1. When a student posts a line of a song I’ve given her or him as his/her Facebook status – “I’ll find myself at the end of the world where the earth and the sky are one.”
2. When a student tells me she’ll remember singing the Dead Nuns Chorus from Carmelites for the rest of her life.
3. When a student tells me that she loves opera – and she’s only 13 and came in to the studio a year before only liking bluegrass and boy bands and I haven’t even given her opera to sing, she’s just heard other people doing it and wants to do it too.
4. When the parent of a student who has just done her first ensemble recital tells me, “Your studio is full of really nice, supportive kids, and they made my daughter feel at home.”
5. When someone tells me her high school senior project is about vocal pedagogy.
6. When a kid who formerly only followed heavy metal headbanging tells me that he is now obsessed with Wagner. (Honestly, it’s not that much of a stretch.)
7. When a girl who formerly swooned over the Jonas Brothers now swoons over Placido Domingo – at least on recordings.
8. When a brand new student can read the IPA I’ve written on my dry-erase board.
9. When I told my students that Richard Miller died, and most of them said, “OH NO!” (Again, my base is grades 9-12.)
10. When students see a song from Street Scene or Lady in the Dark or Threepenny Opera and immediately blurt out, “I don’t mean to be curt, but give me that vial!” (See L.A. Law)
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Published by Mezzoid Voice Studio
Christine Thomas-O'Meally, a mezzo soprano and voice teacher currently based in the Baltimore-DC area, has performed everything from the motets of J.S. Bach to the melodies of Irving Berlin to the minimalism of Philip Glass.
As an opera singer and actress, she has appeared with companies such as Charm City Players, Spotlighters Theatre, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Theater of Northern Virginia, Opera North, the Washington Savoyards, In Tandem Theatre, Windfall Theater, The Young Victorian Theater of Baltimore, and Skylight Opera Theatre. She created the role of The Woman in Red in Dominick Argento’s Dream of Valentino in its world premiere with the Washington Opera and Mary Pickersgill in O'er the Ramparts at its world premiere during the Bicentennial of Battle of Baltimore at the Community College of Baltimore County. Other roles include Mrs. Paroo in Music Man, Mother Abbess in Sound of Music, Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro, both Hansel and the Witch in Hansel & Gretel, and many roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Her performance as the Housekeeper in Man of La Mancha was honored with a WATCH award nomination.
Ms. Thomas-O'Meally received an M.M. in vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She regularly attends master classes and workshops in both performance and vocal pedagogy, and is certified in all three Levels of Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method. Her students have performed on national and international tours of Broadway productions, at prestigious conservatories, and in regional theater throughout the country.
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