Over this summer, I benefitted from a wonderful few weeks of learning. Firstly with the British Youth Opera, I had the pleasure of working with Will Kerley and Julia Lynch in a week of workshops focussing on acting with singing and how to enhance understanding of characters and stories in my work. It was a fascinating week which gave me so many new tools to approach my singing with and gave me so much more confidence in how to bring more life and character to my work.
I followed this with a week at the Oxenfoord International Summer School, where I was awarded a place on the Opera Scenes programme. Working with directors Janis Kelly and Linda Ormiston, I developed understanding of a range of characters from a variety of musical styles and periods. I was really pleased with the final performance, which showcased the intensive work we had done over the week and how much can be achieved in a short period, when using the techniques and character work we explored.
My final course this summer, Abingdon Summer School for Solo Singers, was a wonderful course to really focus on developing my skills as an individual. I explored all aspects of performance with a variety of coaches. I found this multi faceted setup really beneficial, as I gained feedback and coaching for all the different components of a performance. Now that I have come away from this course, I can use this knowledge to further build up all the layers to my performance work.
Thank you to all the coaches that I worked with over these few weeks, to all the management teams of each course and to all the wonderful singers that I spent time with over the few weeks.
Olivia Moss - Soprano 