“Performance Arts Lab is a one-of-a-kind thrilling experience, creating exciting stories and fond memories with people from all over the world, breathing life into opera characters old and new alike. In such a short period of time, this course has made a life-changing impact on my singing and creative thought process, that I will cherish and take (away) with me onto the next step of my musical journey!”
“Performance Arts Lab transformed my approach to practice, performance and opera making. The expert guidance was patient and ambitious, encouraging us to discover new approaches to text, music and movement.
We felt safe to take risks without judgement and found that we could embody characters through text as well as music. Being provided with world-class direction from Martin Lloyd-Evans and Dominic Wheeler was a privilege. Their dedication and enthusiasm pushed me to become more focussed and nuanced in my performance. I cannot thank them enough for their patience to guide me through character development, music and text, especially over Zoom!
The coaching sessions went above and beyond anything I expected from the course. Truly I will never look at a piece of music in the same way again. Amanda and Liz were incredible technicians, managing to improve my technique in only two weeks by focussing on emotional responses and embodying the character.
Sarah’s daily movement sessions enabled us to use what we had learnt in our scenes and coaching. She kept us on track throughout the programme and encouraged us to find more nuanced, natural approaches to movement which is something I really had not considered properly before.
Having the opportunity to work with composers on new works was thrilling. Creating new music with people in so many different time zones reminded us all of the significance of art. Whilst we have all been hampered by the pandemic, having the ability to perform with people in South Africa, America, Singapore and the UK from my apartment in Dubai, was a joyous experience at the end of a transformative two weeks. Carolyn’s enthusiasm and warmth led us all through two glorious weeks of music, performance and many wonderful memories.”
“The 2021 Performance Arts Lab online course really exceeded my expectations of what could be achieved collaborating online with artists from around the world. As a repetiteur, it was invaluable to work in the group coaching sessions with Martin, Dominic and Sarah, and observe the intense process that singers undertake to understand and connect with the characters, and to realise the importance of my role in the storytelling process. It was also very rewarding to prepare recordings of the accompaniments and conducting, after 1-to-1 sessions with Liz and Dominic, and to receive supportive feedback from the singers, especially as the conducting videos were quite a new experience for me!
A unique aspect of this course is the combination of learning standard repertoire along with preparing new works by the composers and librettist for the Composers Studio. This was very insightful as it marked the similarities in exploring well established opera repertoire and new music, and revealed to me that learning contemporary music is really not as daunting as it first may appear, but that this exploration can be quite exciting!”
“When told about the Performance Arts Lab course by my University composition tutor, I was initially sceptical of how an Opera course might be able to run successfully in an online format. But after the first day of meeting the other students, I knew this would be incredibly beneficial for me as a young composer. Collaborating closely with other composers and singers located all across the globe under the tutelage of Stephen, Dominic and Martin was invaluable. I was able to work in a thoughtful manner in two weeks which I was not always able to accomplish at University in three years! I am not only eager to return to a (hopefully in person) PAL course next year, but I will certainly be making plans to enter onto the Opera Makers programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the near future.
I wholeheartedly recommend this course to any composer – with or without experience in writing for voices – as I feel it will be critical for your development.”
“Performance Arts Lab in 2020 took place when our futures as performers were bleak. However working with Martin Lloyd Evans brought so much hope. Martin led the drama sessions, where he introduced me to a whole new world of creating a character from the texts. This technique has helped me understand further the power of my voice when my thoughts are purely of the character. Dominic Wheeler assisted us with all the musical details embedded on the score and how to approach Bel Canto as we were singing a duet from L’elisir d’amore. Dominic would explain in detail about the history of the music, highlighting all the corners that we might have missed. He works meticulously with the score which really inspired me so much.
Martin and Dominic are the best team; they basically handed me tools to make myself as authentic on stage as I can be. For instance, they taught me that music should be inspired by the words not the other way around, which helps amazingly even with the vocal technique; the different colours of the voice come naturally from the meaning of the text. This really makes a life of a musician much easier and more enjoyable for both the audience and the performer.
