Spring Break
Young Artist Program of?fers professional experience
Teresa Sheffield
Issue date: 10/13/08 Section: Culture
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The students sign a contract with both the school and Lyric to sing chorus and small roles at the company, and principal roles at the school. It's a two-year program, and students must be at least a graduate student.
Young Artist Programs are offered all over the country and are one of the major steps in any serious singer's career. The UMKC program started more than twenty years ago.
"The idea of the program was to accept one of each voice type that is soprano, mezzo tenor and baritone/bass who we and the company felt had the definite potential to have a national career, that is the requirement to be in the program," said Richard Williams, faculty coach for the program.
The apprentices for this year are: Sarah Burke (soprano), Jennifer Forte (mezzo-soprano), Ben Hilgert (tenor), Jonathan Stinson (baritone) and Andrew Harris (bass).
Williams said this program gives the singers experience and a connection to a well-known regional company, allows them to sing for money, lets them work with professional singers and gives them principal roles at the university and twice as much coaching from faculty than other graduate students.
"I've loved it," said second-year Young Artist Jonathan Stinson. "The program is basically supposed to bridge school to the professional world. It's really hard to do that because it's kind of a catch-22 where you sing for someone professionally and they say you don't have enough professional experience, and then you can't get the professional experience if no one hires you. The young artist programs gives you professional experience when you haven't had any before, and then the idea is that on your resume you look much more marketable and mature and ready for the professional world, and so it will bridge that gap."
Young Artists are paid by the Lyric for their services and receive an $8,000 stipend and a six-credit waiver from the school their first year.
The Lyric adds to their stipend the second year making it about $11,000.
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