The Art of Song: 10-Day Summer Vocal Music Intensive
July 11-20, 2022
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the program is full.
PROGRAM Overview
**This program is open to both high school and college-level students.
Italy — the land of song. What better place to pursue a program of vocal study with an emphasis on Italian language and repertoire, than right in the heart of Umbria? Enjoy daily individualized instruction with soprano/voice teacher Courtenay Budd, and collaborative pianist/coach Erika Switzer. Voice lessons focus on matters of vocal technique such as posture, breath management, and registration, while coaching sessions will stress musical style, diction, and interpretation. Further instruction will include acting, movement, and stage comportment, and performance experience will come in the form of masterclasses with instructors and peers. Bring or request music of particular interest, and set individual goals to work toward for the duration of the program, such as preparing for college auditions, for the upcoming high school musical, or an honors chorus. You’ll polish your best repertoire (emphasizing Italian songs and arias) to be performed in a final concert for your peers. Practicing classical singing with an emphasis on the Italian language will set you up for success as you prepare for college auditions.
Enjoy free time exploring the town of Spoleto, taking in the beauty and culture that it offers. The rich cultural, historical, musical, sacred, and artistic traditions of Italy will inspire you toward new heights in your own work. Your artistic development will be enriched by new friends making discoveries right along with you. It will be the experience of a lifetime.
Core Program Components:
- Daily voice lessons or coaching sessions
- Masterclasses
- Movement
- Daily Italian language lessons
- Performance experience
- Italian diction and vocal coaching
- Acting for singers
- Breath management
- Postural/alignment awareness
- Vocal Style
- Interpretation
- College audition prep
Faculty
Courtenay Budd
Courtenay Budd’s high-flying soprano (“a voice for connoisseurs”) shines in music ranging from Handel and Bach to bel canto opera and contemporary works. The Boston Globe named her "superhero soprano" after the intrepid Ms. Budd joined Boston Modern Orchestra Project, simultaneously recording and performing David Del Tredici’s 2 1/2-hour epic Child Alice, a piece which required three sopranos at its premiere thirty years prior. Allan Kozinn wrote for The Wall Street Journal that Child Alice“requires a huge orchestra. It has a central, rather gymnastic soprano line, which Ms. Budd rendered with alluring subtlety at times and ecstatic energy elsewhere.”
Following her NYC Symphony Space all-Del Tredici concert with the composer at the piano, the New York Times raved, “Ms. Budd brought gleaming sound, complete involvement and impressive stamina to both cycles, which she sang from memory. The audience gave a standing ovation to Ms. Budd and Mr. Del Tredici.” Ms. Budd, “a champion of Del Tredici’s work” has performed his music at the Guggenheim Museum, Bard Music Festival, Zankel Hall, 92nd Street ‘Y,’ Le Poisson Rouge, and Bargemusic. Her recording of his Field Manual with Fireworks Ensemble and conductor Steven Mercurio is available on eOne Records.
A Metropolitan Opera National Finalist, Ms. Budd’s operatic performances include Ilia in Idomeneo at Alice Tully Hall, Baby Doe, Zerbinetta, Zerlina, Pamina, Laurie in The Tenderland, and Marie in La fille du régiment, with such companies as Central City, Opera Omaha, Atlanta Opera, Sugar Creek Festival, and the Colorado and Charleston Symphonies.
A First Prize Winner of Young Concert Artists Auditions, Ms. Budd has been heard with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Symphony, Colorado Symphony, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, Wichita Symphony, Orlando Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, the Grand Teton Festival, and many times with the Symphony of the Americas.
Ms. Budd, long an avid recitalist and chamber musician, now takes an increasingly active role as concert programmer. Since 2014 she has served as Artistic Director of a celebrated annual chamber music concert in Newnan, Georgia. The “Friends of Wadsworth” spring concert carries on the legacy of her mentor Charles Wadsworth, with whom Ms. Budd performed extensively, most notably for seven seasons on the Spoleto USA Dock Street Chamber Music Series.
Metropolitan Museum of Art audiences enjoyed her performances of Rachmaninoff songs on Ruth Laredo’s Concerts with Commentary series. Her recital performances with Del Tredici at Bargemusic, were praised by New Music Connoisseur as “not only beautifully expressive but impeccable in her delivery of every word and note.” She collaborated with the Bard Festival String Quartet in Schönberg’s String Quartet, #2 and Del Tredici’s I Hear an Army, and with the Saint Lawrence String Quartet in the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae.
