Sebastian DeMayo-Stoger (Cello – 5th Grade) In November Sebastian performed as a special guest with Steve Marzullo in the concert Steve Marzullo and Friends at the jazz club Birdland in a performance of a piece written for Sebastian by Mr. Marzullo. He also performed the Boccherini Cello Concerto in G major first movement, in the Alexander & Buono International String Competition 2009 Winners’ Recital at Carnegie Hall.

Santtu Nevakivi-Callanan (Cello – 8th Grade) participated in the 2009 St. Petersburg International Music Academy in Beloit, Washington, where he studied cello with Leonid Shukayev, and the Suolahti International Music Festival in Finland, where he studied cello with Alexander Gebert.

Nadira Novruzov (Flute - 1st Grade) won first place in the New York Flute Club Young Musicians Competition (annual) in her age category and performed as a soloist at the New York Flute Fair, March 2009.

Alice Ivy-Pemberton (Violin) won First Prize at the 2009 Greenwich Village Orchestra Concerto competition and performed at the Winners Concert on December 13 at Washington Irving High School in lower Manhattan. Alice was accepted as a semi-finalist to the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition in Norway.

Manami Mizumoto (Violin) won the St. Petersburg International Music Academy Concerto competition in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Joseph Morag (Violin) won first prize in the Alexander & Buono International String Competition and finished as a finalist in the Greenwich Village Orchestra Young Artists Competition. Joseph is also playing with the New York Youth Symphony as their youngest first violin section player.

Musical Journeys: Student Perspectives

Kaufman Kabaret member Jenny Bonnet sang with the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus as a child and continued performing in high college, but as a busy professional and mother of a toddler she found little time to do things for herself. Bonnet had always loved Broadway shows and cabaret music, and when she saw that Kaufman Kabaret classes were focusing one of her favorite songwriting teams—Richard Maltby and David Shire—she auditioned. "It was just amazing to do this," she says. "It lit a fire in me that I forgot was there. It just reminded me how much I really love to perform. I had forgotten."

"Singing feels to me like witchcraft," says Lisa Callicotte. The voice is an odd instrument to play, she believes, because you can't see or touch it. Callicotte sang in a successful band and studied voice at Mannes College, but she still felt dissatisfied with her singing. She began taking Ingrid Zeldin's voice class at LMS on Sundays while her son, who was playing the role of Jerome in the musical South Pacific, performed several blocks away at Lincoln Center. "It was the first time in 20 years of trying to sing that I could actually sing, all because of Ingrid," she says. "Voice is the hardest instrument. It’s so conceptual you need someone to help you through it mentally as well. Ingrid explains visually and works with the feeling of it step by step."

"I always envied other members of my family who appreciated music so much," says Merle Golkow, a five-semester veteran of Kaufman Broadway Singers who has also taken Sight Singing with Liz Fleischer. "How do I know if I have the ability to appreciate music if I don’t try it, just go for it?" The class made her feel very welcome, Golkow recalls. Everyone was at different levels, and instructor Shirley Perkins nurtured the students. "She helped me feel comfortable singing with others and venturing into solo territory." Golkow didn't know how to read music when she began the class but can now read her part; she has also improved her abdominal breathing. These days she especially enjoys singing songs by Irving Berlin and Cole Porter.

A member of her church choir, Alline Matheson wanted to develop her voice and deepen her experience with singing. She found her way to LMS after seeing a Sight Singing flyer. "Once you’ve experienced Liz," she says, "you want to go on doing that because she’s really wonderful." She went on to take individual lessons with Ingrid Zeldin to receive individual attention and improve her technique with an eye towards joining a choral group. Matheson likes that the classes mix different skill levels and represent a wide range of ages. "Some were pursuing it as part of a professional path and were very driven," she explains. "People like me are doing it because we really enjoy it." Before working with Zeldin, Matheson had not realized how much she could improve. "I love hearing and learning what I can do with my voice...Through breathing and practice my voice has changed and developed, and my ability has developed, and it is so cool that there’s that kind of progress."

Teaching Students How to Sing: Faculty Perspectives

While improving their vocal technique is an important goal for many students, LMS classes also address a broader range of skills related to singing, including acting, stagecraft and improvisation. Composer/lyricist Clay Zambo, Music Director of Kaufman Kabaret, emphasizes that the cabaret class is more about acting than vocal technique. "It really is an acting class," he explains, "it’s just that all the acting is done through music. A terrific performance might be given by someone who isn’t a trained singer. It’s about the experience of the song and the communication of the song." More lyric-oriented than a traditional singing class, Kaufman Kabaret focuses on the deeply personal connection between singer and song. Zambo has helped students interpret the songs of Stephen Sondheim, Frank Loesser, Maltby & Shire, Jerry Herman and the Gershwins as well as other Broadway legends, and he accompanies them on piano during end-of-semester performances at the cabaret club Don't Tell Mama.

In her Opera Workshop, instructor Judith Barnes does not focus primarily on vocal technique. While working with opera singers can involve this kind of training, Barnes works mainly on stagecraft, teaching students to move freely in the performance space and to enter into the imagination of the characters and the world they're creating. Barnes helps students fill their moves with intention and learn to become more independent and confident about the choices they make while performing. "I want them to feel like they own the stage," she says. Opera is less about personal self expression than cabaret, says Barnes; it's more an exploration of the composer's style and the conventions of the genre than the singer's personal emotions. Barnes's favorite moments are when students work together to create something on their own. "I love to see them take it into their own hands and invent and imagine and fill their characters with an inner life. I get excited."

You may have seen LMS Jazz Vocal Workshop instructor Amy London performing at Dizzy’s, Blue Note, Birdland or other New York jazz venues. Music is central to the lives of London, her husband Roni Ben-Hur (jazz musician and director of the LMS jazz program) and their two daughters. At-home rehearsals and jam sessions are common: "There’s a drum kit permanently set up in our living room," she says," and I don’t mind!" London's students are not primarily professional performers, but adults with other careers who fell in love with jazz and began exploring jazz singing. She teaches them how to sing with a jazz band, emphasizing vocal techniques, repertoire, arrangements, swinging, stage presence and—especially important—communicating with the instrumentalists. Students learn classic repertoire and great melodies as they would in an opera or cabaret class, but with jazz they find their own voice by changing those melodies and improvising. London's students take away a deeper knowledge and lifelong love of the great American songbook and the jazz so richly developed in the 20th century by Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker and others. "Once you start peeling away the layers of jazz you just keep discovering more and more," says London. "Jazz is diverse in every sense." Above all, the class is a lot of fun. "Come join us!” she says. “It’s like an American Idol fantasy come true. It’s as much fun as it looks like on TV."

A Joyful Space

Learning to sing is an ongoing process in which you learn new things about yourself and your abilities, says faculty member Margaret Evans, who gives private voice lessons. "Each new step in learning about the voice builds both self awareness and self confidence.” Students enthusiastically credit LMS vocal classes with improving their self confidence on and off the stage. "I was initially nervous but am not anymore," says Bonnet. "The class helped bolster my self confidence." Because she had improved her technique and learned to sight read, Matheson felt empowered to join a new choral group. "I wouldn’t have had the nerve to audition if Ingrid hadn’t supported me." Golkow appreciated the wonderful sense of community she experienced in the class, and the way family and friends came out to support them at the recital. "Now I have more confidence," she says. "I would have never sung in front of other people before. We nurture each other." Barnes explains, “Any kind of performance experience helps one become more confident off stage as well. You’re training your body and so you become someone who inhabits a trained instrument, which affects your sense of self."

For these students, the benefits of learning to sing extended into different aspects of their lives, from enhancing their appreciation of music in general or reawakening interest in an instrument at a later stage of life to improving their ability to focus. "I learned so much more about everything when I learned to sing," says Callicotte. "Discovering LMS inspired me,” says Matheson. “It’s such a remarkable neighborhood resource. It’s encouraged me to explore other cultural institutions and organizations. What else can I try? Where else can I go to learn things? What I love is realizing that this can be lifelong."

Students describe signing as a joyful, uplifting space that's separate from their everyday lives and routines. Zambo agrees, noting that Kaufman Kabaret gives students a rare opportunity to get away from the nine-to-five world and their home responsibilities and express themselves in a way their career may not allow them to. "Some people go bowling," he says, "and others learn about the Gershwins."

Above all, singing just feels good. "There’s such a thing as a singer’s high,” explains Golkow. It’s like letting go. "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts...It’s a great feeling of accomplishment." Everyone should be able to experience the pleasure of making music, especially in this stressful city and bad economy, says Callicotte. "You catch a little buzz and get a little high. It’s everyone’s birthright to be able to sing." Evans sums it up: "Singing is a joyful experience. Really, that’s the bottom line."

Vocal classes at Lucy Moses School include Sight Singing, Opera Workshop, Kaufman Kabaret, Jazz Vocal Workshop, Nashir! The Rottenberg Chorale, Kaufman Broadway Chorus and the Clurman Singers as well as group voice class and private voice lessons.

To learn more about the classes or student performances, click here or call 212 501 3360.