Masterclass with Dawn Upshaw

as soon as she landed in san diego from a flight from new york, she rushed over to the school for the masterclass. Dawn is a charming character. she gets into work right after she gets into the room. everybody commented afterwards that she is unexpectedly sweet and professional. (soprano stereotype gets into the mind again.) she worked on 4 of our graduate students. anne-marie sang a beautifully written song by her boyfriend, a 3rd year new music composition student. the ornamentation sounds kind of eastern. anyways folkish. and generally atonal. laura sang an italian song, not particularly of interest to me, but nice sound. fiona sang something totally shocking. sequenza III for a woman's voice by berio. it's scary. if you can find it, you should listen to it. it's absolutely amazing. and this is about the first time i'm hearing modern stuff proper in ucsd. you actually need to fish it out. man. imagine i didn't take the voice class and leave ucsd the hugest modern music place on earth thinking that there's only bach here. lorant sang the same mozart piece.
so to summarise Dawn's suggestions:
1. recite the poem without pitch to help with the dynamics of the language.
2. when an unusual gesture such as a rest in the middle of a phrase appear, ask yourself what might have been the reason for the composer to put it there and how you might make use of it.
3. think through the phrase from the point of departure to the end, show the audience where it ends up. crescendo towards the most important word,as if you can't wait to sing that word. (we are constantly told of this by all the teachers, we just need to be reminded of it again and again)
4. take rests as essentials, not stops.
5. nothing is about total comfort. nothing is totally calm. always some other emotion in it.
6. make it an enjoyment of breathing.
7. all or nothing experience.
8. paint mental pictures.

always think about the big picture, the structure of things.

so thursday i'll be watching her sing. the west coast premiere of Ayre