Chapter Events. President s Notes: Fall Issue 20

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1 Chapter Events NATS Benefit Recital October 1, :00 pm Marylhurst University St. Anne's Chapel Pacific Hwy Marylhurst, OR Reception immediately following Student Auditions -Musical Theatre Registration Deadline Friday, October 14, 2016 Student Auditions - Musical Theatre Chapter Meeting noon November 5, 2016 Lewis and Clark 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd, Portland, OR Stephanie Samaras Musical Theatre Masterclass Reception immediately following Sunday, November 6, 2016 Lewis and Clark 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd, Portland, OR Student Auditions Classical Chapter Meeting noon January 27 & 28, 2017 Pacific University 2043 College Way, Forest Grove, OR President s Notes: Dear Colleagues, Fall is in the air... I hope this newsletter finds you happy, healthy and able to enjoy the blessings this season has to offer! It's time to mark your calendars with our upcoming Cascade NATS events, starting with our Benefit Recital on October 1, This recital will take place in St. Anne's Chapel on the campus of Marylhurst University at 4:00pm! Please peruse the newsletter for more information about the recital, as well as other events that will take place the academic year. We have a new scholarship! The Bel Canto Art Song Award for Excellence in Singing has been given by a generous donor! The recipient of this annual award will be an advanced singer in the Lower or Upper College Divisions who demonstrates excellent technique, beauty of tone, and art song interpretation. In addition, a challenge grant of up to $2,500 has been given by our donor! If we can raise $2,500 between now and November 15, 2016, we could have total of $5,000 in a designated fund from which we could give another singer a scholarship. We have already raised $400 which will be matched! The Gustafson Award will be awarded to a high school singer from the Classical Auditions Honors' Recital and The Bel Canto Art Song Award for Excellence in Singing will be awarded to a college/young adult singer from the same Honors' Recital. If you are able to contribute to this new award, you can make a donation through our Cascade NATS website on the homepage by clicking on the PayPal button or by sending a check directly to Bonnie Johnson, our treasurer. Please consider making a donation of any amount to be matched! Our 2016 Cascade NATS Musical Theatre Auditions and Fall Festival will take place at Lewis and Clark College on Saturday, November 5, 2016, continuing through Sunday, November 6, with a masterclass given by Stephanie Samaras, a nationally recognized MT Clinician! The masterclass will take place in Evans Hall at Lewis and Clark College from 2pm-5pm with a reception to follow. Ms. Samaras will work with eight auditioned students on their MT selections. If you have a student that would be interested in singing on the masterclass, scroll down for more information about the audition procedure. The Honors' Recital will take Con.t page 2 1

2 Regional NW Leadership is working hard on organizing the next NW Regional conference in Portland in the fall of 2017 and is excited to make an announcement soon. Look for an from Nancy Bos, NW Regional Governor in coming weeks Opportunities Oregon Sinfonietta Fall concert Sunday, November 6th, 3 p.m. Sunnyside Adventist Church, S.E. Market Street, Portland. The program includes works by Wagner, Magnard, Coleridge-Taylor, and Samuel Barber's "Knoxville Summer of 1915" featuring Linda Appert, Soprano. Donations are gratefully accepted at the door. For more information, check out the website atwww.cmsomus.org/. PSU Opera The Place Where You Started November 12, 16, 18, 19 at 7:30pm November 13 and 20 at 2pm Lincoln Hall Studio Theater $29 general, $15 students and youth For tickets call or go online to pdx.edu/boxoffice New Recital Series Seeks High-Level Performers Eugene-based soprano and voice teacher Laura Wayte is seeking excellent performers of art song for a new recital series. Searching Through Song is a monthly series presented in a neighborhood bookstore and aimed at an expanding audience for art song. $350 each for singer and pianist, with a homestay. For more information submit resume (including recitals) and demo to Laura Wayte: decherwayte@gmail.com President s Notes: Cont. place on November 5, at 6:30pm, at which time the Brian Vester Swingle Scholarship Award for Music Theatre will be awarded. Our 2017 Cascade NATS Classical Auditions and Winter Festival will take place at Pacific University on Friday evening, January 27, continuing through Saturday, January 28, with our two classical scholarships awarded at the end of the Honors' Recital. We have renewed our vows to support the Friends of Chamber Music Vocal Arts Series! The FOCM Vocal Art Series has been bringing some of the finest vocal recitalists in the world to our very own Portland since 2007! The season brings us two spectacular concerts: Renowned German baritone, Christian Gerhaher, will present an all Mahler recital on Sunday, December 11, 2016 at 3:00pm, Lincoln Performance Hall at PSU. Susan Graham, internationally renowned mezzo-soprano will present her program, Frauenliebe und Leben: Variations, on Sunday, April 9, 2017, 3:00 pm Lincoln Performance Hall, PSU. Not to be missed! Please consider bringing your students to both of these recitals, not only to support FOCM and their Vocal Arts Series, but to expose your students to some of the very best singers our world has to offer! I would like to thank Jill Soltero, Program Chair, and her committee, Carl Halvorson, Linda Appert and Pamela South for organizing the Benefit Recital and the Stephanie Samaras MT Masterclass! Stay tuned for more events in Equally, I would like to thank April Duvic, her committee, Erin McCarthy, Jennifer Davies, Susan McBerry and our webmaster, Bekki Levien for updating our chapter's website! It should be up and running shortly. Please bookmark our Cascade NATS website as it serves as a portal to important information. Lastly, a huge thank you to Beverly Park and Jennifer Davies for putting together this newsletter! We have such a talented and intelligent group of board members and teachers within our chapter. Thank you for supporting, promoting and teaching the art of singing! Best, Lisa Actor-Leslie NATS Cascade Chapter President Maple Leaves, from 114 Songs by Charles Ives October turned my maple's leaves to gold; The most are gone now; here and there one lingers: Soon these will slip from out the twigs' weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers. Poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 2

3 Friends of Chamber Music The NATS Cascade Board has decided to renew our support of the Friends of Chamber Music Vocal Recital Series. We highly recommend you attend these world -class recitals, and encourage your students to come along as well. More details can be found at focm.org/concerts-events/vocal-arts -series / Christian Gerhaher, baritone Sunday, December 11, :00 pm Lincoln Performance Hall, PSU Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano Sunday April 9, :00 pm Lincoln Performance Hall, PSU Cascade Chapter Board President: Lisa Actor Leslie President Elect: Sarah Maines Secretary: Erin McCarthy Treasurer: Bonnie Johnson Program Chair: Jill Soltero Auditions Chair: Sarah Maines Members Chair: Kay Joham Communications Liasion: Jennifer Davies Newsletter: Beverly Park Past President: Sue McBerry NATS BENEFIT RECITAL CONCERT: Please join us at our NATS Benefit Recital Concert on October 1, 2016 featuring semi-finalists and finalists who competed at the National Convention in Chicago this July. Rebecca Sacks, student of Ruth Dobson and 5th place NATSAA winner /2nd Place NSA winner in the Musical Theater category, will be our featured recitalist, accompanied by Michael Barnes, piano. Semi-finalists in the High school and College divisions will round out the program with a variety of Musical Theater and Classical songs. Donations will benefit our NEW Bel Canto Art Song Award for Vocal Excellence, presented once a year at the Classical Auditions to a college-age student who demonstrates vocal expertise, technical skill, and artistic excellence. Donate to this fund before November 15, 2016 and have your gift matched by our generous Donor! We look forward to seeing you at St. Anne's Chapel on the campus of Marylhurst University on October 1, 2016 at 4pm. A reception will follow the concert. Under Construction! Exciting changes are underway for the Cascade Chapter s website. A committee charged with updating the existing site convened recently, headed by April Duvic, and after studying other NATS chapter websites, engaging in spirited debate, and putting our heads together to come up with solutions, we have outlined a detailed plan of action for spiffing it up. With an aim to make the site much more user-friendly, the navigation has been updated, the landing page is in the process of simplifying, and new categories have been created to better organize content. Prospective students can use the Find a Teacher feature that leads them directly to the national NATS site. The password-protected Members Only feature now can be easily found with a button in the navigation bar (do you know the password?) and allows ease of access for Cascade Chapter members to find meeting minutes, including financial information that continues to be for our membership s eyes only. The addition of a Media tab also will allow us to share audio and video files of our chapter s special events. Our Cascade Chapter Facebook presence is also being re-vamped; The public Facebook page is now linked on the website and will be updated regularly. The private group will still be in use, but we wanted to have that public page to flesh out our social media presence. Now that the look and feel navigation and organization work is underway, listen for a call-to-action as we form work groups to update, curate, and create the content on the site. Some of it is woefully out of date! Those work groups will start their work after the November 5th auditions. If you re interested in participating, please let April Duvic, Jennifer Davies, or me, Erin G. McCarthy, know! 3

4 Masterclass with clinician Stephanie Samara ~Musical Theatre Masterclass~ Stephanie Samaras Sunday, November 6, 2016 Lewis and Clark 0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd, Portland, OR EVENT FEES: Participants - $25 NATS members - $10 NATS member's students - $5 Other students - $10 All other adults - $15 Please direct questions to: NATS Cascade Chapter Program Committee Jill Soltero: jillsoltero@gmail.com About Stephanie Samaras STEPHANIE SAMARAS has traveled widely lecturing and presenting masterclasses on teaching pop singers. For three decades she has been a pioneer in promoting flexible and healthy vocal technique covering a spectrum of vocal styles.. In 2006 Stephanie was honored to be one of four teachers in the country to earn the title of MASTER TEACHER by the National Association of Teacher of Singing (NATS). Her lecture and video, Classical Training Applied to the Pop Voice has been presented at the First International Congress of Voice Teachers in Strasbourg, France and also at the National NATS Convention in Los Angeles. The video has now be re-released in DVD format, Classical Training Applied to the Pop Voice, the Quest Continues giving the opportunity to teachers and aspiring students to study her teaching in action. She has been a presenter at the first NATS Music Theater Workshop in Dallas, the Voice Foundation in Philadelphia, as well as many other NATS events both National and local, and college campuses throughout the country. Most recently, the 2015 NATS Winter Workshop in NYC. Stephanie taught privately in New York City and also as a college Associate Professor instructing students at NYU for the Music Conservatory CAP21, the graduate division at the City University of New York (CUNY), Montclair State University, and Kean University. Her studio is constantly represented on and off Broadway, on National Tours, regional theater, and on recordings. Her students have included Tony Award winners Scott Wise (who acknowledged Stephanie in his acceptance speech) Andy Blankenbuehler (Choreographer of Hamilton and In the Heights ), Nikki James ( Book of Mormon ), and Leigh Zimmerman (receiving an Olivier Award). Well known Broadway performers include Evan Pappas (Star of My Favorite Year and Parade ), Krysta Rodriguez ( Addams Family, First Date ), the late Patrick Swayzee and his wife actress Lisa Niemi, and Jennifer Garner. Stephanie co-wrote all of the Music Theater repertoire requirements for the Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory Achievement Program, was a contributor to the book THE VOCAL ATHLETE by Drs. Le Borgne, and Rosenberg, and also has been cited in With a Song in my Psyche by Pearl Wormhoudt. Stephanie is a new resident of Charleston, South Carolina, and is looking forward to building up her studio again now that she is settled in. 4

5 Student Auditions Guidelines The 2016 Music Theatre NATS Student Auditions for the Cascade and Willamette Chapters will be held at Lewis and Clark College on Saturday, November 5 th. Registration opens on September 11 th at and closes on October 14 th. The event will follow the new standardized policy now required by the NATS National Board. The NATS National Board approved the new policy in July 2015, so every chapter in the nation is working to adopt these changes for their upcoming Student Auditions. The changes are intended to streamline Student Auditions across the nation as well as through the Chapter, Regional and National levels. It is absolutely imperative that you read the entire updated Handbook before registering your students and attending this year s Student Auditions. The Handbook is posted at Musical Theatre Student Auditions November 5th Lewis and Clark College Call for Substitute Adjudicators If you would like further information about the changes from National, you can visit the National Student Auditions Resources website at This page includes all updated documents, FAQ's, and resources related to the recent changes. Of course you are also welcome to contact Cascade Student Auditions Chair Sarah Maines (themainestudio@gmail.com) or Willamette Student Auditions Chair Beverly Park (beverly.park@comcast.net) with questions. This is new information and a quick turn-around for us as well, but we are learning quickly and are determined to do our best to help everyone get on board. We are looking forward to seeing all of you at Lewis and Clark College for the Music Theater Student Auditions on November 5th! If you do NOT plan to enter students in this year's Student Auditions, but would like to participate anyway, please contact Sarah Maines (themainestudio@gmail.com) Or Beverly Park (beverly.park@comcast.net) right away. We ALWAYS need extra adjudicators, registration desk volunteers, etc. It takes a village to create a great audition experience 5

