In my private lessons, I try to teach not a specific technique, but a way of finding one's own, natural vocal technique. Singers vary, and their techniques--beyond sound, foundational principles that promote vocal health, stamina and that impossible-to-define "beauty."  Because of this, or perhaps despite this, I do not call what I do "voice lessons." Rather, I use the historical designation of "singing lessons." Learning to sing, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was was much or, possibly, more about the art of singing, artistic, emotional and intellectual, than about simply producing optimal sounds. Optimal sounds are important, but they are the beginning, not the end, of vocal study. Vocal artistry requires, in so-called "classical music," a good technique, but a good technique is not, by itself, artistry.

​I use the exercises and discipline of the eighteenth-century castrati to build voices‘ power, range, control, dynamic and coloristic ranges, as well as durability.  The beauty of this venerable method is that it allows each voice to achieve its own particular apex…as the focus is on discovering the way each individual sings and the way each voice sounds best.  It is a teaching style that is as appropriate for a beginning student as it is for a professional singer wanting a tune-up or to refine certain aspects.  I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions, and am more interested in uncovering the individual voice, as it is only through this medium, plus the soul and the brain, that singers become individual artists. As a musicologist, and as a performer, I try very hard--insofar as it is possible--to strip the modern knowingness from my singing-self's perception. This means that I intentionally use, and also attempt to think in, the terminology that preceded the medical discoveries, brilliant though they were, of Manuel Garcia in the 1840s. 

If you wish to explore your voice's further potential with me, within this self-consciously historical framework, please feel free to contact me.