Over the course of the year, students will meet twice a week from 4-6pm to:

• Write an original story
• Create the libretto that turns their story into a dramatic text
• Compose the music that transforms their text into a sung piece
• Choreograph dances and movement
• Design simple sets and costume pieces
• Build simple sets and costume pieces
• Peer-direct scenes throughout the rehearsal process
• Perform the finished, original opera

Prelude Chorus is YWCP’s beginning-level chorus, welcoming girls with no previous musical training. Through a Kodály-based music education curriculum, choristers will learn basic vocal techniques, sight-reading, and performance skills, and sing unison and two-part repertoire in many languages. Prelude Chorus is led by Kodály specialist Samantha Maas-Baldwin, and presents 2-4 public performances annually.

So you've got all the words memorized, the notes learned, but something about your audition song is still missing? Or you simply love a certain aria and you want to make it even better? "Filling in the Gaps- Fine-Tuning Your Audition Song" will help you bring your performance to a new level. We will focus on how to use the music to inform your emotional and vocal choices. Participants should bring a song or aria that is memorized and performance ready. If in a foreign language, you must know the translation quite well.

Having trouble interpreting a song? Too wrapped up in your technique to sell your song? Feeling musically stilted to make your song come alive? Don’t know what to do with your hands, your body, or even your face? This class will touch on the matter of things to make a song become alive. From musical and technical challenges, to interpretive and physical frustrations, we will help get to the heart of what really matters…the song.

Auditions are the Job Interview of the entertainment profession, and you need good tools to show what you do best: Great monologues are a vitally important tool.

Make that 2 minutes really work for you: Use the audition process as a showcase for you and what you do best, learn to LOVE to audition, and ace your next job interview!

If you don’t have prepared pieces yet: That’s OK – everyone is welcome! We will get you started on finding something great.

What is a Patter Song? One useful definition: any song emphasizing words over music, characterized by wit, verbal agility, and (usually) humor. Although the familiar G&S Patter Songs were more often written for male performers, there are many patter songs for female performers, especially in the modern repertoire (notably, Sondheim, Harnick & Bock, and Meredith Willson.)

This class will cover both technique and interpretation.