Generational Voices Fellow David Morgans sings during Claudia Catania’s music theater master class Friday in Fletcher Hall.
LAYLA VINSON
Staff Writer
For Grammy Award winner and Generational Voices Fellow David Morgans, The Denyce Graves Foundation’s Generational Voices program, which supports young opera artists, is invaluable to singers like him. As the two-week program at Chautauqua Institution continues, he recounted his first interaction with Denyce Graves.
Working at the Metropolitan Opera for a production of Porgy and Bess in 2019, the two connected on stage in more ways than one.
“I would wave my hands and my eyes were closed, and someone would always come around and hug me firmly around the midriff,” Morgans explained. “Someone messaged me the next day and they were like, ‘Do you know that Denyce Graves — the Denyce Graves — is hugging you in the middle of your solo?’ And I had no idea. I was so tickled.”
Morgans said he sees Graves’ work with the foundation and the Generational Voices program as being full-circle.
“For her to actually be now the mother representation of what she was doing on stage is really beautiful,” Morgans said.
Morgans stressed how unique the all-encompassing nature of the program is. He said it provides emerging singers with resources ranging from personal stylists to wellness consultations to master class coachings.
“[Graves and Claudia Catania] really give beautiful positive reinforcement and help you tweak things that aren’t going so well in a way that you are able to feel safe, supported and be vulnerable in front of so many people,” Morgans said, reflecting on his two master classes at Chautauqua as a Generational Voices Fellow. “That’s not always been the case for people giving master classes. Some people leave with trauma, and I’m so glad that we have left with love.”
Having taken part in the master classes already, Morgans said he is excited for the next in the series. At 4 p.m. today in Fletcher Music Hall, Kevin Short, American opera singer and faculty member at The Juilliard School, will teach a master class.
“I think [the Generational Voices program] has really given us full rein of what we decide to do,” Morgans said. “What our careers will be is fully dependent on what we decide they will be, and [Graves] has given us every resource possible to make that happen.”
This agency and refusal to fit into a “mold of someone else’s standard” play a crucial role for Morgans as he continues to forge his career in the industry.
“To be able to be a Generational Voices Fellow, and to have someone believe in me with all of their power and put all of their resources behind me and these other artists to ensure our success, to ensure our growth and to ensure our longevity is really something special,” Morgans said. “And nobody else is doing it like [Graves]. That’s for sure.”
