Evan Lattanzi

5/6/14

MUAP 234

Concert Reflections

1. The first concert I went to was Opera Spotlight on Thursday, February 6th. I found this

concert very interesting. I’ve been going to concerts involving singing for a while, but

they were almost all exclusively choral concerts, and the only real solo singing I had been

exposed to in person was through musical theatre productions. So while it was my first

time hearing opera in person, it was also my first time hearing a concert of just solo

singing. I found it different from the solo singing I’d been working on in my voice

lessons. For that, I’m instructed to make as powerful a sound as possible, while still

making sure nothing sounds forced or “shouty”. I think the operatic singers did this as

well, but they took much more artistic liberty with their pieces. For example, in one of

Aaron Agulay’s pieces, he ended it by laughing and running around the stage, gesturing

to the other characters on stage with him. This enhanced the piece’s realism and made it

much more dramatic. For my pieces, at least so far, I have to portray that with only my

facial expression and singing. I really enjoyed the rich, wavering singing style the opera

singers used for their pieces. It amazed me throughout how much sound and presence

these singers were able to achieve. It was a completely different singing style than what

I’m used to, and I’m glad I got to experience it.

2. The second concert I went to was a vocal area studio recital featuring multiple vocal

concentration music majors on Friday, April 18th. This concert featured many solo pieces
in the classical style that I’m currently learning, but also featured some interesting pieces

that I wasn’t expecting to be in a recital like this. An example of this would be the piece

that Drew Holcombe sung. It sounded different from any of the others. Besides the fact

that this was the first piece I’d ever heard that featured a low baritone soloist (which was

very interesting because it showed off his ability to hit extremely low notes at some

points in the piece while still maintaining good vocal technique), the style of the piece

contrasted with the other ones. It didn’t sound like a classical piece, and had these very

distinct, near-octave jumps (which seemed very difficult but were still performed well).

There was also at least one performer who sung a piece from musical theatre, which I

also didn’t expect. I liked how many performers were able to show just as much emotion

as some of the opera performers, but used much less “stage presence” and much more

“singing presence”. They were able to show their emotion through dynamic changes,

facial expressions, and other singing techniques. I found it very impressive that all

performers were completely memorized, despite the long lengths of many of these pieces.

Most were also in a foreign language. It showed how hard these students work in their

respective studios to prepare for these recitals. Like the opera spotlight, I also enjoyed

this concert. Not only was the music very well performed and interesting, but it also gave

me a good idea of what I’ll be working on next year as a voice major.