Westminster to hold operatic training program

Conductor Pierre Vallet with 2013 CoOPERAtive student Liesl McPherrin. The Westminster CoOPERAtive Program, a three-week intensive operatic training program, begins on June 29 and will continue through July 19. Throughout the three weeks, emerging artists will perform in many recitals, concerts and master classes that will be open to the public, free of charge. The program attracts singers and accompanists from around the world. Students enrolled in the CoOPERAtive Program receive private coaching, focusing on operatic style, performance techniques, dramatic presentation, language and diction and body awareness, as well as resumé and application advice. The program offers three tracks based on participants’ experience and area of interest. The CoOPERAtive Fellows track is for graduate students to post-graduate young professionals. The CoOPERAtive Young Artists track is for undergraduate voice majors in their junior or senior year. The CoOPERAtive Pianist Interns track is for pianists interested in explor­ing the many facets of operatic accompanying and coaching. The program will include Operatic Aria Concerts, featuring arias from familiar and not-so-well-known operas, on July 2, 6, 9, 11 and 16 at 7:30 p.m. and July 19 at 2 p.m. in Bristol Chapel. Students will also perform in Art Song Recitals on July 5, 12 and 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel. Participants will have the opportunity to perform in master classes with renowned conductor Pierre Vallet on July 3 at 7:30 p.m., recitalist, conductor and coach Eric Weimer on July 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Susan Ashbaker, master coach and artistic advisor to the CoOPERAtive Program, on July 14 at 7:30 p.m. All master classes will be held in the Princeton Regional Schools Performing Arts Center in Princeton High School. In addition, Philadelphia-based Lyric Fest will join CoOPERAtive to present a concert titled Dear March—Come In—American Women Poets on July 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Bristol Chapel. Singers Kelly Ann Bixby, soprano; Jeffrey Halili, tenor; Randall Scarlata, baritone; and Elizabeth Shammash, mezzo-soprano; will join Suzanne DuPlantis, mezzo-soprano; and Laura Ward, pianist, to premiere newly commissioned settings by Benjamin C.S. Boyle, Douglas Cuomo, Michael Djupstrom, Daron Hagen, James Primosch and Maurice Wright, as well as familiar settings and little known art songs. Narrator Michelle Eugene will read selections of poetry to round out the program. Bristol Chapel is located on the campus of Westminster Choir College located at 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton. Princeton High School is located at 151 Moore Street, Princeton.