"Although I am primarily a classical singer by trade, my experience as a vocalist spans a wide variety of styles, including jazz, rock, funk, blues, and world music. These days I only really sing jazz with big band, but from age 15 to 28 I performed with various bands and ensembles as a vocalist and keyboardist in all of the styles mentioned above. My students benefit from my broad knowledge of vocal technique, which brings together elements of my own focused training as a classical singer as well as the wide variety of styles that I have explored and continue to develop in my career."
"I integrate classic bel canto vocal training into all of my lessons, but I marry that with a firm understanding of contemporary vocal technique. I believe in an underpinning in classical training for all of my students—they can call upon that for breath support, to enrich their tone, to access different types of vocal colors, so that they can have a healthy technique. It's holistic vocal development."
"We put a great tax on our voices all the time as singers. Healthy singing is about finding a relaxed and safe balance in vocal production. It's about finding the most healthy default vocal posture and breath support, so that we can do these things without thinking. It is muscle memory. It is finding a way to train all of our muscles into the safest habituation, so that when we deliver it, we don't think; we just do."
"I'm a great advocate of technology in the classroom. All of my students record their lessons using their laptops, and we use those videos as learning tools outside of our lesson time. Then, also, I have students make a video on their own every week and send it to me, and sometimes I'll also Skype, because I believe that one of the pitfalls of private instruction is that we only see each other once a week. In those seven days in between, a lot of things could happen to change habits."
"It's outside accountability, which could be considered a drag. But also, it's a tool. If you buy into it, then you're going to develop twice as fast. And at the end of the day, you're going to have a video journal of what you've done the whole time, every time you come into a lesson and every week in between. You can see your progress."
