Liz Delillo
Staff Writer
Voice students will perform at Chautauqua Opera Conservatory’s annual Sing-In at 1 p.m. today in Fletcher Music Hall.
The Sing-In marks the beginning of the Opera Conservatory’s season, and each of the 27 students will perform an aria. In six short weeks, they perform at the Sing-Out on Aug. 1 to conclude their training. The two events bookend their training at the Opera Conservatory, showcasing the students’ talents and improvement over the course of the program.
At the Sing-In, “You meet everyone, and you’ll see that everybody’s talented and lovely and wonderful; then, it’s even more exciting to see the Sing-Out and realize that those people who started (out) great are even greater now,” said Opera Conservatory Director Jonathan Beyer.
This summer, the young vocalists will study under an impressive faculty line-up orchestrated by Beyer and Artistic Advisor Denyce Graves-Montgomery. As students take masterclasses and perform in operas, recitals and workshops, they will work intensively with experts in the field to improve their craft.
Beyer himself was a student in the Voice Program in the early 2000s; that time “legitimately changed my life.”
“I met these incredible luminaries in the field — great teachers and pianists and directors — and I saw what this kind of intense, focused work can do for a student in just one summer,” he said.
