Why Choose SongFest?
The union between words and the human voice in song has inspired generations of artists.
SongFest is one of the only US festivals dedicated to the study and performance of song
Participants performing in the LA Composers concert in Zipper Hall
Composer Jake Heggie teaching a masterclass on his songs
SongFest Professional, Young Artist, and Studio Artist program participants backstage at a concert
In an era of shrinking budgets and opera seasons, the timeless art of song offers both performers and audience members the chance to re-ignite the magic of live theater and music-making by focusing on the bare essentials: music, text, performers, audience, and the indefinable magic between them. The skills you learn here will serve you well in any future music-making you do, and are the essential skills for performing in the more paired down, live theater oriented opera experience of the future.
Many of the operatic young artist programs have minimal individual instruction time for young artists because it costs the most money, and instead you will spend most of your summer as a chorus member for their major productions. At SongFest, YOU are the focus, and you will never be in a chorus.
Other young artist programs generally have one or two major artist-faculty with whom you will have the opportunity to work. At SongFest, you will have the opportunity to personally experience the work of over a dozen of the greatest artistic minds today with our internationally renowned artist faculty.
Operatic young artist programs offer the chance to network with a few select coaches, directors, and conductors. SongFest has many of the same prestigious faculty you will find at other programs, but we also provide the opportunity to work with the best of today's living composers, to perform with some of the best collaborative pianists and recitalist singers of your own generation, and to form artistic partnerships that will stay with you for a lifetime.
With several masterclasses a day and over fifteen curated concerts of song repertoire, you will be exposed to a mountain of new and exciting music: from gems of the standard repertoire to forgotten masterpieces to music written in ink that is still drying on the page from today's best composers.
One of the glories of working on song repertoire is the ability to find a poem and piece of music that speak specifically to you at your current stage of development as an artist and a human being. Rather than trying to trap you into an opera "fach box" or a "piano soloist" box, at SongFest we encourage each student to find their unique musical voice.
“Our SONGFEST mission, under the all-encompassing Californian skies, is to bring together the old and new where the study of masterpieces from the past enhances the vitality and relevance of contemporary music. Many of the singers and pianists have come here because they already sense that art song has brought depth and refinement to their lives, both as musicians and human beings. Younger performers at Colburn find themselves crossing a summer threshold that will lead to lifelong fealty. Teachers and students share a devotion to a genre that is too easily labelled “elitist” or simply “boring”. These golden weeks, shining with youthful energy, purpose and enthusiasm, demonstrate that art song is impossible to belittle or dismiss – old hands inspired by fresh and questing talent pass on a tradition rich in the articulation of many of civilisation’s most precious values. If art can make men see things in a different way, one should never underestimate the power of great poetry from many countries in tandem with great music to touch a hitherto unresponsive heart and make a difference. I would like to believe that a world prepared to listen to more song recitals, and take to heart what they convey, would be less inclined to destroy the past with the reckless abandon that is sadly characteristic of present times.”