Hello - first time poster to this group. My daughter, a soprano, has some excellent choices for starting her undergraduate studies next fall. We recently visited one of her top choices and had 3 lessons. She loved the personality of the first teacher, said her second lesson was phenomenal and the third lesson was good.
I asked my daughter’s current and former (moved to another university) voice teachers to see if they could find out more about Ms. Phenomenal from their colleagues and I got back some very conflicting information - so conundrum. I’m hearing everything from “best teacher there” (from a former colleague of Ms. Phenomenal) to “her students sound too old for their ages” (from someone who has attended juries with Ms. Phenomenal’s students.)
Can someone more experienced help me to weigh the second comment (sounding too old for their ages). Is that a teacher shortcoming or is that a student shortcoming? Can this be managed with appropriate selection of rep?
I’m trying not to disclose the school, obviously, but this feedback kind of burst my daughter’s bubble a bit. (Studio matching happens during the summer at this school.)
If it’s consistent among all the students then it’s more than likely a teacher problem. I would be curious as to how many of those students were heard. In short, rather than asking us, why not ask to one who made that comment? Perhaps ask that they expand on that criticism . (BTW it can be a combination of technique AND the wrong rep—either way it’s generally the teacher who usually selects both)
Do you know how well Ms Phenom’s students do either in grad school admissions or in their professional careers?
Given that the mystery school does not make assignments until the summer, your D has no guarantee to be in the studio of Ms. Phenomenal. Would she be happy with having Ms. Good or Ms Personality? You have not said anything about the other schools under consideration - are there teachers of interest there? My D decided to go with the school where she had several teachers that were appealing. Other schools she considered only had one studio of interest, and that was a little scary in case space was not available in her first choice.
Knowing nothing about voice per se, other than what I have learned on here (not to derail the thread, but what does “their students sound too old for their ages” mean? Does it mean they are singing rep they shouldn’t be given how young their voices are, or is it stylistic?) I can’t comment on the specific comment. One thing about comments from other teachers is they are just opinions, an teachers have their own biases and such based on my experiences with the instrumental world. For example, in violin teachers coming from different backgrounds can be critical of other teachers, teachers in the Franco/Belgium school of violin have been known to be harshly critical of the students of teachers who are of the Russian school of things and vice/versa, for example. Do some research, are there critiques out there on the students of Ms. Phenomenal, saying the same thing? If one teacher is saying it, it could be a lot of things, including jealousy, I have seen all kinds of stuff with teachers with other teachers, and often it may be a personal bias or a vendetta, you don’t know. The fact that a prior colleague of Ms. Phenomenal thinks she is the cats meow may not mean anything either, it could be they are good friends, you never knew, so again it is wise to see what others have said. Try and track students of both teachers, singers tend to have bios out there, see if any of them seem to have made it or on the track of making it (whatever that means).
I think songbirdmamma has another point, if you choose the program with Ms. Phenomenal, would your D be happy with the others? To me personally that is kind of lousy on the part of the school (I don’t know if that is unique to this school or if that is common on voice), when you get into instrumental programs you generally know the studios who have accepted you when you are admitted, or have the ability to try and find a studio before you commit, that kind of sounds like a pig in a poke. If she doesn’t think the other ones are quite as good, and there is a teacher or teachers at other programs she likes and knows she will get if she goes there, that could be a better choice if Ms. Phenomenal doesn’t accept your D in their studio and your D thinks the other two are merely okay.
I can empathize with you bc each time my D got a teacher, I found myself looking for “trouble” as well. And not that you shouldn’t…but when you look, you are bound to find some. Here are a few thoughts:
1.) NO teacher is perfect. What you are looking for is a good fit. How did your D feel with the teacher? If she had a good connection that says something. My D has said that there is no way to understand fit, it’s just there or not. It sounds like she had a connection so that is good.
2.) Can you see if her students have gone on to good graduate programs? I’m not big at looking at the “success” of past students particularly for UG - meaning being on stage or winning competitive. However if the teacher has students moving on to good graduate programs or singing at the same school in graduate school in principle roles, I think you could feel more assured that the teacher is a fine selection. Obviously then not everyone questions her students “sound”.
3.) As for the “sound” issue - my D ran into this for a graduate school selection. Her UG teacher did not like the “sound” of students out of a particular school that my D applied to. However it is a well-known school and students come from that school to my D’s school for graduate school and were cast. I think “sound” can be one of those … subjective issues. I find this very hard to judge so I would default to the questions above.
4.) What is the studio make-up for the teacher? Is it mainly graduate students? Is there a possibility she will be pushed too quickly to sing things above her ability? I’m unsure if it is a “sound” issue or “repertoire” issue? Again this is a tough one. I would check the studio make-up however. If it is all UG (and you can confirm pt 2 that students do move on to good graduate programs), I would again be less concerned. If there are a lot of graduate students and only 1 or 2 UGs you may want to be sure your D doesn’t have to sing above her age. And you may want to consider if it’s a larger voice faculty allowing movement…just in case.
Full disclosue - my D accepted a UG studio assignment with little research (since we didn’t know what we doing - but I did some google searches and worried about her teacher being too busy etc). She had a more famous teacher with an almost all graduate studio. It did cause some issues (feeling inferior) but the teacher did NOT require her to sing above her abilities and she had a wonderful, encouraging relationship with her - once my D settled down. At some point it is truly a leap of faith. Good luck.
Hello again! I wanted to thank you for these very thoughtful comments. I have read and re-read them. I think it’s difficult in a lesson or two to really understand what a teacher/student relationship will be like over the course of the next 4 years. We are trying to be very thoughtful as we go through this process, but I love @bridgenail’s final comment that at some point it is a leap of faith. That said, we are working to get a little more feedback on the teacher I had concerns about, but we will likely not go that direction. The teacher who was good, not full of personality or phenomenal, may be the right fit here after all and she’s been consistently reported as good by a number of folks.
I’m going to weigh in on what the issue of “her students sound too old for their ages”: I doubt that has as much to do with inappropriate rep choices as it does the “dark” sound they are producing. For girls, it usually comes from having them drag the voice in the back of their mouth and guys are taught to “cover”. Women can do that too, but it’s not nearly as common- for a good example of that, listen to old recordings of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who was a master at it! It’s not great technique and strains the voice. If I had options, I wouldn’t deliberately choose to go with a teacher whose students had this sound attributed to them.
Thanks for the info @Mezzo’sMama. Sound is something I hear my D mention quite often but I don’t completely understand it. My D spent some time with her old coach recently and she texted me saying “he really likes my sound”. That was it. Obviously important.
Hello - here’s the follow-up. My daughter decided to attend a different school altogether - not the school/teachers discussed in my original post. There was a little back and forth between two schools, but she made a great decision and we are excited for her adventure! (We appealed her merit award and the school she selected provided a little more in merit, enough to make it the most affordable option of like schools.) She and her voice teacher sent in her teacher preferences on Tuesday night and DD got the great news this morning that she’s officially matched to her first choice. 
I think my best move here was removing myself from the whole discussion of teachers and letting my daughter and her voice teacher, who is smart, perceptive and whom we trust completely, make those decisions. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Music Major moms!