masterclassen

The voice department here had a vocal masterclass with wonderful accompanist Roger Vignoles.

Leaving aside the various challenges of masterclasses (a friend said to me that it's a nice performing opportunity because the performer gets to sing the piece twice [and improve] and the master gets to take the credit!), I thought this one was handled really quite well. Vignoles worked equally with vocalists and accompanists, which fit hand in glove with his insistence that the voice and the piano become more interwoven, interlaced.

There were also many other bits of interpretive advice, which seem, from an audience listener's viewpoint to be rather apparent after doing a combined study of the text, the vocal line, the piano setting, and their joint intricacies. (of course that's quite a lot of work that is easy to shirk in the scramble just to learn the music -- note to self, have a lot of this type of stuff to do!)

But enough about that. Mr. Vignoles is also featured in this masterclass in Edinburgh with Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf!