This is a 3-week course scheduled for the following dates and times:
Mondays, March 2, 9, and 16, 2026
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. PDT
What You’ll Learn
Love it or loathe it, classical singing is too often discussed as impenetrably complicated and elite. In reality, there are hundreds of ways of using your voice as a classical or operatic singer, each way dictated by the culture and language surrounding individual composers over hundreds of years. This course cannot possibly cover every style that now comes under the blanket term “classical” but hopes to introduce you to more ways of using your voice, taking examples from history and place.
What You’ll Learn
- To introduce learners to different types of classical singing
- To demonstrate how language influences style and determines technique
- To outline the differences between classical song and opera in relation to acoustics, purpose, and technique
- To boost confidence for teachers looking to explore the topic either personally or in their own teaching
- To point to further resources should anyone be interested in learning more.
And don’t worry, no snobbery will be found on this course!
About Emily
Emily is a professional opera singer working in the UK and abroad, and is best known for her recording works with Naxos, Chandos Records, Divine Art Recordings Group and Convivium. Her research and singing interests combine when working for BBC Radio 3 crafting documentaries on lesser-known English composers, such as Stanley Bate and John Foulds. She maintains a busy private singing teaching practice and gives masterclasses to performance students at universities across the UK.
Emily is a Doctoral Researcher at City, University of London, working on her thesis: ‘Performance and Practice in Academia: A Critical Realist Case Study of Music Performance Degrees’. During her Masters at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Voice Study Centre, she conducted numerous surveys of graduate singing students’ experiences in one-to-one lessons and interviewed heads of conservatoire vocal departments in relation to their perceptions of their staffs’ training needs. Her interest in improving singing teacher standards led her to run a practicum specific to conservatoire-based singing teachers to aid pedagogical development through peer-to-peer learning, based on certain principles of andragogy. To encourage the continuation of this work, Emily became a Trustee of the Association of Teachers of Singing (AOTOS) in November 2024.
She presented her Masters research on conservatoire teaching standards at the Second Biannual International Conference of Music and the University in July 2024, to great acclaim.