’s MT schools are all teaching “belting.” Well, let’s say that the next new hot Broadway composer is lyrical. Oops, then everyone will have the wrong training.</p>

<p>If your kid is a belter by natural design, belt away I say. If she has a tiny soprano, better teach her to love Mozart. I won’t send my kid to a school where they want to turn Shirley Jones into Ethel Merman.</p>

15

<p>Mezzo’s Mama: what is Curtis doing with those Russian voices? </p>

<p>That’s the core of my question: are they making them sound like thomas hampson or allowing them to develop the Russian sound they were born with, and damn the Fledermaus audition?</p>

16

<p>MSUDad –
Have you looked into the website, classicalsinger.com?
Their forums might be a good resource for you. One problem, here, is that simply by being here, we’ve all kind of bought into a collegiate course of study for our kids. </p>

<p>Another valuable resource, here, would be lorelei. I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t posted on your thread yet. But she is good about responding to private messages. She is attuned to the very issues you are raising, and may be able to make some suggestions of programs you would want to research.</p>

17

<p>MSU-
I am sure your experience at Michigan as a voice major had influence on what you see going on, and it could well be that Michigan’s program is ‘dominated’ by a particular idea of what to teach in voice.There are similar arguments in the violin world, that in conservatory programs they are turning out ‘robots’ who are technically at the top of their game, but otherwise all sound the same, play the same and because they are mostly copying their teachers, have little of their own spirit or musicality in this playing. While there is some truth in that in my experience (and has been written about by critics and the like as well as being told by high level violin pedagogues, and there are definitely pedagogues who teach like that, i have seen the results) it also would be unfair to use that to characterize that as being a fault of 'US conservatories" as a whole, and so forth. There is no consistent standard across programs, or even within programs, IMO Curtis has some great violin pedagogues and some whose students bore me to tears <em>shrug</em>. </p>

<p>If you go in with that kind of bias (and yes, I have been ripped for much the same thing in the past, not without reason) it could preclude finding a good program. I will also add that you see the best of the European singers, but you don’t see the many hacks that programs there turn out (as an example, I recently saw the Queen Elizabeth Violin competition, where there were students of some ‘legendary’ European pedagogues, and many of them put me to sleep…).</p>

<p>And I will put something else out there, and that is that performers don’t exist in a vacuum. To be a successful performer means having people want you to perform, and if someone’s voice doesn’t match what people want to hear (or rather, what people booking performers want to hear) they aren’t going to get the call. The style of singing that you prefer may be pleasing to you, but might gather yawns in auditions and such (or might be something fresh, of course), and like in any profession demand is important. Maybe teachers are training singers in a certain style because that is what gets them jobs, might seem the opposite of what art is supposed to be, but that is the way things work. You obviously have strong opinions, which is your right (I guarantee you that among people into the violin world, most would disagree strongly about Vengerov, including other violinists and critics) but you also have to realize that your opinions may not represent ‘the real world’ and again what I worry about is the impact on your daughter. And I am saying this because of my own experience with my son and the violin, he has some really strong gifts, he has the musicality and the sense and love of the music a lot of others going into the violin lack, but those unique gifts can also be a hindrance when you are trying to get ahead, through gatekeepers and such, because they may be looking for different things or have different expectations, and bypassing them may not be an option. Believe me, I share the same concerns with my son, there are plenty of violin teachers and programs whose primary goal is to produce violinists who all sound alike, but that doesn’t mean all are like that, or some of the things they require aren’t needed. My son’s teacher is in a program that has gotten that kind of criticism, about ‘levelling’ students to sound the same, but she herself is not like that and that is what counts I have found. </p>

<p>I agree with what others have written, don’t write off US colleges as a whole because your experience says they kill great voices…the real deal is that programs vary, and teachers within programs vary, and you need to look at the programs and find one that your daughter feels she can thrive at. </p>

<p>I wish you luck and good hunting!</p>

18

<p>I think I understand what you’re getting at, MSUDad, and I’ve wondered something similar. It’s kind of like elementary and high schools now being urged to “teach to the test,” focusing on a set outcome rather than on helping a kid find and hone what his or her strengths already are. Do some music programs feel the pressure to turn out more marketable musicians that sing, play or compose in a way that’s more likely to be embraced by marketers and audiences…and thus help ensure that their program continues to exist? Aren’t we drawn to programs that boast X-number of singers who are Met winners, etc.?</p>

<p>I think it’s legitimate to be concerned about this, and I also think there’s an argument to be made that programs should try to push a student to try to perform in a more marketable way. I’m glad you posted what you did, as this is an interesting topic.</p>

<p>I think that the teacher my D has is one who is working to help her enhance and feature her voice’s natural strengths while boosting her weaknesses for balance. We’ve all heard and read about programs that compromise young singers’ voices and I’m trying to monitor whether that’s happening. I think the best way for a singer to be successful is for her to find her voice and to capitalize on her strengths. It doesn’t seem like it’d be sustainable for a range/tone/quality to be force-fit.</p>

19

<p>Interesting thread. MSUDad seems to be bothered by voices which sound more universal than distinct and by artistry which is boring. Part of the reason why many voices evolve to a sound which is not distinct is that the techniques necessarily for the vocal literature requires a certain kind of discipline and balance in approach. Range and flexibility require a technique which do not burden the muscles of the vocal tract…and this technique may not be consistent with some of the more opulent and dramatic sounds. Few of us have enough soul and artistry to feed the imaginations of others, it is a lot to ask of an performer…many do not have the happiest personal lives themselves. The wide variations in casting decisions is clear evidence of the distinctive taste we each have as listeners. It is not clear what you want your daughter’s school and teacher to do for her to satisfy your expectations. She and you must exercise due diligence in a search for a teacher, and she must monitor her own development and progress. She has to be the judge and jury on this, because she will be having the lessons, the experiences, the lonely practice room time. If she is at a school which inspires and teaches her, with a teacher who supports and develops her, and with friends who are inspirational peers, she will have found a good fit.</p>