NYSTA introduces the inaugural season of The Josephine Mongiardo Great Coaches Series. This season we proudly present Roger Vignoles. For more information see our Events page. (pictured, Josephine Mongiardo, past President)

NYSTA is proud to offer The Janet Pranschke Professional Development Scholarship, awarded to one Apprentice Member each academic season. For more information or to apply for scholarship email the PDP Director (pictured, Janet Prancshke, Founding Director- PDP)

New PDP On Demand Format
We are very happy to announce that all our PDP On Demand Courses are now streamed directly from our website with no 3rd party software required (no more Flip4MAC). Now all our course sessions stream just like a YouTube video. Sit back and enjoy the show (but don't forget to take notes).

NYSTA's Video Archive
Through our website, NYSTA is expanding its membership roster to include national and international members.  And now our members, both local and “long distance,” can view our FREE membership events here in NYC through our Video Archive of  events right on our website. As a member in good standing you can log in to the member’s only section of the site (with your username and password) and click on the “View Video Archives” link to see any event you may have missed, right from the comfort of your own computer.

Our current Video Archives are posted and can be viewed (and re-viewed) at any time 24/7.

• A Voice Science Masterclass with Brian Gill, DMA,
• The Contemporary Singer in the World of Recorded Music
• A Musical Theater Masterclass with Meg Bussert
• The David Adams Art Song Competition Winners' Recital

We encourage you all to take a look. It’s the next best thing to being there! New events will be posted throughout the season, so check back often.

NYSTA's Season Opening Event, October 8, 2006
Brian Stokes Mitchell's Singing Lesson
Broadway's TONY award winning baritone spoke to membership and dissected one of his signature tunes, "The Impossible Dream." 

“It’s a song about climbing Mount Everest, not summiting Everest.” This realization guided Brian Stokes Mitchell’s reinterpretation of “The Impossible Dream” as he prepared to play Don Quixote in the 2002 revival of Man of La Mancha, Mitchell told attendees of a special Q&A sponsored by the New York Singing Teachers’ Association (NYSTA).

The teachers, students and singers who attended the event—which was open to the public and held Sunday evening at the West Bank Cafe’s Laurie Beechman Theater in Manhattan—were privileged to hear Mitchell speak candidly and personably about training and protecting your voice, working in the theater, and singing for stage, cabaret and CD. Mitchell spent about 40 minutes answering questions, the first three asked by the event’s host, and Mitchell’s close friend, David Sabella-Mills, who’s on the board of directors of NYSTA (and was the original Mary Sunshine in the Chicago revival).

After taking questions from the audience, Mitchell discussed how he went about making “The Impossible Dream” his own. In a highly animated 30-minute discussion akin to opening up his diary for the audience, Mitchell analyzed the words and melody, recounted his scrutiny of and experimentation with the song, and described his efforts to differentiate himself from Richard Kiley’s iconic performance. He even sang the song three different ways—“old style,” i.e., as Kiley sang it; the cheesy version that’s been proffered by lounge lizards the world over; and, finally and thrillingly, the way he had performed it (to Tony-nominated effect) on Broadway.

Kiley’s “classical” approach to the song entailed “long-line phrasing” that put the emphasis on the last word of each line (“dream,” “foe,” “sorrow,” e.g.), according to Mitchell. But he felt the emphasis belonged on the adjectives—“unbeatable,” “unbearable,” etc.—since the song is about trying to do the impossible. And that’s where the Mount Everest analogy came in. Mitchell recalls seeing an IMAX movie about Mount Everest and how the footage of climbers struggling to reach the summit struck him as a visual rendition of “The Impossible Dream.”

Because the song is so famous, Mitchell wanted to “give it my spin and take it someplace that people aren’t expecting.” So he added a key change toward the end and hit a high note on the last line: “…the unreachable star!” Man of La Mancha composer Mitch Leigh liked the key change but not the high note—because, Leigh told him, “the song is about trying to reach the unreachable star, and that note makes it sound like you’ve reached it.” Mitchell decided to sing it with the high note anyway, though once the show opened he realized he should have listened to Leigh since it put such a strain on his voice. So he stopped using the high note, although it’s on the cast recording.

Mitchell wanted to make one other change, to the lyric “To bear with unbearable sorrow.” He’d always thought “To bear the unbearable sorrow” made more sense and followed the word pattern in the other lines. When he asked Leigh why lyricist Joe Darion hadn’t written it with “the,” Leigh gave him “like a 10-minute answer,” so he decided it wasn’t worth fighting. “But still I think that ‘the’ would be a better word,” Mitchell confided to the NYSTA audience.

During the Q&A, Mitchell answered audience questions about his typical vocal warmup, using classical training when singing popular music and show tunes, and the infiltration of American Idol-style singing on Broadway. He told the NYSTA guests the three bits of advice he most wanted them to take away from the evening: Learn to listen to your heart. Follow it. And know thyself, meaning your strengths and weaknesses. The event concluded with a reception, during which Mitchell answered even more questions for about an hour.

Article reprinted from www.broadwayworld.com with permission from author/photographer Adrienne Onofri. For the complete article and photos please visit
http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=12761

NYSTA CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

APRIL 28, 2006
at the Kosziusko Foundation,
15 East 65 Street
Honoring
Aprile Millo
and Victoria Clark

One of the nation’s oldest teaching organizations, The New York Singing Teachers’ Association, Inc. (NYSTA) celebrated its 100th anniversary on April 28, 2006 at the Kosziusko Foundation, 15 East 65 Street in Manhattan, on Friday, April 28th from 6-10 pm.

This landmark occasion brought together notable industry professionals, aspiring artists, and lovers of the singing voice at a gala event where two great singers were honored: acclaimed operatic soprano Aprile Millo and Tony Award-winning Broadway star Victoria Clark.

The gala celebration also included a short concert of art songs performed by winners of the David Adams Song Competition, who were selected after competing in March.

International Opera Star Aprile Millo, hailed as the Metropolitan Opera’s leading Verdi soprano, appeared in Simon Boccanegra, Aida, Otello, Luisa Miller, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Trovatore, Don Carlo, Ernani, the premiere of I Lombardi, as well as in Giordano's Andrea Chenier, Boito's Mefistofele and Puccini's Tosca and Turandot. Since 2002 she has won accolades for her performances with Eve Queler and The Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall.

Broadway Star (and NYSTA member) Victoria Clark received this year’s Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her luminous portrayal of Margaret Johnson in the critically acclaimed Craig Lucas-Adam Guettel musical The Light in the Piazza at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater. Clark's Broadway debut was in 1985 in Sunday in the Park With George, and she has since delighted audiences and critics in such roles as Alice Beane in Titanic, Smitty in the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and in Jerry Zaks’ Tony Award-winning revival of Guys and Dolls.