Music at Paxton: Masterclass
Paxton House - 23/07/22
Today’s masterclass, led by Roderick Williams with Susie Allan on piano, is another example of Paxton’s support for young artists. Its format – three half-hour sessions – gives the audience an opportunity to meet three singers at the start of their careers.
Williams makes it clear from the start that this cannot be an intensive session, and he has no wish to teach vocal technique, but as a working performer, he hopes to give the singers some tips on singing to an audience, and tells us that our help will be enlisted from time to time.
First up is Sally Carr. A former pupil of St Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh and Edinburgh University, she’s a post-graduate student at Trinity Laban College, London. She has just spent a year with the Dunedin Consort on their Bridging the Gap scheme. She’s a composed presence on the stage as she sings Samuel Barber’s ‘Vision of St Ita’. So it’s a surprise when she confesses that she was very nervous indeed when she reached the stage. Williams asks all the singers how they would rate their nerves on a scale of one to five, with one being completely chilled to five quaking in their boots.
Sally Carr discussing her work with the Dunedin Consort.
This is the first of the practicalities that Williams deals with. The next is diction, and the audience is asked to put up our hands if we can hear over 75% of the words. Sally scores well in this. With Williams own clear diction in last night’s concert fresh in many minds, we have an idea of how good it can be, so though I missed a few of Sally’s words, the precision of the rest of the text helped to fill in the gaps. He then deals with eye contact. The Picture Gallery at Paxton is only five rows deep, but the seating spreads out to the full width of the room. “Which of you felt that Sally made direct eye contact with you?” Sally has hit the spot with those in the middle of the hall, but she didn’t reach those of us in the side sections. This is something she experiments with, and this time locks eyes with nearly everyone in the room.
Finally Williams works with her on differentiating the sections of the song, using diction and gesture. The narrator, St Ita, asks God to send her the infant Christ to nurse. How would Sally characterise this idea. “Mad!” she says. When they agree that the central section shows care and compassion, Williams notes that she automatically moves her hands in a cradling gesture. Not all songs will include such a dichotomy but it’s clear how a performer’s awareness of simple details can improve her performance.
Next is James McIntyre. The Scots baritone has been a student at the Royal Conservatoire and has recently worked with Scottish Opera. It turns out that his song, John Ireland’s setting of Aldous Huxley’s ‘The Trellis’ is new to everyone in the audience. This provides the perfect test of his diction, and he doesn’t do as well as Sally. In fact I wrote “terrace?” when he spoke the title. In masterclasses constructive criticism is essential, and when working with James on this issue Williams keeps his comments supportive and practical. He works with James on singing the word “flowers” on one note and making the “rs” sound clearly. It’s noticeable that even a small change works. (James won the Conservatoire prize for Scots Song, and I wonder how he would have pronounced “flowers” in a Scots song. More of a diphthong, I would guess.) He too is given some work on eye contact. Again a simple exercise, looking round the audience during the first bars without singing, noticeably improves his confidence, and our appreciation of him. He has a lovely voice, though Williams says something every attender at song recitals can appreciate – if the singer doesn’t establish eye-contact and the audience can’t hear the words, we can still enjoy the beautiful sounds but tend to stop trying to understand the song.
The last singer is Megan Hall. She’s the youngest participant, having completed whilst still at school five years with the Samling Academy, the organisation which works with teenage classical singers on Tyneside. Next year she will study at the Royal College of Music. She seems relaxed and owns up to a “three and a half” when questioned about her nerves. Cannily she says that being the last singer has helped her to get the feel of the room. Her song Howard Howell’s ‘Come Sing and Dance’ is known to more of the audience (though I hadn’t heard it) and is a song of religious celebration. Williams develops his work with Megan on her eye contact to consider where the singer might look at moments of reflection - he gives a splendid imitation of a stereotypical recital singer gazing soulfully over the heads of the audience. Megan tends to be drawn to the view out of the tall back window. He gives her a tip. When in deep thought, especially in the last moments of a song, he suggests studying the shoes of the front row. Megan tries it out, and many in the audience find it effective. For me, the trick may be something I remain too conscious of at future performances!
This has been a short masterclass for each of the students, but all have something to take away from their experience. For the audience it’s an insight, not only into the many years of hard work that go to make a singer, but also into the kind of professional advice that can enhance their confidence as stage performers. These are certainly names we will look out for in the future.
