Let s Sing About It!

Transcription

1 Let s Sing About It! Join us Sundays in July for a month of voice classes! We have four exciting 3 hour classes from which to choose and a wide variety of activities to offer you. Each Sunday in July we will hold classes from 2 pm 5 pm right here at ACMS. We will explore improvisation, performance, the beginnings of music, and much more! Prices are $60 per class. Sign up for more than one class at a time and the price drops to $55 per class. Sign up for all 4 classes for just $200! To ensure you have the highest quality experience, the first three classes will be limited to 10 participants and the final class will be limited to 30. Sunday, July 7 th Improvisation with Kerri Atwood. Voice Masterclass, Nerve Vs. Nerves: How to Harness the Power of Your Higher Brain for Performance with Liz Cass. Sunday, July 14 th Improvisation with Kerri Atwood. Voice Masterclass, Stanislavski s Circles of Awareness with Sarah Beth Gooding. Sunday, July 21 st Improvisation with Kerri Atwood. How to Learn a Song with Dr. Melinda Brou Sunday, July 27 th The Beginnings of Music with Margaret Perry. Exploring Voice Types with Liz Cass. Live performance followed by Q&A with operatic quintet, Margot. A closing party will follow. Improvisation Come wearing comfortable clothes because you will be moving around and exploring your space! Kerri Atwood guides us through several Improvisation exercises to help us be freer, more engaged, more spontaneous singers. Masterclasses Now it s your turn to shine! These classes will allow you to work and share your music with a master teacher in front of others. Each Masterclass will have a special focus. Please be prepared to sing a piece of music and please bring a copy for your accompanist. Also, be prepared to enjoy yourself. This is not a high pressure situation by any means. We are gathering to share and explore the joy of singing.

2 Each Masterclass has a special focus. Nerve Vs. Nerves: How to Harness the Power of Your Higher Brain for Performance will focus on using breath in a powerful way to ground us and help us think with our reasoning brain rather than our reptilian brain. This will further help us to harness and use adrenaline to optimize our singing. Stanislavski s Circles of Awareness will focus on delving deeper into our music from a theatrical point of view. Get ready to wear your actor hats! How to Learn a Song with Dr. Melinda Brou This is a collaborative session. Dr. Brou will take us through the process of learning a song, offer some tips for success, and guide us in singing as a group The Beginnings of Music Margaret Perry brings the early days of music to life in this engaging and informative talk on the origins and development of the art we love. This session might just change the way you think about music and how you approach it in your life. Exploring Voice Types There are more voice types out there than you might expect! Liz Cass will explain these voice types in detail and will play examples of some of opera s greatest masterpieces performed by some of its greatest voices. Margot This dynamic quintet made up of Julia Taylor, Liz Cass, Paul Sanchez, Phillip Hill, and accompanist Cynthia Wilson, will perform a selection of operatic favorites. A question and answer session will follow. Closing Party Need I say more?! Meet Your Let s Sing About It! Faculty Kerri Atwood - Improvisation Kerri Atwood received her BFA in Theater from Southern Methodist University and then promptly moved to Austin to be part of the Live Music Capital of the World! In the past seventeen years, while being a public school teacher and also a nanny, Kerri has started a pop punk band that traveled the world, performed in the highly acclaimed musical by Austin s Rude Mechs I ve Never Been So Happy, sung 1930 s music in a cabaret that toured throughout Texas,voiced the singing wildflower for the City of Austin s Grow Green water conservation commercial, and currently sings and writes music with Austin s space dance band, Pong.

