Caramoor Vocal Rising Stars, fifth season, day three: hard work and patience We had a great afternoon session and managed to delve deep into every single song in the program. It felt a little weird not having a native speaker in the room for the Scando stuff (the bulk of the concert), but that didn’t […]
Read MoreVocal Rising Stars at Caramoor, fifth season, day two: buckling down Today was our second (and last) with John Lidal, and we went through the whole show with all hands on deck. Of the five languages on the program, English and German are familiar and non-threatening; but navigating the intricacies of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian […]
Read MoreVocal Rising Stars at Caramoor, fifth season, day one: RELIEF I work very hard in advance of our annual week-long residency at Caramoor to get everything just right. I need a sweet-tempered, housebroken quartet who also happen to be great singers; a worthy program; inspiring guest teachers. It’s good if I also get a chance […]
Read MoreI did a little math this morning and realized that I am celebrating the fortieth anniversary of my professional debut this week. It’s a saga, of course. When I got out of college I was 20 years old and living with my parents, trying to figure out what my next move would be. Yale had […]
Read MoreI had two experiences with opera last week, and in different ways they both involved water. The first was the new Met production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, which struck me as the soggiest performance of that work I’d ever seen. It was hard to diagnose what put the dampers on this damp show. There were […]
Read MoreThis past summer was not a cornucopia of bliss. Yes, I connected with a lot of extraordinary people over my break from school, and enjoyed my annual fill of local corn, tomatoes, and outdoor chlorine. But I was grappling with what I can only describe as an existential dilemma, a foggy point in my path. […]
Read MoreDrama, drama, drama, every day. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. Friday I was irritable. We had a donor event at night and it put a little roadblock in our process. The cast circled their wagons, protected what they had, didn’t take too many risks, saved their voices, worried about memory. The 30-minute […]
Read MoreThursday is always a critical day up at Caramoor. The free-wheeling exploration period is just about to end and everyone feels the pressure. It’s not quite as innocent to forget lyrics or smudge a passage on the piano. After all, tomorrow we’re doing a part of the concert for some donors, Saturday is dress rehearsal, […]
Read More“I can dance…and make romance,” sings Eugene Chan as he rehearses “The Boy from New York City.” I look over and this arty, refined guy is doing some major moves on the Caramoor floor. For one guilty moment I really wish I could still dance. I’d abduct Eugene to a disco (do they still have […]
Read MoreWe’re getting started up at Caramoor with this year’s Vocal Rising Stars residency. Every year has been so intense and so different, with a new program and a new group dynamic. This time we’re working on a French-American program that ranges, NYFOS-style, from Roussel and Poulenc to Rorem and Irving Berlin. The group numbers were […]
Read More