Master Singers

Book excerpt: There is often a dichotomy between the academic approach to singing that voice students learn in the studio and what professional singers do on the operatic and concert stage. Great singers at the top of the performing profession achieve their place with much analysis and awareness of their technique, art, interpretation and stagecraft that goes far beyond academic study and develops over years of experience, exposure, and the occasional embarrassing error. Master Singers brings these insights to the student, teacher, and emerging professional singer, giving them many needed signs and signals along the road to achieving their own artistry and established career. Through interviews with some of today's most accomplished and renowned concert and operatic singers, including Stephanie Blythe, David Daniels, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, Thomas Hampson, Jonas Kaufmann, Simon Keenlyside, and Ewa Podles', Master Singers provides vocalists making the transition from student to professional with indispensable advice on matters ranging from technique and its practical application for effective stage projection to the practicalities of the business of professional singing and maintaining a career to recommendations for vocal hygiene and longevity in singing. Rather than relying on a traditional one-singer-at-a-time structure, Donald George and Lucy Mauro distill answers to a range of essential, probing questions into a thematic approach, creating not a standard interview book but a true reference for emerging professional singers. An indispensable resource and reliable guide, Master Singers will find its place on the bookshelf of singers of this generation and the next.