Yesterday afternoon, through fog and rain, some intrepid voice teachers made their way to Carthage for a master class conducted by Ken Bozeman, who is a voice professor at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. Lawrence is a powerhouse when it comes to classically-trained singers; they attract a stupendous amount of talent and they also know what to do with those singers once they get there. Professor Bozeman and his wife are both members of the school’s impressive voice faculty, and they represent the highest standard in our profession… the kind of voice teachers for whom their students would gladly walk through fire, so devoted are they to (and skilled in) the task of nurturing their students’ gifts. And here’s something else I want to say about the Bozemans; they are very difficult people to hate. What in the world do I mean by that? When a small school like Carthage enters NATS competitions, it often feels like we are a small tugboat lost in a fleet of Queen Mary ocean liners- and Lawrence is probably the school it is most tempting for us to hate, simply because their singers snap up so many of the honors. But then you meet members of their faculty and are reminded that behind the intimidating name of the institution (and behind the cool confidence of their students) are good-hearted teachers like the Bozemans.
Anyway, Ken Bozeman is something of a legend in the midwest for his marvelous work with male singers- and Carthage brought him to campus to talk about his approach to teaching men. And as someone who has had only male students at Carthage for the past ten years or so (and pretty much only men in my private studio as well) I was obviously thrilled at the chance to see him in action and find out more about the techniques he employs and compare them with my own. Of course, I walked into the room riddled with disconcerting self-doubts, wondering if by the end of the afternoon I would feel like such a failure or moron – or both – that I would tender my resignation and open my own hot dog stand. As it turns out, it was a humbling afternoon to some extent – how could it not be? – but I actually left the class feeling affirmed in this calling – grateful that I do what I do – and grateful that I do it where I do it, with such terrific students. And if all of the scientific jargon about frequencies and formants left me a bit slack-jawed, feeling like a gorilla who had wandered into a MENSA meeting, that was okay. Some people have minds that are built to take in such information- to grasp it- to keep track of it- and have it handy for whenever it’s needed. I don’t have quite such a cordial relationship to scientific information as sophisticated as this, but it was fun to try and grab hold of a little more of it in order to better understand why the human singing voice functions as it does.
What was most exciting to hear the great work which Ken did four of my guys. Baritone Fletcher Paulsen was the first, singing a portion of Vaughan Williams’ “Roadside Fire.” Fletcher woke up that morning feeling absolutely rotten, so it was a mark of his grit and determination that he was there at all. For as under the weather as he was, he sang quite well- but then Ken started getting him to approach the melodic line with a greater sense of expansiveness, and he found it. It was a neat moment. Next came freshman Sean Kelly, who sang Handel’s “Where e’er you walk” quite nicely, even though he woke up feeling a bit tired and with his voice a little lower than usual. (Lambda Kappa’s sparkling masquerade ball was last night, which meant it was a late night for all four guys and may have contributed to how they felt for the class.) Once again, Ken was able to help Sean line things up in such a way that the sound just started flowing with much greater fluidity- and the ring in the sound became much more consistent. The third singer was another freshman, Christian Aldridge, who – at Corinne’s request – sang something from the realm of Musical Theater. His choice was “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from Les Miz, which he sings so tenderly and expressively. Ken was impressed but not satisfied (an interesting combination, when you think about it) and was able to elicit even greater warmth and conviction from him as he coaxed out of him a much more incisive sound. Last and certainly not least was sophomore Nick Huff, who offered up a portion of “Una furtiva lagrimar” from Elixir of Love, the opera we did back in January. This master class was mostly about achieving the optimal amount of ring in the sound- something which Nick has been focusing on for some time now and achieving more and more success, but not with perfect consistency. There was something about Ken’s terminology as well as the references to the science behind the sound that really clicked with Nick, and the results were absolutely marvelous. In fact, while there were all kinds of ooh’s and ah’s all afternoon with all four singers, it was during Nick’s singing that the audience actually burst into appreciative applause when Nick- after several unsuccessful tries – finally nailed a particular note with the kind of focused resonance that he was asking for. It was nothing less than thrilling.
And I was at the piano, so I had a ringside seat to all of the fun.
At one point during Ken’s talk, he spoke about what male singers need to do at a particular point in their range when they are approaching the top- when the colors begin shifting and coming together to produce what amounts to the “crown” of the voice, where it is at its most beautiful. He related the story of having heard a recording of the great Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling and wondering what in the world he did to achieve such shimmering, transcendent beauty on his high notes. He could tell that he was doing something different with his voice, but what? In a sense, Ken’s entire career as both a singer and teacher has been an exploration and refinement of that same quest. Anyway, he talked about how different teachers and singers use different terms to describe that way of singing the top notes thrillingly without resorting to yelling. “Cover” is probably the term most often used, but others use “turn” or “flip” or any number of variants. I remember singing for my very first master class at Luther as a sophomore or junior, singing “Avant de quitter ces lieux” from Gounod’s Faust. At that point, I was still inconsistent with my top notes and as he worked with me on them, he asked me if my teacher (David Greedy) ever talked about “covering” my high notes. I shook my head, completely bewildered- at which point, he shot a look out into the audience, wondering how a teacher as fine as Mr. Greedy could neglect such a central matter. With (I suspect) complete exasperation, he said “Arch!” That was the term he used to describe that shift in tone at the top of a singer’s range. As Ken talked about the various terms which get bandied about to describe essentially the same thing, that memory from 33 years ago came flooding back to me as though it were yesterday. I remember thinking “I am so dumb” and “I hope Mr. Greedy doesn’t hate me!” and wishing that I could slink right off of the stage. And it also made me grateful that nothing similar happened in Ken’s class. All that he did for my singers flowed perfectly out of what we had already been working on- but the freshness of his approach clearly helped all of them find new clarity- and it felt splendid to witness that. And beyond that, I was proud of my students (just as I was with the students who sang for the Ollmann master class back in February) that they were so open, so responsive, so ready for all that Ken was giving them- and responded with truly wonderful singing. For a voice teacher, it does not get any better than that.
pictured above: Ken Bozeman does a demonstration at his master class with a short segment of plastic tubing and an ordinary duck call. . . not the typical tools of the trade for a voice teacher, needless to say – but it worked!