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Keys to a Successful Singer/Conductor Relationship
Neal Goren, Gotham Chamber Opera; Erie Mills, soprano; Steven Osgood, conductor
Making Connections •
1/26/2011
An established conductor can be a major ally in the advancement of a
singer’s career, but the success of this relationship relies on trust,
respect and a lot of preparation. Learn how to make the singer/conductor
relationship a mutually beneficial one from this session’s panel of
distinguished artists.
About the Author: Neal Goren,
founding artistic director of Gotham Chamber Opera, has conducted
throughout the U. S. and in Europe. For Gotham Chamber Opera he
conducted critically acclaimed productions of Mozart's Il sogno di Scipione, Milhaud's Les Malheurs d'Orphée, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (with period instruments), Martinu's Hlas lesa and Les Larmes du couteau, Sutermeister's Die schwarze Spinne, Handel's Arianna in Creta (with period instruments), Britten's Albert Herring, Rossini's Il Signor Bruschino, Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires and Haydn's L'isola disabitata. He led Gotham Chamber Opera's co-production of Respighi's La bella dormente nel bosco for Spoleto Festival USA and the Lincoln Center Festival in the summer of 2005, and conducted Britten's The Turn of the Screw
for Angers Opera (France) and Opéra de Nantes for the reopening of
Théâtre Graslin in February 2004. He made his New York City Opera debut
conducting The Magic Flute in November 2003. He has been a member of the
faculty of the graduate opera department of the Mannes College of Music
since 1992 and served on the board of directors of the Richard Tucker
Music Foundation from 1991-2003.
Erie Mills has received critical and popular acclaim
throughout the world. She has performed in the world's major opera
houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, Vienna Staatsoper,
English National Opera, San Francisco Opera, The Santa Fe Opera, New
York City Opera and many others. As a concert artist, Mills has appeared
with the orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland,
Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Her performance of Cunegonde at New York City Opera was seen on
a national telecast on PBS’s “Live from Lincoln Center.” From 1998-2008
she was on the voice faculty at San José State University. Since 2004,
she has worked as the English diction specialist for Opera Theatre of
Saint Louis, and also works in this capacity for the Metropolitan Opera
and The Santa Fe Opera. In 2004, she became the first singer to join the
board of directors of OPERA America. She is a graduate of The College
of Wooster in Ohio, the University of Illinois and the Houston Opera
Studio.
Steven Osgood is quickly becoming a much sought after
conductor across North America, having proven his expertise in
repertoire ranging from the Baroque through this century’s most
challenging scores. He was artistic director of American Opera Projects
from 2001 to 2008; he conducted the world premieres of Paula Kimper’s Patience and Sarah at the 1998 Lincoln Center Festival and Janice Hamer’s Lost Childhood
at the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv in 2007. He
created the company’s nationally recognized Composers and the Voice
Workshop Series and led workshops of dozens of works in development,
including most recently Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness, Conrad Cummings’ The Golden Gate, and Séance on a Wet Afternoon by Stephen Schwartz.