Singing Workshops in Cairndow and Dumbarton
Item Posted: Monday 10th May, 2010
DO YOU SING?
If singing yourself is more to your taste than listening to singing, there are two days of singing workshops on offer.
Cairndow Village Hall is hosting singing workshops with Alison Burns. She is a songwriter, music facilitator, educator and community choir director. She writes songs for community and folk choirs, as well as for schools. Her music has been heard throughout the UK - in theatre, public art installations and in the repertoire of many community choirs. Inspiring audiences, workshop participants and critics alike, Alison’s music “shivers and crackles with delicious harmonies”. The List
Alison is a well-respected community musician with an outstanding record of workshop tutoring. She has worked with choirs and singing groups, within the culture sector as well as in mainstream and special needs education. Her innovative instruments and creative music activities offer a powerful way for children to engage with voice and music.
In her public workshops Ali teaches either her own compositions or songs from various traditional song archives around Britain that she has researched and 'reconditioned', finding or writing appropriate tunes, sometimes amalgamating versions to create one song or recreating incomplete songs by studying different versions or similar songs. She has published four collections of new songs and arrangements including a book of children's songs.
“I want to recreate the richness of harmony that makes songs of oral traditions from around the world so satisfying and joyful to sing, but with words that root the work firmly back in my own culture.”
Since 2000, Ali has been researching British folk carols from oral traditions. From this research, she created The Forgotten Carols: workshops and performances celebrating midwinter and Christmas.
In Dumbarton there is another day long singing workshop ‘From Opera to Rock’, run by Petra Maspel. German-born Petra developed an increasing interest in singing in her teens, holds a Postgraduate Diploma from the Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum and concentrated on classical singing for a while, and subsequently enrolled in a Musical Theatre Course in Hamburg, which led to a Certificate in Musical Theatre Performance.
She has over 10 years experience as a performer and singer, both as a soloist and ensemble/chorus-member: Shows, concerts and master classes have taken her to the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Switzerland.Her true passion lies in teaching voice tutoring from complete beginners to seasoned performers. She is also a keen writer - my work includes writing and translating articles on singing technique and music reviews for magazines.
If you enjoy singing and are looking for a solid start in vocal technique, this is the right workshop for you! You will learn about the all-important vocal basics: breathing and support, vocal tone and placement, rhythm and intonation, and the difference between classical and contemporary singing. You will sing in a group setting, and exercises and songs will be practised together.
Everyone who is brave enough to try a solo is very welcome to give it a go (but no compulsion!) Those keen participants can also work on performance essentials like expression, presentation and style. The workshop is suitable as a starting point for future singing lessons or as an addition to pre-existing voice lessons.