INDEPENDENT OPERA Vocal Scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music
The current recipient of INDEPENDENT OPERA Vocal Scholarship at the Royal Northern College of Music is Helen Sherman
The students selected for this award should be in his/her second postgraduate year of study in the School of Vocal and Opera Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music. The only condition is that the award-winner should have successfully completed his/her first postgraduate year at the RNCM to be eligible.
He/she should be a charismatic and versatile performer of proven experience, who expresses the intention of pursuing a career as an operatic soloist, and who has demonstrated the potential to do so.
Students of all nationalities are eligible, as are all voice-types.
Age-limit: female students should be under 33, and male students under 36, on 1st October in the first calendar year of the award.
About the Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music does not at present offer a specific opera course. However, as the title of the Principal Study School indicates (School of Vocal & Opera Studies), opera is an integral part of every singer’s training, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The two major annual productions, both of which take place in the 610-seat Bruntwood Opera Theatre, are cast by competitive audition which every student in the School is eligible to enter.
In addition to the two major productions, two series of Opera Excerpt performances are held in the spring and summer terms respectively. Senior undergraduate and all postgraduate students are selected for roles in these performances, which cover a wide range of repertory.
Training in drama and stagecraft takes place throughout the undergraduate and postgraduate courses; all second-year undergraduates take part in a Drama Project at the end of the third term, which prepares them for the excerpts which they will then perform in the following year. Weekly movement classes are a core part of the course.
A number of companies visit the RNCM to hold auditions, notably Glyndebourne Festival Opera and British Youth Opera, and the College has strong and developing links with Opera North. The RNCM has recently been granted Taught Degree Awarding Powers; this will enable us to develop new courses, and a bespoke Postgraduate Opera Course is one of a number of areas under active consideration.
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