BACH ARIA PROJECT

MAY 2021

It’s thrilling to offer a BACH ARIA PROJECT after our first two successful song projects in French and Italian. We were inspired to create another project to study a very different repertoire in a third language, German!!

The repertoire of arias from oratorios, cantatas and masses of the prodigiously creative J.S. .Bach are huge and wide-ranging. We realize we’re only going to scratch the surface by finding pieces that we love so we can brush up on our ornamentation skills, our linguistic skills and our stylistic chops in this wonderful music.

Susan Morton, NYC-based coach and founder of SingThrough Central, is now creating a NEW project to study, review and stretch our knowledge of this composer, beloved of many singers, for his expressive output.

OUR APPROACH: a combo of masterclasses over the course of a month combined with private coachings. Attention will be given to the German language and Baroque stylistic issues. The availability of accompaniment tracks for many of the songs will hopefully be a great help in keeping expenses down but if need be Susan will create any arias necessary for study and performance in the masterclasses.

Everyone participating WILL CHOOSE TWO ARIAS ONLY that they want to study. These pieces are very dense and complex harmonically and so doing only two will enable us to focus more…Hopefully we’ll find some different time periods in his output, so that we have as much variety as possible.

And, for mid-late May we’ll set up 3 performance masterclasses and two German diction and text classes! We’ll canvass everyone's availability for attendance and opportunities to perform for one another. And the masterclasses are open to everyone enrolled; whether singers, voice teachers, pianists.

The fees for this project will be a combination of coachings, accompaniments—if necessary, German diction and text seminars, performance masterclasses and administrative fees. I will assume one aria per coaching (it’s Bach) for work on ornaments and stylistic considerations) and then a per-aria fee if you need a custom-tailored accompaniment track.

Stay tuned for upcoming future Song Projects for later this year! MAYBE even in-person projects!