Soprano Winifred Faix-Brown is globally respected and critically acclaimed. Throughout Europe and North, Central, and South America, she has touched audiences with her beautiful voice, striking stage presence, and unique depth of artistry. She will lead a masterclass with Vocal Studies Program students on Friday, November 16 at 12:30 PM in Fulton Recital Hall. Free admission.
Your musical career has spanned a great many roles: performer, conductor, stage director, pedagogue. In order to have accomplished so much, you must have an insatiable appetite for musical growth. Have you always had a wide-ranging musical interest?
Yes. I’ve always had a fascination with sound and how it is produced. I impersonated accents, inflections, even as a small child. The relationship between performer and audience has always been an obsession. I love the wide range of sounds the human voice can produce and what that means to the human race. I love how much fun sounds are, what about sound and singing in particular is healing or disturbing or arousing. Also singing is really fun and satisfying physically, mentally, and spiritually.
As an internationally acclaimed soprano, having sung in houses from Berlin to Rome, and San Francisco to the Metropolitan Opera, you have traveled the world as a performer. Now, do you consider Chicago your home? If so, what makes it so?
Chicago is home mostly because it was my late husband’s home. I love the Lake and the change of Seasons. I find it isolating, compared to Philadelphia, where I grew up and to Paris and New York, which are my soul-mate cities. Also, I am physically challenged a bit and find it hard to get around, due to a relatively poor public transportation system. I have learned a lot from the Midwest, but it is still quite foreign to me.
As a teacher, what do you view as the most challenging aspect of being a young singer in today’s operatic world? What is the most exciting aspect?
Challenging: School loans; the rigid academic based “system” of training artists in America; the absence of entry-level jobs; the absence of conductors and stage directors who know how to nurture/use young artists. Exciting?…Singing is absolutely fun, challenging, rewarding, frustrating, joyful, and brain and soul building. The people you may meet and work with…the lives you may affect….the amazing life long possibilities!
On Friday, November 16th at 12:30pm in Fulton Hall, you will be giving a Master Class for students studying voice and participating in the choirs at the University of Chicago. What will be the focus of this Master Class? For example, will you be working with the students on stage presence and presentation or other aspects such as technique and diction? Or, all of the above?
Based on the student’s initial presentation, I will try to choose a topic or two that fit time allowance, won’t be confusing, and will be immediately interesting and helpful. I also try to include something interesting and thought provoking to the audience.
What musical ventures are you most looking forward to in the coming year?
I am composing a good deal of practical church music for limited resources and teaching a batch of interesting and interested students. I am Skyping with teachers to try to help with some of their issues. I am writing a handbook that will attempt to present a truly concise, commonsensical, and useful guide to healthy classical singing. I am also continuing the study of popular music and how audiences are affected. (Especially the evolution internationally of American country western). And probably other fascinating stuff.
A strong, agile instrument allows Winifred Faix-Brown to shine in such demanding roles as Norma (Paris opera, New York City Opera, Caracas, Mexico City), Lucia (Deutsche Oper Berlin, Miami, Guadalajara, Monterrey), Violetta (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City), Donna Anna (DeutscheOper, Cologne, Rome, Parma, Milwaukee), and Rosalinda (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston). Ms. Brown was with the Metropolitan Opera for four seasons where she performed with Maestro James Levine and such world renowned artists as Luciano Pavarotti and Sam Ramey in I LOMBARDI and THE MAGIC FLUTE. She has portrayed seventy roles and has been featured in virtually all of the regional opera companies of North America.
Well-known as a concert soloist, Ms. Brown has performed in over fifty cities with such groups as the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Grant Park Symphony. She enjoys giving recitals, and chamber groups recognize her talent for early music and the avant garde. Winifred has sung many pops and Broadway concerts, and is currently with a cutting edge jazz ensemble that integrates art song, opera, jazz and electronic sound.
Ms. Brown is founder and artistic director of N.O.V.A., a much-praised service-based touring company. She is highly sought internationally for her exciting and innovative master classes. In addition, she maintains a voice studio in Chicago that trains, polishes, and promotes young artists.
Interview by Julia Tobiska, Performance Program Assistant