<p>I'm a high coloratura soprano auditioning at vocal performance schools this year. I have already come up with my list of schools but now I am having trouble figuring out which teachers to have lessons with or pursue as a potential teacher. I have already had lessons with a number of teachers but I am still unsure. </p>
<p>I know that there have been other threads about voice teachers but I would really also like to know about teachers that are specifically good for sopranos (even more specifically coloratura). Any recommendations for the following schools would be greatly appreciated:</p>
<p>Juilliard
Rice
Eastman
CCM
NEC
USC
Oberlin</p>
<p>Not looking for any school recommendations. Just teachers. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Normally I would send this information to you in a PM, but there are a lot of sopranos out there and many of them that will be applying to these same schools. I hope that this will serve as useful information for them as well:</p>
<p>Juilliard - Marlena Malas
Rice - Stephen King, Suzanne Mentzer
Eastman - Rita Shane
CCM - Karen Lykes
NEC - Patricia Misslin
USC - Elizabeth Hynes
Oberlin - Salvatore Champagne, Lorrain Manz</p>
<p>P.S. - Many of these teachers do well with just about any voice type!</p>
<p>I have also heard some good coloraturas at Oberlin studying with Marlene Rosen and Daune Mahy. I am also a lyric coloratura and I studied with Lorraine Manz. </p>
<p>I don’t know who my teacher is yet at CCM but my top choices for teachers were Kenneth Shaw (who came recommended by many faculty members at Oberlin), Thomas Baresel and Gwendolyn Detwiler.</p>
<p>I would recommend Edith Bers at Juilliard. </p>
<p>You might want to ask the question of how many students the teachers teach at how many schools, privately. You want your teacher to have time, energy, and interest in you. There are a number of fine teachers out there who are spread too thin, and lessons are frequently canceled and/or rescheduled. Be careful.</p>
<p>The problem with Patricia Misslin is that she teaches at so many schools. I think the number is around 3-4! From what I have heard it is common for her to only be able to give 2-3 lessons/month to her “students”. Just some food for thought.</p>
<p>Oh and I second Stephen King and Marlena Malas!</p>
<p>Thank you for all of the suggestions! Operaluvr, point taken! I have been advised before not to pursue teachers who are faculty at so many places. And I heard Stephen King is amazing! I also just had a lesson with Rita Shane and she was great too.</p>
<p>Hi again! So my mom has put her foot down and decided that I need narrow my list down by at least one school. I am having a lot of trouble figuring this out. I am set on auditioning at Juilliard and Rice but I might be willing to reconsider NEC, USC and CCM. Any advice? The quality of the program is the most important thing to me but it is also important to me to have a relatively nurturing environment. Key word “relative”. Which of these places might not be so great for an undergrad soprano? Any comments are welcome!</p>
<p>Seven schools is a reasonable number to consider for applications. You should not limit your decisions until after you find out if you even receive an invitation to audition. Some of the schools you are listing here have pre-qualification requirements and you may or may not even be asked to all schools for auditions based on those. So it may be better to keep all options open, apply and see where it goes when the audition invitations start coming in. Good Luck!</p>
<p>CCM for undergrad voice would not be at the top of my list at the moment. They have gone through some rocky times and have a brand-new dean as of this year, so hopefully, things will straighten out. Their grad program is an entirely different matter!</p>