Originally published in Caramoor’s Fall 2017 – Spring 2018 Program Book
In celebration of the tenth year of Caramoor’s Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program, Artistic Director Steven Blier looks back on some of the most memorable performances and breakthroughs as well as what it take to construct a successful program.
The Schwab Vocal Rising Stars mentoring program focuses on art song interpretation and has a lasting impact on the development and professional practices of young artists. Since its inception in 2009, it has received vital funding from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists, established to nurture and support the artistic development and careers of young vocalists.
Assisted by Michael Barrett and developed in conjunction with the New York Festival of Song, Artistic Director Steven Blier selects four promising singers and one pianist for the week-long residency at Caramoor that includes daily coaching and workshops, culminating in a concert in the Music Room.
Blier talked about his tenth year as Artistic Director and how he chooses a unique theme for the program each year.
To select the Rising Stars each year, Blier said he looks for qualities shared by all great song performers — opera singers included: a unique timbre, the capacity for emotional depth and openness, and the technique to expressively mold phrases.
[tout]“You need other things on the recital stage that are not deal breakers in opera. Delicacy, … verbal imagination, a knack for story-telling, and a charismatic inner-life that can draw an audience in.”[/tout]
“You need other things on the recital stage that are not deal-breakers in opera,” he adds. “Delicacy, and the ability to sustain the voice at lower dynamics, verbal imagination, a knack for story-telling, and a charismatic inner-life that can draw an audience in. Opera singers are chastised if they sing flat, but no one seems to mind if they sing sharp. In song, there is nowhere to hide; with just voice and piano, your intonation has to be that of a first-class string player.”
Other qualities important to a great recital singer? “Comic timing. Eloquence. A farranging sense of style (especially in my concerts, which can include both Grieg and Noël Coward in the same program) and a fearless appetite for foreign languages.
Although there are several vocal mentoring programs throughout the country, Blier says there are none similar to Vocal Rising Stars. “The unique quality at Caramoor is … Caramoor itself. The quiet and calm of the environment, the lack of distractions from the outer world, the quality of being on a retreat in a Zen garden of song: these things separate Vocal Rising Stars from any other experience. The fact that it takes place during the hurly-burly of a school year makes the beauty of the Music Room and the landscape even more precious.”
“Did I mention cantor Joshua Breitzer giving an unforgettable class in Sephardic Spanish (Ladino) to our Spanish Gold cast? Or Scandinavian-song guru John Lidal cutting through the thickets of Danish pronunciation, and then revealing the hidden mysteries of a Henrik Ibsen poem? The delight — and chutzpah — of programming a song in Zulu in Four Islands (2017), and watching the cast figure out how to make it work? I am already feeling guilty about everyone I have left out. Each person has been precious and so has each song.”
This year’s Vocal Rising Stars Residency culminates in From Lute Song to the Beatles: Songs of the British Isles. Please join us Sunday, March 11, 2018 at 3:00pm in the Music Room.
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Sunday [slash] March 11 [slash] 3:00pm
Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
Classical, Vocal [slash]Music Room
$15, $35 [slash] Free tickets for students 18 and under!
[button href=”https://caramoor.org/events/verona-quartet-fall/” target=”_blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]
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