Please be sure to send in your July lesson payments ASAP! Thank you!
Congrats to all the July 3 virtual recital singers! It was great!
The next virtual recital will be on Friday, July 31, with the theme of "Christmas in July." I don't do a recital in December because everyone is so busy, so now's the time to choose your favorite holiday tune and bring some yuletide joy into our quarantine!
COVID-19 Update: At this time, we are continuing with online lessons only, to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. Once the incidence of the disease is officially going down in our area, and we are moved to Phase 3, we will re-evaluate the safety of in-person lessons.
This Stephen Sondheim musical from 1984 is inspired by Georges Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," with the characters and images in the painting being recreated onstage.
Debussy was one of the first Impressionist composers, and wrote music of beautiful mood and atmosphere. Read more below!
Musical of the Week
Sunday in the Park with George is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It was inspired by the French pointillist painter Georges Seurat's painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The original Broadway production opened in 1984, and starred Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters.
It won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, two Tony Awards for design (and a nomination for Best Musical), numerous Drama Desk Awards, the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Musical and the 2007 Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production. It has had several major revivals, including the 2017 limited-run revival starring Jake Gyllenhaal. That production was scheduled to move to the West End in London in 2021, but has been delayed due to COVID-19.
I'm excited to present some
new online video resources on YouTube, exclusively for my students, to help you all with your home practice, especially during this time that we are not able to do in-person lessons.
I have created videos and YouTube playlists of about 50 of our
warm-ups and
solfege exercises, for you to practice along with, and warm up for online lessons.
Resources also include a
YouTube playlist of stretches, yoga, core exercises, facial/jaw massage, and other physical warm-ups for singers.
You will also find links to Vaccai vocal exercises, and I will continue to add more videos and resources - I have some more exciting things coming this summer. Please let me know if you think of anything that would be useful to include for you.
Frère Jacques is a French nursery rhyme, also known in English as Brother John, and is traditionally sung as a round. A round (also called a canon) is a musical composition in which a minimum of three voices sing exactly the same melody, but with each voice beginning at different times so that different parts of the melody coincide in the different voices. It is one of the easiest forms of part singing, as only one line of melody need be learned by all parts, and is part of a popular musical tradition. Other well-known rounds are "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Three Blind Mice."
"Frère Jacques" is about a friar who has overslept and is urged to wake up and sound the bell for the matins, the midnight or very early morning prayers for which a monk would be expected to wake.
Have fun sight-reading these folk tunes! Do you recognize them?
You've Got Rhythm!
Here are some exercises for rhythm practice - grab your metronome and go for it!
Composer Spotlight: Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy (
1862-1918) was a French composer who is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, with his compositional style focusing on mood and atmosphere, and rejecting some previous classical music conventions. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
With early influences including Russian and far-eastern music, Debussy developed his own style of harmony and orchestral coloring, which was resisted by much of the musical establishment of his day. He lived an interesting and somewhat scandalous life, and died of cancer at his home in Paris at the age of 55.
Read the full article at Wikipedia.
