More than meets the eye
We would all apply. We would all hope. It was a privilege for the chosen few. I was fortunate enough to study at the Banff Centre; 6 weeks for FREE. Yup. FREE. Don’t get me started on the swipe card for amazing food, and the stunning back drop of the Canadian Rockies. It was a dreamy spring for me, and a game changer for my professional development.
Today, Canadian singers have QUITE the selection of excellent, home grown programs that offer amazing faculty and facilities to be the game changer for their careers. But, unlike my Banff experience, their program may have a big price tag. The economy has changed drastically, and scholarships or subsidies are not a guarantee. A summer without any income can make the Fall a challenge, even with a free ride. The number of students auditioning has also increased, and so has the caliber of the voices. (Lord help you if you’re a soprano!)
So, who pays for it?
Well, YOU DO of course. Yup, being a singer can be EXPENSIVE. There are grants, and sometimes help from the family but, for the most part, it’s up to you. We can get very huffy and feel quite entitled when we arrive and hand over the cheque, “No room service? What is my $$$$$ paying for anyway?” Today, however, I would like to take a moment to think about what it’s like to be the PRODUCER of one of these festivals.
KIM MATTICE WANAT, founder of NUOVA in Edmonton, set the template for successful, Canadian, Summer Opera intensive programs. 13 seasons strong, the challenges never diminish. The summer program is a bridge to bigger things in a singer’s career, but on paper, it can be tough for funding sources to fit this square peg into a round hole; not to mention the challenges that the private sponsors face when they decide who they will invest in. The industry is saturated with many worthy organizations looking for support. The commitment to the students, and the art form, keep NUOVA motivated to pursue the amazingly generous donors who give their time, and money, for your musical education. NUOVA’s financial challenges look something like this:
- Budget: $650,000.00
- 3 Main-stage productions, Vocal Arts Festival 24 events, 3wks of school touring, 6-8 fundraising events
- No federal funding: they do not fit the criteria because it is only 6 weeks long.
- Private donations; $50,000.00
- Community donations $45,000.00
- Provincial Grants: $60,000.00
- Volunteering for casino event fundraisers: aprox. $37,000.00 yr.
- Expenses: Faculty (flights, fee, accommodations) music rights, orchestra fees, finding billets for 50-60 participants, $20,000.00 in scholarships and bursaries, marketing, 2 School Tour commissions, sets, stage managers, and designers to name a few.
- Everyone involved takes a reduction in pay to support future projects
CHERYL HICKMAN of OPERA ON THE AVALON was very open about the challenges she faces as a relatively new program in Arts friendly NewFoundLand. This will be their 3rd season, and the second to produce a fully staged opera with a professional orchestra. The list of faculty (coaches and mentors) looks great. If you are heading out to this program and wondering where your money is going, the list is LONG.
- Budget for the summer: $250,000.00
- Budget for the Gala fundraiser: $50,000.00
- Being a young company, they are only now (after 3 years) eligible for certain grants....oops! Forget I said that, the grant that was to pay for the orchestra disappeared last month. Bake Sale anyone? Grants, by the way, are not a guarantee....they’re a gift.
- Orchestra cost per performance: $30,000.00
- Founder Cheryl Hickman’s salary for her 50hr work week(s): $0.00
- Professional sets, lighting, music rights, faculty (housing, air, fee) orchestral scores, stage managers, union fees, GST, promotional tools, paper for the photocopier (!!!!) equate to the cost of a small condo in Toronto.
MEL BRAUN, of Manitoba’s CONTEMPORARY OPERA LAB, is a break even kind of guy. This program (which focusses on 3 weeks of intensive, collaborative teaching through contemporary and traditional repertoire) is funded solely by the tuition of 12-18 participants. No grants. No University funding. The stellar guest artists are paid for their masterclasses, and one on one sessions via your tuition. The full time U of M staff do it for the love of their art: that’s code for $0.00 in additional salary - with no complaints. Their years of experience and education, combined with the experts on faculty, aim to make the student feel like they are working within a community of support and guidance (not just one thought process or opinion from one teacher). Secondly, they hope to give students the tools to discover their best process, and how to apply it to any role study for the bigger programs, and stages. They certainly fill an important niche for the young singer who is still figuring out where they might fit in the industry.
Last, but not least!
VISI (VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL SONG INSTITUTE) is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary program dedicated to the innovation of performance practice in Art Song. Artistic Director, RENA SHARON wrote in her interview: “The internationally-renowned faculty collaborate with emerging artists to explore new horizons.... There is a tremendous amount of generosity fuelling this program. The faculty donate in countless ways - many donate a portion or all of their fees, some donate scholarships, free concerts, behind-the-scenes organizational work. UBC, Board, donors, volunteers, and sponsors all contribute tremendous support.”
“Grant-writing has become the way I spend almost ALL the time I used to spend practising! : ) ... It’s a tremendously effortful process for some of us, involving a big learning curve and an enormous outlay of time ...The challenging things about the process are: every grant has specific interests and mandates, so you cannot simply "cut and paste" rhetoric from one to the next; the results take a long time in coming, so one waits in hope for months (SOUND FAMILIAR?) ; writing and collating the materials takes great energy, thought, and care - regardless of the outcome.”
“The VISI Board of Directors works tirelessly to fundraise, which every member finds extremely challenging on many levels. It's hard to ask people for money, it's hard to build a budget on hope, it's hard to feel competitive with our friends in the art community.”
“Why do we need money? To maintain an administrative staff during the year. The Artistic Director is an unpaid position of 50-70 hours per week, and VISI's Chairwoman of the Board, our founding Executive Director, also contributes an enormous amount of administrative time. Student tuition only support faculty costs.... To run a program with enough coordinated organization, community engagement, promotional profile, and legal protocols involves a tremendous amount of background work about which the participant attending is rarely aware. Our goal is to make things flow so that everyone can enjoy the program without obstruction. When you've got 100 students and 40 faculty coming and going, 25 concerts that need production management, multiple venues, programming, advertising materials, etc, etc., there are a ton of logistic that need months of advance work.”
“VISI exists only because of an artistic passion and sense of community that has ignited everyone who is involved. There is a tremendous amount of generosity fuelling this program....we all feel that it is worth doing, worth holding the torch for poetry, and human sharing of heartfelt experience.”
Wow.
As you head off to your summer program, let’s celebrate the fact that some Canadian Artist decided that you needed a place to sing, and they would do everything in their power to make that happen. (Hallelujah!)
Happy Summer Singing!
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