Since Performance Arts Lab embraces new upcoming artists and not just singers but composers too, that allowed us an opportunity to work with composers. In my case it was for the first time and the composer was Lucy Armstrong. She wrote me a Zulu aria which we performed online; it was not easy but it was fun and educational.
It is a blessing to meet geniuses in this industry who are so knowledgeable, who will not make you feel unworthy, but will empower you to want to learn more.”
“As a second year music student at NWU, I felt honoured to be invited to take part in the Performance Arts Lab 2020 online course, as I had never worked with composers, repetiteurs, director and conductor at the same time before. Within two weeks I felt like I was a different singer compared to when we started the course.
During the course I learnt so many things that I never considered important. For example, I used to think that when singing, the most important thing is how beautiful I sound. Working with Dominic, Martin, and Amanda Roocroft at PAL made me realise that there is more to singing than a beautiful voice. I have learnt that if you are singing a role or an aria in an opera, knowing the meaning of the text, the storyline, and other information about the opera is so important and can actually make a singer perform better. The course has helped me in becoming a better singer and artist. I am now using all the tools they gave me during the course when I am learning new music. I also enjoyed the movement classes; it was my first time attending any movement classes. These classes helped me to be aware of what is happening in my body and my surroundings, and I believe that is important for a singer, especially an opera singer. In addition to everything that I learnt on the course, I had so much fun working will all the talented singers and composers. ”
“My time doing Performance Arts Lab 2020 was nothing short of educational, different, and inspirational. Every morning we woke up to movement sessions which was a new concept to me, the chance to really get in touch with our bodies and move. I had never done that before, and now it has become a routine of mine. The most exciting part was having composers write us new ensemble pieces; that was intense, and it all happened over Zoom! The internet was our truest friend during this pandemic, I was In South Africa, with other students in London, some in Scotland… Super cool if you ask me!
Performance Arts Lab gave me the opportunity to challenge myself, especially with newly written pieces. I lacked experience in singing modern music, and having the chance to work with composers was great, being able to share knowledge on something and also giving input to some of the material. I feel proud to have been a part of it.”
“I often feel dwarfed by the genre of opera, since it is the culmination of Western culture, literature, arts, architecture, music, drama, etc.
Performance Arts Lab enabled a very safe space for me to experiment with a range of different methods for tackling the learning and preparation process as a repetiteur. The course also enabled me to understand more about the challenges faced by singers, during both the preparation process and production, which has certainly helped me develop as a vocal coach.”
“Working with Performance Arts Lab was an amazing experience for me. I had the opportunity to learn from the incredible staff and to spend one ShapeChanger week with new colleagues. It was a lovely atmosphere in which I felt so comfortable developing myself as an artist with the morning’s movement session which made me feel more connected with my body. The vocal lessons and coachings permitted me to reaffirm my learning, and to go further vocally to master the voice enough to throw myself into the staging and the emotions I wanted to transmit. All of that allowed me to dare to try new ideas and especially to let go of the idea of always ‘having the perfect voice’. I really understood during this week that the most important things are to be true to your singing and yourself and everything will go in the right way, to listen and support your colleagues on stage and just enjoy singing and performing. I totally felt supported in my vocal and staging choices which made me trust myself even more. I also met new friends that are now dear to my heart. I would recommend it without hesitation and would love to take part again.”
“The Performance Arts Lab 2020 online course was a great opportunity for me to both explore and develop core operatic repertoire and to work on new contemporary music, at a time when music making of any kind was incredibly difficult due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the challenges that Covid brought up (“Unmute yourself!”, “Sorry, I think you’ve frozen!”) the course enabled me to work with colleagues from all over the globe. Fellow singers, vocal coaches, movement coaches, librettists, conductors, composers, and repetiteurs all came together online to create and perform music together at an incredibly high level. Not only was this work invaluable training for a career in the arts, it also brought us together at a time when we could have felt very isolated.
We were also fortunate enough to have the course led by Dominic and Carolyn Wheeler and Martin Lloyd-Evans. I have had the pleasure of working with Dominic and Martin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and their passion, excitement, and dedication to the work we were doing, and to our development throughout the course, was incredibly inspiring.
