Pulling Out All the Stops
Educational Residencies with Tony Arnold
““It sounded as if she were pulling organ stops out of her throat, there were so many colors.””
Lecture at Tongyeong International Music Festival, 2010
Roundtable discussion at Resonant Bodies Festival, 2013
Composer workshop at soundSCAPE, 2010
About the Residencies
Soprano, conductor, and new music specialist Tony Arnold offers comprehensive educational residencies for composers and performers who want to expand their knowledge of and contributions to the vocal chamber music repertoire.
Residency activities can be structured to include any or all of the following:
- Concerts & Recitals
- Readings & Performances of Student Compositions
- Individual Meetings with Composers
- Master Classes for Singers & Instrumentalists
- Lectures for Composers on Writing for the Voice
- Surveys of Contemporary Vocal Repertoire
- Demonstrations & Discussions of Extended Vocal Techniques
- Chamber Music Coaching
- Performances with Student Musicians & Ensembles
- Collaborations with Faculty Performers & Composers
Concerts and Recitals can be drawn from repertoire for solo voice, or presented with collaborators including Movses Pogossian (violin), Jacob Greenberg (piano), Michael Norsworthy (clarinet), and others. Many other types of repertoire, instrumentation, and programming are possible, including premieres of works by composers at your institution.
In rehearsal with Eastman Musica Nova, Brad Lubman, conductor
Response to Residencies with Tony Arnold
“Tony Arnold’s presence at Eastman will resonate for a long time… She met regularly with our composers, and every student was surprised to receive much more than a lesson on ‘how to write effectively for singers.’… Her contribution, which included coaching all of the participating composers, singers, and instrumentalists was, simply, irreplaceable. Thanks to Tony’s assertive, sincere, and precise advice, our composers articulated their settings of Lia Purpura’s difficult texts with a degree of expressivity and exactness they probably didn’t realize they possessed, and the dozen singers who sang these settings benefited from Tony’s tireless coaching, a well-balanced and impressive mix of technical ‘grilling’ and a contagious enthusiasm to go deep into the essence of the music: Music is what matters. Vocalists who had expressed no previous desire to sing new music came out of the experience with such a degree of confidence and enhanced technical aptitude that they have since become regular collaborators with our composers!
“Tony also premiered new works expressly composed for her by David Liptak (with the Eastman Wind Ensemble), and graduate composers Baljinder Sekhon and Paul Coleman (with Musica Nova), and met regularly with the voice faculty and students – hers was an indefatigable presence!” —composer Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Eastman School of Music
“It is really a pleasure and a privilege to work with Tony. She is gifted not only with a beautiful voice and superb musicianship, but also with an unusual musical imagination. Her sensitivity to timbre is magical. She is able to internalize the timbral situation in which she is singing, and to interact (or blend) with the surrounding instrumental colors through her mode of singing and tone production. At times, one almost gets the impression that she has a whole orchestra of voices within her vocal cords. Tony is very concerned with expressing the deeper meaning of the text, and she truly interprets when she sings.” —composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, from an interview in New Music Box
“One of my favorite moments was when Tony Arnold was giving her talk on how to write for the voice… I got to listen to how well [cello and voice] relate in every way. She would talk about the breath and it would make absolute sense for the bow…” —cellist Jennifer Bewerse, 2010 soundSCAPE festival participant
“Rob Deemer has been totally enjoying soprano Tony Arnold and her meetings with Fredonia composers on their art songs they're writing for her concert here in February—can't wait to get my own work for her finished!” —composer Rob Deemer, SUNY Fredonia, from his Facebook status update Dec. 10, 2010
Tony Arnold and Michael Norsworthy with Brandeis University graduate student composers, 2013
With composer B.P. Herrington at the 2013 Wellesley Composers Conference
With composer Kurt Isaacson and percussionist Dustin Donohue, soundSCAPE, 2009
Tony Arnold has collaborated with the following institutions on a variety of residency activities:
2018
• Bowling Green State University
• University of Michigan
2017
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Northwestern University
• Berklee College of Music
• Queens College
2016
• Brandeis University
• Florida International University
• Harvard University
• Smith College
2015
• Stanford University
• University of California, Los Angeles
• State University of New York at Stonybrook
• Boston Conservatory
2014
• University of California, Davis
• University of Indianapolis (with composer Gabriela Frank)
• Institute for Rowing Leadership, Boston (voice training for coaches)
2013
• Brandeis University (with clarinetist Michael Norsworthy)
• University of California, Los Angeles (with composer Gabriela Frank)
• Lark Musical Society, Los Angeles (with composer Gabriela Frank)
• Idyllwild Arts Academy
• University of California, Fullerton (with soundSCAPE)
• Stetson University (with clarinetist Michael Norsworthy)
2012
• University of California, San Diego (with soundSCAPE)
• University of Iowa
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County (with soundSCAPE)
• University of Oregon, Eugene (with composer Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon)
2011
• State University of New York at Potsdam
• State University of New York at Fredonia (with pianist Jacob Greenberg)
2010
• Bowling Green State University (with soundSCAPE)
• Tongyeong International Music Festival Academy (with violinist Movses Pogossian)
• Dickinson College (with pianist Jacob Greenberg)
2009
• Eastman School of Music (Howard Hanson Distinguished Professor of Composition)
• Vanderbilt University (with violinist Movses Pogossian)