Nova Scotian singer and vocal pedagogue Lorna MacDonald returns to the Halifax Summer Opera Festival in 2014 for two masterclasses and a special “Intensive Fix” workshop on vocal issues.  Lorna is always our top-rated masterclass technician and private teacher, with a justly-famed reputation for her combination of intuitive insight, creative problem solving and tremendously technical knowledge.

IF Only with Lorna MacDonald Soprano and Lois Marshall Chair in Voice at the University of Toronto.

So often pre-professional and young professional singers have a spurt of good luck and feel great about their singing and the trajectory of their careers. Then the blight hits where they are on a seemingly never-ending plateau, confidence sags, and sometimes it is difficult to know how to make change. IF the same nagging comment or feedback is following you from audition to audition, and IF you need to concentrate on an area of your singing or performance package in order to get off the plateau, here is your opportunity to change the scenario and get back in charge of your singing and confidence. Enrol for the Intensive Fix – IF at Halifax Summer Opera Festival this summer. For three days, a select group of pre-professional and young professionals will have the opportunity to work intensely with Lorna MacDonald, an inspiring voice teacher, expert diagnostician, and mentor. Sessions will be held both privately and in small groups. Make the time for your What IF.

Professor MacDonald enjoys a career of distinction as an active performer, voice teacher, Professor of Voice and the Lois Marshall Chair in Voice Studies at the University of Toronto. From 1994-2007 she served as Head of Voice Studies, and she is a recipient of Ontario’s prestigious OCUFA Award for “teaching excellence and outstanding contributions to university teaching”. MacDonald heads up a graduate program in Voice Pedagogy in which she combines the rich worlds of science, education and art to prepare a new generation of young singers and voice teachers.

Lorna teaches undergraduate and graduate voice majors at the University of Toronto, and she has a private studio of professional singers who are performing throughout Europe and North America, on Broadway, in film, Grammy and Juno nominated artists in popular music, art song and opera. A graduate of Dalhousie University and the New England Conservatory of Music, with additional studies in the US and Europe, she maintains strong ties with her birthplace in Port Morien, Nova Scotia.

Lorna’s Masterclasses at HSOF will take place July 23 and July 26 from 1 to 3 pm at Mount St. Vincent’s Seton Hall, room TBA.  For more information about attending these masterclasses as a spectator, please contact marja@halifaxsummeroperafestival.com