 American Tenor Brett Sprague Christine: Congratulations, Brett! You got hired at the Theater Erfurt in Germany!
This must be very exciting for you. You received your first Festcontract at a theater in Germany. Brett: THANK YOU! I am very excited for this opportunity! Christine: Many singers dream about getting a Fest contract at a German theater. What was your first reaction when you learned that you got the job?
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 Christine's Masterclass "Sing in German"at the CS Music Convention in Boston 2018 If you were at the Classical Singer Convention in Boston, thank you for stopping by the GVAI table and for attending Christine’s masterclass, “Sing in German.” Christine came back incredibly impressed with the talent she heard at the convention. Congratulations to everyone for participating - it’s hard work to go to and sing at a music convention. All of your preparation and hard work did not go unnoticed!
 Anikka sings with Paul during GVAI's summer opera program 2016. If you are a young professional singer, you may be headed off to a summer program or two to learn more about singing. OR you might be taking the summer off and planning to apply next year. Either way, it pays to do your research on summer programs before you pick the right one. If you are wanting to attend a summer opera program that has a focus in a specific language, you especially want to make sure it’s a good fit for your needs. For our purposes, we are going to consider German summer programs.
 Photo by Franz Johann Morgenbesser from Vienna, Austria (Diana Damrau, Sopran) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diana_Damra,_Sopran_(17162763632).jpg Welcome to our series on the best German opera singers! If you google “Best German opera singer,” Diana Damrau is one of the very first search results. In fact, she is the second search result behind Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who is arguably one of the greatest singers of all time. And let’s be real, I would put Damrau on that list too. I promise I’m not just saying that because we are both coloratura sopranos!
 For When One Wagner Opera isn’t Enough
Next week, the Bayreuth Festival will start and run through the end of August. The program consists entirely of operas written by Richard Wagner. No, it only takes a month to get through them all, not a full year! Believe it or not, the idea of a festival of only Wagner operas was the conception of Wagner himself! Okay… I guess that is pretty believable. Always in a financial crisis, the festival was a means for Wagner to pay debts and remain financially independent. Once Wagner had chosen Bayreuth as the location for his festival, he discovered that the existing theatre in Bayreuth was not equipped to handle the grandiose staging and orchestrations of his operas. Hence, he set out to fundraise to build a grand opera house worthy of his works.  Hello all,
as a lot of you know, last week I flew from Seattle to Chicago to represent GVAI at the Classical Singer Music Convention. I want to thank all of you who came to our booth, invited me to their auditions, and of course, those who came to my class A Singer's Career in Germany and German Diction. I had lots of fun working with you on the challenges in vowels on Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and your German already sounded so much better at the end of the class! The quiz about the opera business in Germany was fun, too! Congratulations to Gwen Paker who won the free online German diction voice coaching by having the most correct answers for the quiz questions! How wonderful it was to meet two singers from last year’s GVAI Summer Opera Program and to learn how they are growing their career. The competition and convention was really worth the trip.  A handshake connects people. If you are a singer, you must also be a business person! You are the face of your company! You are your entire company and without you, your company would not exist! For today’s blog, you will learn some of the best networking practices as a singer AND as a business person. Our next blog post will focus more on singing with an interview with a true Queen of the Night, the wonderful Greek Soprano Christina Poulitsi (Stay tuned!), but for now, let’s get down to business.
If you’ve ever gone to a competition, convention or event, it can be scary to try to talk with groups of people you have never met. Furthermore, if you are there to network and make connections, the stakes can be that much higher, making you that much more nervous. Here are a few best practices to make sure you maximize your networking experience. |
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Personalized diction, voice & performance training, singing lessons online or in person
Most blog posts from June 2017 - June 2018 were written by GVAI's blogger Anikka Abbott who has just started her journalism studies. We already miss her. Learn more about her here or connect with her on Facebook.
Meet ChristineHello, I am Christine, the director of GVAI, a passionate singer, German diction, voice and performance coach. I love music, singing and dancing. Life is an exciting journey and I invite you to walk with me.... |
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