Snazzy Links

DC Area Performances

• Vocal Arts DC sponsors classical singers in recital.
• Washington Performing Arts Society produces concerts by leading classical artists.
• Cantate Chamber Singers presents unusual programs of choral music, including frequent premieres and unique collaborations.
• Urban Arias is a local professional opera-producing organization that focuses on short, modern works presented in English in smaller spaces.

Musical Theatre

• Broadwayworld.com’s student section, including listings of educational institutions that offer degrees in musical theatre and related fields.
• Broadway Theatre Project Training program for young musical theatre performers age 16 and up. There have been some administrative changes since 2011, so research carefully.
• The Performing Arts Project Founded in 2011, is a summer program for young musical theatre performers age 16 and up.
• Musicals 101 – John Henrick’s vast resource for everything you ever wanted to know about the American musical.
• StageAgent is a web service dedicated to the performers and producers of musicals, dramas, and operas. Has casting requirements (character descriptions, vocal ranges, etc.) for shows.
• Music Theatre International has information for the many shows that it holds the licenses for. Includes information on some shows not included at StageAgent.
• Accompaniments for SMTA for the Singers Musical Theatre Anthology.

Art Song

• The Lied and Art Song Texts Page. Terrific resource for translations.
• The Lotte Lehmann Foundation – “The dual missions of the Lehmann Foundation are to preserve and perpetuate Lotte Lehmann’s legacy, and to honor her dream of bringing art song into the lives of as many people as possible.” The Foundation sponsors a biennial art song performance competition called CyberSing.
• Patricia Caicedo has published several volumes of Latin American art songs, including two devoted to the work of Colombian composer Jaime León. Highly recommended.
• Seattle Art Song Society
• Vocal Arts DC in Washington, DC
• Britten Song Database
• SongHelix

Opera

• Operabase contains databases of performances, opera companies, and artists, cross-referenced so that you can find out who is singing what, where, and when.
• Center for Contemporary Opera.
• Opera Arias Database is a great resource for finding appropriate roles and arias for performance and auditions, searchable by many parameters.
• The Aria Database is similar to Opera Arias Database, although a little smaller.
• OperaPulse – “OperaPulse is leading a movement, online and offline, to help build up your opera community and propel this magnificent art form well into the 21st Century.”
• Ópera Actual – “la revista de ópera de España con toda la ópera del mundo”. (“the opera magazine from Spain with all of the opera of the world”). A very well done magazine in print and web formats.
• Ópera Latinoamérica – “Ópera Latinoamérica OLA, is a non-profit organisation that brings together Ibero-American opera theatres whose mission is to advance and promote lyric art in the Latin American region.” (sitio bilingüe)
• Opera on Tap (OOT) was born in 2005 at Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in Brooklyn and incorporated in 2007 to promote opera as a viable, living and progressive art form and to support the developing artists who continue to keep the art form alive.
• On Site Opera, based in New York City, is doing innovative performances at temporary locations.
• Heartbeat Opera in New York.

Vocal Pedagogy Blogs, Podcasts, and the Like

• Justin Petersen, voice teacher and scholar. Blog full of great finds from his research.
• Jeannette LoVetri’s blog – The founder of Somatic Voicework™ writes with a concise and persuasive style about singing and pedagogy.
• Claudia Friedlander is a voice teacher in New York City.
• National Association of Teachers of Singing or “NATS” The Journal of Singing contains articles and reviews representing varied interests and points of view. NATS occasionally sponsors educational and networking opportunities.
• David Jones in New York City. He was one of the first to blog. Many useful articles.
• The Cornelius L. Reid Project has recordings of Mr. Reid teaching actual lessons.

Vocal anatomy and function

• Interactive Anatomy of the Larynx – Terrific way to see all the structures of the larynx, from several angles using videos, photos, drawings, and X-rays.
• National Center for Voice and Speech – The “Science for Singers” section contains short, readable articles by Ingo Titze relating to vocal function in singing.
• Simple drawings of different parts and layers of the vocal tract from Emory University.
• A video tour of the larynx and environs from Robert Bastian, MD.

New Music

• Newmusic USA. Events and projects.
• Baltimore Composers Forum.
• Boulanger Initiative. Washington DC.
• Resonant Bodies Festival and vocal music database.

Sheet music

• Sheetmusicplus is a mail order house that has a large selection in all genres.
• Classical Vocal Reprints is a great source for hard-to-find classical repertoire. Great customer service.

Books on Singing

• The Old Italian School of Singing: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, Daniela Bloem-Hubatka. McFarland and Company. A well-researched and practical book that documents the actual materials and procedures for technical development in the 19th century.
• The Human Nature of the Singing Voice and Singing: Personal and Performance Values in Training by Peter T. Harrison. His writing style is clear and friendly. He has a clear mission of exploring how to improve voice training, and proposes some bold ideas. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
• Discover Your Voice: How to Develop Healthy Voice Habits (1996), Oren L. Brown. Singular Publishing Group, Inc. Comes with a CD of exercises. Interesting and useful book about healthy singing.
• Singing Redefined: A conceptual approach to singing (1998), Walter C. Foster. Recital Publications. “A conceptual approach to singing, including a study of the emotional process and the imaginative capacity, linguistic and musical awareness, singing concepts based on the responsive nature of the instrument, and exercises designed to promote a technically correct, artistically expressive singing tone.” The exercises in the back are well worth the investment.
• Singing and Imagination: A Human Approach to a Great Musical Tradition (1998), Thomas Hemsley. Oxford University Press.
• A Dictionary of Vocal Terminology (1983) , Cornelius L. Reid. Recital Publications
• Essays on the Nature of Singing (1992), Cornelius L. Reid. Recital Publications. An easier read than some of his earlier books, and a good introduction to Reid’s ideas of “functional training”. As radical and refreshing today as Bel Canto was in 1950.
• Many wonderful free historical pedagogy texts at Shigo Voice Studio.

Helpful Books for All

• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, Cal Newport.
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, Michael A. Singer. New Harbinger Publications/ Noetic Books. “The Untethered Soul is indeed one of the finest treatments of the nature and practice of the conscious use of consciousness that I have ever read…. It is the clearest statement I know of who we are and what we face in our emerging humanity.” – Jean Houston
• Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, Byron Katie. Harmony. “Remember the phrase ‘question authority’? Loving What Is is a workbook on questioning authority–but in this case, what is in question is the authority of our own fundamental beliefs…” – Jill Lightner

Dictionaries, Diction, and Translation

• Collins – a good alternative to Google Translate.
• Catalan – Lexicool – multiple dictionary links from there.
• Portuguese – Lexicool
• Portuguese pronunciation with regional variants. Dicionário Fonético
• The Diction Police. I especially like their article on “How to Learn Music/Language Learning Tips”.
• Russian diction resources by Natalia Melnik. Large website and YouTube channel.
• Translation site Reverso.net. Includes some more archaic forms found in older repertoire.
• Keyboards for IPA and many languages. Copy and paste to where you need special characters.

Acoustics, Tech, and Gear

• Frequencies of musical pitches. Illustrated with a piano keyboard.

Miscellaneous

• Archivio del Canto – A collection of books and documents on opera singing and singers.
• Auditioning For College Matt Edwards has compiled a terrific bank of information about applications and auditions for degree programs in the performing arts.
• Cabaret Hotspot. Cabaret is mostly a New York scene, but this is a good resource for people interested in this kind of show.
• Sightreadingfactory.com, well designed site for practicing for sightreading auditions.
• radiooooo.com Pick a country, pick a decade, and listen to a playlist from that time and place!
• The Living Composers Project.
• Online piano keyboard with sound for finding notes.