GRECCHINOIS

EMERGING VOICES: Verlaine and Ars Gallica
2020 Nicholas Phan 2020 Nicholas Phan

EMERGING VOICES: Verlaine and Ars Gallica

The second foreign language I studied as a child, after Modern Greek, was French. As a result, when I began studying voice in earnest, the first non-English songs my teacher assigned me were songs in French by Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Fauré. It was through these songs that I discovered my love of singing classical music…

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EMERGING VOICES: Singing of Myself
2019 Nicholas Phan 2019 Nicholas Phan

EMERGING VOICES: Singing of Myself

In the summer of 2003, I had the honor of representing the United States of America at the BBC Singer of the World competition in Cardiff, Wales. The competition is a sort of operatic Olympics, with singers coming from 20-25 nations to compete in the final rounds for a handful of prizes…

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Happy Thanksgiving
2019 Nicholas Phan 2019 Nicholas Phan

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing everyone (who celebrates it) all the best for a very happy Thanksgiving holiday with a bit of Copland. Here’s to more opportunities for fellowship and to finding more and more common ground on which we can gather together…

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THE PIPER
2019 Nicholas Phan 2019 Nicholas Phan

THE PIPER

…Blake’s poem, The Piper, is about inspiration and where it comes from. Singing it here this week in Maine has had me thinking about creative inspiration in my own life, which is something I (like any artist) have grappled with over the years. While I have heavily relied on the tools of Julia Cameron’s Artist Way books over the years…

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THE GOOD SONG
2019 Nicholas Phan 2019 Nicholas Phan

THE GOOD SONG

…When learning the cycle at Ravinia, there was a lot of critical discussion about this poetry, focused largely on Verlaine’s story after he wrote La bonne chanson. Some of the coaches seemed quite hung up on Verlaine’s homosexual history, and as a result were quite critical of the poems…

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A POISON TREE
2018, Art Song Nicholas Phan 2018, Art Song Nicholas Phan

A POISON TREE

In the wake of these past few weeks’ Brett Kavanaugh shenanigans, and as we draw nearer and nearer to the upcoming midterm elections, many people are reflecting upon the incredibly divided state of our nation in these times. With senators vowing to campaign against each other…

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INFANT JOY
2018 Nicholas Phan 2018 Nicholas Phan

INFANT JOY

Since my first encounters with Britten's Winter Words, I have been inundated with British composers' and poets' fascination with youth and innocence, and the imminent and inevitable threat that life inherently poses to both. Innocence versus experience - it's a dichotomy that humankind has wrestled with for eons…

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For posts from 2006-2018, please visit grecchinois.blogspot.com

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