[applause]
- Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, I'm Brian Zeger, Artistic Director
of the Marcus Institute for
Vocal Arts at Juilliard.
It is my great pleasure to welcome those
of you here with us at Paul Hall at Juilliard
and those of you in cyberspace
to our Master Class.
Stephanie Blythe is someone I have admired
and enjoyed and learned from over already
a long career.
Her career started way after mine
but I remember when Stephanie first
appeared on the stage we all said, my God
we have not heard a voice like that for
a long long time but what we didn't know
in those early years was behind that
marvelous voice was an extraordinary
musician, an extraordinary explorer
with a very individual sense of who she was
and what she wanted to say with music
and there's no greater example than today's
class because we've had a lot of terrific
classes here at Juilliard.
We've had some wonderful singers, a
wonderful conductor here to teach but
no one ever suggested to us that we
feature the music of living American composers.
That was Stephanie's idea.
It's something that she has made a
real cornerstone of her work and we
were very thrilled to follow her
passion because in fact, Juilliard
is a place where a lot of new
music gets performed.
We have a lively composition world
here ourselves and so we're really
thrilled to be presenting these new
songs, new or newish songs by living
composers and Stephanie is a wonderful
person to work on those with.
I want to actually put in a plug for a
part of Stephanie's life some of you may
not be so aware of but I'm particularly
interested for all young singers to know
she has been for some years running a
program which she founded in upstate
New York called The Fall Island Vocal Arts
Seminar, I hope I got that right.
It also concentrates only on the work
of living composers.
It's a real passion for her and we are so
lucky to have her here today.
Those of you like me who are real
Stephanie Blythe junkies have gotten to
enjoy her in music from Handel and Wagner
to Britten, to Stravinsky.
I mean there's just nothing she doesn't seem
to bring her extraordinary individuality
and magnificent voice to.
So, we're thrilled to welcome
Stephanie Blythe.
[applause]
- Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
I'm so very honored to be here.
This is my first time doing Master Class at
Juilliard which is really exciting for me.
Thank you so much for inviting me, Brian
and I'm also incredibly honored to have anything
to do with the Ellen and James Marcus
Vocal Institute at Juilliard.
Did I get it?
Yes?
Because Ellen and James Marcus are two
of the most important people in my life.
I miss James terribly as I'm sure
all of you do and so I'm very, very glad
that you're here.
So lovely to see you, Ellen and I also always
begin my classes the same way.
That what I have to offer is my suggestion.
If it's helpful to you that's wonderful.
If it's not let it go.
Okay.
My information comes from years of experience
but what works for me may not work for you
so we'll just enjoy ourselves and have
a good time.
Okay?
So, without any further adieu, hmm?
[applause]