Bard  Conservatory of Music Offers Master Class with Dawn Upshaw on December 1

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College Conservatory of Music proudly presents internationally renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw in a public Master Class to be held on Monday, December 1, from 1:30 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. in Olin Auditorium. The program is free and open to the public.

Upshaw is the artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard. She will be working with second-year students from this program on repertoire including operatic arias and art song. The core of her singing philosophy is that “text should form a central point of departure in singing; I see singing as being fundamentally theatrical in nature.” Please join us for a thrilling afternoon of master teaching and fine singing.

Dawn Upshaw was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Park Forest, Illinois. She attended Illinois Wesleyan University, and she holds honorary doctorate degrees from Yale, Manhattan School of Music, and Illinois Wesleyan. She began her soprano career as a 1984 winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions and the 1985 Walter W. Naumburg Competition and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program. Upshaw has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of Bach to the freshest contemporary sounds. She has premiered more than 40 works in the past decade. A three-time Grammy Award winner, Upshaw is featured on more than 50 recordings, including the million-selling Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki. At Bard College she is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Kellogg Professor of the Arts and Humanities and artistic director of the Graduate Program in Vocal Arts at the Conservatory.

The Graduate Vocal Arts Program is a two-year Master of Music degree conceived by soprano Dawn Upshaw. The course work is designed to support a broad-based approach to a singing career that extends from standard repertory to new music. There are weekly voice lessons and diction and repertory courses, training in acting, and core seminars that introduce and tie together the historical/cultural perspective, analytical tools, and performance skills that distinguish vocal and operatic performance at the highest level. In addition to artistic director Upshaw, the faculty includes head of program Kayo Iwama; voice teachers Edith Bers, Patricia

Misslin, and Lorraine Nubar; diction instructor and vocal coach Sharon Bjorndal; Alexander Technique teachers Gwen Ellison and Judith Grodowitz; and career workshop coordinator Carol Yaple. Master classes have been held with pianist and vocal coach Ken Noda, vocal coach Pierre Vallet, soprano Lucy Shelton, and directors Marc Verzatt, Eve Shapiro, and Doug Fitch, among others.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, call the Conservatory at 845-758-7196 or e-mail [email protected].

This event was last updated on 11-24-2008

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