Ms. Budd has appeared with symphony orchestras across the United States in the Requiems of Brahms and Mozart, Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915, Mozart's Mass in C Minor, Orff's Carmina Burana, Poulenc’s Gloria, Honegger’s King David, Respighi's Laud to the Nativity, Rachmaninoff's The Bells, Strauss' Brentanolieder, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras, Handel’s Samson, Beethoven's Symphony #9, Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bach’s Cantatas 51, 201 and 199, Schubert and Beethoven Masses, Haydn's Creation, and Britten’s War Requiem.
Her CD Sleep is Behind the Door was named “Lullaby Album of the year” by CDBaby.com, and has raised thousands in aid for victims of natural disasters. The recording was the generous collaboration of numerous artists including soprano Sylvia McNair and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Additionally, Ms. Budd appears on the VMS recording Korngold’s Hollywood Songbook with pianist Dalton Baldwin, and the BMOP release of Del Tredici's Child Alice.
A Georgia native, Courtenay Budd was honored with the 2004 Distinguished Young Alumnus Award from and the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. She also holds a Master’s degree from Westminster Choir College and resides in New York’s Hudson Valley where she teaches at Vassar College. In past years Ms. Budd has taught for the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, SUNY New Paltz, and Westminster Choir College.
Erika Switzer, Collaborative pianist & Coach
Erika Switzer is an accomplished collaborative pianist who performs regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC). Her performances have been called “precise and lucid” by the New York Times, and Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, refined, and captivating.”
From 2000-2007, Switzer performed and studied in Germany, an experience that profoundly inspired and shaped her work. During that time, she appeared at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and in the Munich Winners & Masters series and won numerous awards, including best pianist prizes at the Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and Wigmore Hall International Song Competitions.
Switzer has long been a leader in envisioning and promoting the future of art song performance. In 2009, in collaboration with soprano Martha Guth, she founded the organization Sparks & Wiry Cries, which commissions new works, presents the songSLAM festival in New York City, and publishes The Art Song Magazine. She is also devoted to new music, and has recently premiered new compositions at the 5 Boroughs Music Festival, Brooklyn Art Song Society; and Vancouver’s Music on Main.
Switzer collaborates with a range of top singers. A frequent collaborator is baritone Tyler Duncan, and as a duo, Switzer and Duncan have performed in major concert halls and music festivals around the world. She is also an active teacher, serving on the music faculty at Bard College and Conservatory of Music. Switzer holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School and lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
SAMPLE DAILY SCHEDULE
Our class schedule follows a typical Italian pace of life. The sample schedule below may vary slightly to accommodate the interests of the group and the work each student would like to do in Spoleto.
8:00am - Breakfast at the Convent
9:00am-10:00am - Movement
10:00am-11:00am - Italian Lessons
11:00am-1:00pm - Lessons/Coaching
1:15pm- 2:30pm - Family-Style Lunch
2:30pm-4:00pm - Free Time
4:00pm - 6:00pm - Lessons/Coaching
6:00pm - 8:00pm - Masterclasses/Acting for Singers
8:00pm - Family-Style Dinner
AcCOMMODATIONS
All students live together in European collegial style at the Residence di SantíAngelo, a gorgeous 15th century convent in the medieval section of Spoleto. The convent has been beautifully renovated with modern conveniences and has spacious courtyards and colorful gardens. It is only a short walk from the residence to classes, the main piazzas of town, and the restaurants where meals are served.
Students are supervised by faculty, staff, and resident advisors who live at the convent with the students. Classes take place in beautiful buildings throughout the historic medieval section of town with abundant, luminous spaces for photographic exploration.
TUITION
Program Dates: July 11-20, 2022
Total Cost: $3700
What’s Included
Tuition for courses
Meals
Lodging in a gorgeous 15th-century convent
Course materials
Entrance fees for group activities
Fieldtrip-related transportation within Italy
What’s Not Included
Airfare
Passport fees
Travel or Medical Insurance
Personal expenses
A $95 non-refundable fee is due upon application. Within 2 weeks of your acceptance into the program a non-refundable 50% deposit is due. The remaining 50% balance is by May 1, 2022.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the program is full.