3 Dr. Melinda Brou How to Learn a Song class Dr. Brou graduated in 2008 with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance from The University of Texas at Austin. She received her Master s of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy in 2002 from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where in April 2002 she was the recipient of the Anthony and Dorothy Riddle Lyric Theater Performance Prize. Her Bachelor of Music degree is from Southwestern University, with an emphasis in Choral Music Education. Her primary teachers include Patrick Mason, David Small and Carol Kreuscher. Dr. Brou frequently appeared with Austin Lyric Opera, as a soloist for outreach and educational concerts. Recent engagements include Samuel Barber s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra, William Walton s Facade with faculty chamber ensemble from TAMUK, and First Lady in Sparkling City Opera s production of The Magic Flute. She is a member of the nationally touring Rhapsoidos Trio with flutist Naomi Seidman and pianist Chuck Dillard. Liz Cass - Nerve Vs. Nerves: How to Harness the Power of Your Higher Brain for Performance Masterclass and Exploring Voice Types talk. Liz Cass is a mezzo of unique brilliance, depth, and agility. Her voice adapts easily to fit a wide array of repertoire and styles. Ms. Cass has star quality that radiates through her portrayals on the operatic stage and in concert. Liz makes her home in Austin as is a regular soloist with Austin Lyric Opera, The Austin Symphony, Austin Chamber Music Center, Austin Classical Guitar Society, and Chorus Austin. Ms Cass s versatility extends to theatre as well and she has toured with renowned theatre company, The Rude Mechanicals in their L.A. run of I ve Never Been So Happy. Each year, Ms. Cass travels to Guatemala City and Antigua,

4 Guatemala to perform Handel s Messiah. Dignitaries from all over the world come together for these events in which proceeds benefit various educational efforts throughout Guatemala. In addition to keeping up with her busy performance schedule, Liz is the Associate Director of Programs with the Armstrong Community Music School where she maintains a large and diverse vocal studio. Ms. Cass is a co-producer and star in her very own Opera Lady video series. Ms. Cass is a graduate of UMKC where she studied with and continues to study with her beloved teacher, Inci Bashar. Ms. Cass currently resides in Austin, TX with her husband, Tim and their three magical cats Harriet, Jemimah, and Ricardo. Sarah Beth Gooding Stanislavski s Stage Masterclass Sarah Beth Gooding holds a Master of Music in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Houston. A passionate teacher and singer, Ms. Gooding s students have excelled in local and state competitions. Her approach to teaching includes thoughtful innovation and honest assessment in a positive environment, giving the student permission to experiment and encouraging them to strive for improvement. This ensures quality instruction tailored to each individual, and promotes growth for students at all ages and skill levels. Sarah Beth has studied with Sally Wolf, Joseph Evans, Melanie Sonnenberg, and Dee Ann Gorham. Margaret Perry The Beginnings of Music Margaret Perry has been a music educator for 38 years. Trained originally as a harpsichordist, Ms. Perry performed with Baroque music groups around Texas, and

5 served for several years as the pianist for the Houston Ballet. Ms. Perry has taught music in both public and private schools in the U.S. and Europe, and has maintained a private piano teaching practice in Austin for more than three decades. She has lectured extensively on the lives of composers and opera history for both children s classes and adult opera audiences, and has created curricula for general musical studies for many ages. Ms. Perry also serves as a consultant for community arts education providers on issues of management and advocacy. Ms. Perry has been a trustee for nine non-profit boards in the Austin area, and was elected chairman of three of these. She served for six years on the Board of Directors for the National Guild for Community Schools of the Arts based in Manhattan. She is currently a trustee for Austin Classical Guitar and La Follia, and she now serves in an advisory capacity for KMFA, Creative Action Project, Chamber Music in Public Schools (CHAMPS), and the Physics Advisory Board at the University of Texas. In April of 2000, she became the founding director of the Armstrong Community Music School, the first music school in the world to be established by an opera company, after serving as the Director of Education of Austin Lyric Opera for eighteen years. In March of 2003, the city of Austin presented Ms. Perry a Community Service Award, and the same year the State of Texas declared a day in her honor for thirty years of arts advocacy and education. In 2010, Ms. Perry was given a Profiles in Power: Women of Influence award by the Austin Business Journal. In the summer of 2012, she was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and received an award for service to the community arts field from the National Guild for Community Arts Education. Cynthia Wilson Accompanist Cynthia Wilson is a native of Warner Robins, Georgia and relocated to Austin in 2005 to complete a Master s Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Texas. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. Cynthia has been active as a teacher and accompanist for the past ten years, and has served on the piano faculty at the Armstrong Community Music School since She regularly participates in opera outreach performances for school children through ALO. For the past three seasons, Cynthia has been an opera pianist for Spotlight on Opera and has performed in concerts of opera scenes, art songs, and fully staged operas.