JOS On Point

Singing Finnegans Wake: A Key to Samuel Barber’s ‘Nuvoletta

Samuel Barber’s 1947 song “Nuvoletta” has long been a niche favorite among performers, critics, and listeners. Although the music is captivating and gratifying to perform, replete, according to critic Harold Rogers, with unsurpassed sheer lyricism and musical subtleties, James Joyce’s words are strange and often impossible to understand without literary explication. In an absorbingly provocative study, “Singing Finnegans Wake: A Key to Samuel Barber’s ‘Nuvoletta’,” published in the January/February issue of the Journal of Singing, musicologist Howard Pollack dissects and delves deeply into the text, bringing fascinating insights and nuanced meaning to Joyce’s opaque language that are vital to any understanding of this piece.

JOS-078-3-2022-319.pdf (application/pdf, 180.2 K) posted at 10:13 AM, February 2, 2022

Singing in Co-Harmony: An Introduction to Trauma Informed Voice Care

When one works with bodies, it is highly likely that one will interface with the complexities of chronic stress or trauma. In “Singing in Co-Harmony: An Introduction to Trauma Informed Voice Care,” published in the January/February issue of the Journal of Singing, singing voice specialist Megan Durham offers strategies for cultivating a supportive presence in the voice studio to mindfully navigate both comfort and discomfort by establishing compassionate, nonjudgmental reciprocal connections.

JOS-079-3-2023-369.pdf (application/pdf, 259.6 K) posted at 9:16 AM, February 3, 2023

Singing Messiah, Then and Now: How Handel’s Singers Influenced Messiah’s Composition and Inform Modern Performance

In “Singing Messiah, Then and Now: How Handel’s Singers Influenced Messiah’s Composition and Inform Modern Performance,” published in the March/April issue of the Journal of Singing, author Kirsten S. Brown maintains that the reputation of this monument of Western music was built with and through singers and instrumentalists who impacted the work in the minds of Handel and his audiences. Brown identifies and discusses ways in which soprano Giulia Frasi, castrato Gaetano Guadagni, tenor John Beard, and bass Theodore Reinhold influenced the composer’s great oratorio that continue into the present.

Pages_from_JOS_078_4_2022_457.pdf (application/pdf, 2438 K) posted at 9:49 AM, March 7, 2022

Stop Teaching

“Stop Teaching!” That is the advice offered to all teachers of singing — but only at this special time of year — by editor in chief Lynn Helding in the May/June issue of the Journal of Singing. Spring brings forth flowers, graduations, and student performances. But “Recital Season” can also bring farewells, stress, and the psychological phenomenon called “burnout” for teachers. Helding suggests a surprising solution based on principles from cognitive science which can blunt teacher burnout while simultaneously enhancing students’ learning. By stopping teaching during “Recital Season,” teachers may ironically provide singers with what they actually need for optimal performance.

JOS-080-5-2024-505.pdf (application/pdf, 183 K) posted at 2:55 PM, May 13, 2024

Students’ Mental Health and the Voice Studio: How to Help Without Losing Lesson Time

Addressing mental health issues that plague young singers requires the voice teacher to be anchored in the role as a voice expert, to be familiar with a code of ethics, to think through how to prevent ethical dilemmas, and to learn how to address these ethical issues through a process with integrity. Singer, teacher, author Denise Ritter Bernardini, and music therapist Lauren DiMaio, in their article, “Students’ Mental Health and the Voice Studio: How to Help Without Losing Lesson Time,” published in the May/June issue of the Journal of Singing, deal with these matters, also recommending a number of apps that help students to navigate their world and teachers to maintain a professional scope of practice.

JOS_078_5_2022_591.pdf (application/pdf, 445.4 K) posted at 11:49 AM, June 13, 2022

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