The Sopranos

the voice of Bessie Smith to Alberta Hunter’s, in particular “Sugar”, both ladies had strong and powerful voices. However, Smith’s smooth voice is opposite that of Hunters. Hunter’s voice was gritty, yet supple. Hunter’s vocal range appears to be a soprano, given the high notes Hunter was able to achieve. When comparing these…

Montserrat Caballe As a legendary Spanish opera singer, Montserrat Caballe is considered one of the greatest opera singers of her generation. In terms of production and performance, she made more than 80 recordings and preformed almost 4,000 performances. Well trained as a young singer in her life, Caballe, certainly, had a special talent, which was sheer powerful voice. Her performance was not restricted in Italian style exemplified by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. She went further and…

the conductor and not talking when we are supposed to be singing. I feel as if I contributed very well and committed myself to learning the song. Lesson 2: In this lesson, we split up into altos, soprano one’s and soprano two’s, I am usually in altos but decided to challenge myself by singing soprano two’s, which is the harmony in the middle. We focused a lot on the…

Vancouver-born, San Francisco-based Michael Zilber, a talent of the saxophone, a dexterous composer, and a respected educator, exhibited his impressive skills side by side with jazz luminaries such as Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Dave Liebman, Miroslav Vitous, and Dave Douglas. Now, leading an elastic quartet whose reliable rhythm section includes Dave Kikoski on piano, James Genus on bass, and Clarence Penn on drums, Zilber prepared “Originals for the Originals”, a beautiful 11-track album…

composers and directors. So, the rehearsals were intense it took the extra time to concentrate on the details of my first soprano lines. Because at the time I did not own a vehicle, a friend in the choir who used to give me rides offered me a ride that day. We arrived for the rehearsal late. Upon arrival, her alto section readjusted themselves to make room for her to stand. My soprano section did not move. I walked to the front of the choir and sat in a pew. I recall asking one of the choir…

On December 16th, 2016, St. Paul Middle and High school students participated to the St. Paul Music Concert, and we played instruments and sang several songs in St. Paul Gym. It was from 1 O’clock to 3 O’clock, and not only the secondary students, but also their parents enjoyed St. Paul Music Concert, and the parents saw how music skills of their sons and daughters had been improved. Goals of this Music Concert were to enjoy last day before a Christmas holiday and to show parents what their sons…

This piece was a completely different tone and feel froms the previous. Right away, the song began with word painting. For example, when Sebastian says “strings,” the sopranos enter with high pitched piano “ee” vowels to imitate string instruments. Also, he introduces the “winds” which are the rest of the ensemble, and they join on a lower and piano “ah” vowel. This sounded like a breeze causing a tree to creak. The…

of the productions appear in the paper. Monsieur Sage's name is tagged onto the author's byline. All of the sopranos look at the reviews with fear in their eyes. Monsieur Sage bloodies and praises productions with a flaming pen: Tosca, Carmen, Aida, Faust. When the reviews are good, the sopranos buy up copies and copies to frame and kiss and give to friends. When they are bad, the sopranos faint or weep. The very worst of them weep, but they do not weep to Monsieur…

Yanessa Morillo-Delerme was the second performer of the night. Her first performance was “Alma Del Core” by Antonio Caldara. Born in Venice, Caldara made his career in Mantua, Rome and Vienna, serving in the last of these from 1716 as vice-Kapellmeister at the imperial court. As a composer he was versatile and prolific, with some 90 stage works to his credit. Caldara wrote a steady series of over 40 oratorios, liturgical music, motets, and cantatas sacred and secular. His 1712 Christmas cantata…

basically means passing from boring and difficult programs to challenging issues which the audience would find it interest and importantly to use their brain to solve them. Johnson shows example of TV. shows that have changes their structure such as Sopranos, and Dragnet for instance. Also, Johnson argues that bad TV shows that contain controversial topics and violence would make our brain healthy rather than sick because “ What Johnson [he] argues for is a change in the criteria we use to…