6 Stephanie Samara Masterclass Application MASTERCLASS APPLICATION To apply to be a singer for the Stephanie Samaras Musical Theater Masterclass on Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 2pm at Lewis and Clark College. Please have interested students prepare and submit the following application materials: 1. CD or mp3 recordings of two contrasting musical theater songs: 32 bar cut of a ballad, and a 32 bar cut of an up tempo piece that show student best vocally and artistically. 2. Fill out/send this information along with mail/ Name, Age, Year in school (high school or college if applicable) Name of NATS teacher Contact information: Student address & phone number Teacher address & phone number 3. Brief resume of performance experience. Student application will be reviewed and will be notified of acceptance in the workshop by Saturday, October 29, There is a $25 participation fee if chosen for the workshop, which will be payable to NATS the day of the workshop. An accompanist will be provided for the workshop. Memories from the Chicago NATS convention: From: Susan McBerry This Chicago convention represented one of the very best I have attended in my 45 years of membership. There were sessions for new teachers as well as new ideas based on recent knowledge that were for veteran teachers. The special pre-convention workshop about aging voices was really worthwhile. Not only did it help me assess my own voice, but I have new tools to offer to students whose voices are changing due to illness, age, wear and tear. One of the best things about getting away to a convention is the camaraderie and sharing of questions and ideas with colleagues. Ask one of the attendees about the use of the straw as a means to semi-occluded phonation! The quality of performance and artistry for the Artist Award competition was the best ever and the judging was also good. Our NW regional representative at the NATSAA, Rebecca Sacks, took fifth place in NATSAA and second place in the NSA advanced classical division. She was on crutches, having broken her ankle and had to sing very difficult repertoire sitting on a chair!! She still sang beautifully and looked elegant. She also sang on the Warren Jones master class... We are so proud of her determination and we congratulate Rebecca and her teacher, Ruth Dobson. Rebecca Sacks also sang on the Norman Spivey master class and new member Katie Ebner sang for Renee Fleming s class. Nancy Bos, Rebecca Sacks, Ruth Dobson Chicago, Stephanie Samaras Master Class Application. If sending by postal mail, Postmark by Friday, October 21, 2016 and send to: Jill Soltero, 4475 NE Alameda St. Portland, OR If sending via , all materials due Saturday, October 22, 2016 to Jill Soltero: jillsoltero@gmail.com. 6

7 From: Bonnie Johnson A conference highlight for everyone was the appearance of Renée Fleming as the featured artist. Her duty as the master class instructor was to work with four experienced and talented singers, one of which was Oregon's own Katie Harmon Ebner. Drawing from her own background, Renée approached the singers with basic technical instruction in alignment, breath, and passaggio adjustments. A Q & A session followed with Renée's sister, Dr. Rachelle Fleming, who is nationally recognized in the training and vocal health of the contemporary vocal artist. They shared delightful stories of growing up together and their divergent career paths. The Ryan Opera Center Ensemble joined Renée on Sunday evening at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance for a concert full of fun and beautiful singing. The evening ended with over 1,300 voice teachers in the audience singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "I Could Have Danced all Night", which was to the obvious amazement of the performers on stage! From Katie Harman Ebner: As a first year member - both in NATS and as an attendee of the National Convention - I was overjoyed with the myriad of opportunities to expand my horizons. Not only did I learn a great deal from the breakout sessions and classes that I have already applied to my personal studio, but the growth I experienced as a performer from my participation in Renée Fleming's Master Class is something I'll treasure forever. Most importantly, I was able to connect with other teachers, whose friendship and wisdom are invaluable. What an honor to be part of the National Association of Teachers of Singing! Fourth Row Seats for Ms. Fleming 7