The skills that I developed, and the attitude towards music making and collaborative work that the PAL course instils in all of its attendees, will inform my work and practice for years to come. ”
“I threw myself into the Composers Studio at Performance Arts Lab’s online course 2020, having no idea what to expect… It turned out to be one of the best decisions I would ever make. Over two weeks of working with composers, writers, singers and répétiteurs from around the world under the expert guidance of Dominic, Martin, and Stephen, I developed my passion for collaborating, and completed the programme with a renewed sense of artistic fulfilment and purpose. As an emerging composer, the opportunities to receive constant feedback from performers, directors, and conductors during the creative process are like gold dust; it is a formidable achievement for Performance Arts Lab to have facilitated this fluid creative space, even in the middle of a global pandemic!
Despite being physically separated, I felt incredibly connected to my fellow artists by the end of the summer course at PAL. The course inspired me to embark on the Opera Makers programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where I am now writing a new chamber opera with writer Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh (2020-21). I highly recommend Performance Arts Lab to anyone composers looking to get into opera writing and/or collaborative work: I can’t exaggerate how much I gained from the experience.”
“Working as a librettist with Performance Arts Lab in the online 2020 course gave me an amazing opportunity to collaborate with young, talented, enthusiastic artists from around the globe at a time when the world itself was spiralling into lock-down. It was a unique meeting of established and new opera makers and gave me tremendous insight into the versatility and creativity of the composers working in several languages and with several types of singers, with a keen interest in developing their craft and their individual skills. It was also great fun!”
“I spent three weeks working with Dominic Wheeler, Kathleen Brett and Kelly Robinson in Fontainebleau during the summer in 2016. Having completed my first year on the Guildhall Opera Studies programme in London, it was a wonderful opportunity to continue the dedicated work I had been doing in greater detail, in the beautiful surrounds of Fontainebleau.
Having worked with Kelly and Dominic on a set of opera scenes earlier in the year in London, this three-week period was different in the sense that our main focus as students was encouraged to be on the process of learning, rather than our final performances. I was able to use this extra time to really come to grips with Kelly’s particular methodology of directing, and there were more opportunities for open dialogue between us all as a cast to discuss our ideas and challenges. Having the time to ask all the questions I had, to take risks and explore different ways of bringing stories to life through opera helped me to make crucial developments in my performance.
A particular strength of the current programme that Dominic has been leading at Fontainebleau is the focus on creating new operatic work, with the collaboration of composers and librettists. I found it fascinating to be a part of the process right from the beginning, and it motivated me to explore more contemporary repertoire and make it a focus of my ongoing training.”
“For the past two Summers I have joined the Opera Course Summer School in Fontainebleau as a writer/librettist. The experience of observing and working alongside a world-class team has been enriching beyond measure. In Fontainebleau, for the first time in my career, I was given the support, structure and mentorship that enabled me to focus solely on the opera scenes we were working on for those two weeks. Under Composer Stephen McNeff’s guidance we were encouraged to think carefully about the singers we were writing for as well as the context and precinct within which we were working. We interrogated process and form. Stephen’s constructive criticism during the first year gave me the basis of a toolkit I continued to develop during the Opera-Makers MA. It was an invaluable experience.
This Summer, joined by Aiofe Mannix and Conor Hanratty we shifted focus to dramaturgy and structure. Once again, Stephen’s insightful mentoring and commitment to our learning and development enabled me to work at an exciting pace and with an intensity which I have rarely matched elsewhere. Coupled with the opportunity to observe and dialogue the next phase of making new work in the rehearsal room with Dominic Wheeler and Kelly Robinson and an ensemble of committed, thoughtful and hugely talented singers, this created opportunities for creative exchange and collaboration which were both enriching and challenging. It was a feast. A opera-maker’s smorgasbord!
In addition to being a fantastic learning opportunity, Fontainebleau has been the birthplace of professional relationships I hope will continue to flourish. My collaboration with composer Lliam Paterson has lead to the development of a new opera which is currently shortlisted for a main stage commission. I have also forged a relationship with Soprano Lauren Zolezzi who is currently touring in my children’s opera Catch A Sea Star.
Thank you to everyone who made this truly wonderful experience possible.”
