On Monday I attended an event at Hope United Church billed as “Toronto Vocal Showcase”.  It was, in a way, an extended audition.  Sixteen singers sang for representatives of a number of (mostly) Ontario based music producing organisations together with a small contingent from the media.  The affair was organised by Ryan Hofman and designed to give (mostly) unrepresented singers a chance to display their talents to the invitees.

Not being an artistic administrator or singer myself the audition process was unfamiliar.  I found it a bit odd.  There’s no interaction at all between singers and audience unlike, say, a competition where the judges and/or competition organisers will have some say over what is sung.  As best I could tell each singer simply had an allotted time to use to sing whatever they wanted to and there was essentially no feedback bar a little polite applause.  Also I don’t think the singers had much opportunity to fix things up with pianist Ivan Jovanovic before hand which meant there was a gap between singers.

Some of the singers were more or less straight out of school and others were really quite experienced.  For example, in Alex Hajek you have someone who has sung at the COC, the Semperoper and other major houses while others probably had less visibility than even newly minted grads had pre pandemic.  The organisations represented were varied too; from choirs, to opera companies, to contemporary music producers to symphony orchestras.  It must have been quite hard for the singers to decide what side of themselves to present and for the listeners to decide what to make of it.

I did ask a few people from the organisations where the value lies for them because I couldn’t really imagine someone hiring just on the basis of hearing a couple of arias.  As I suspected it’s more relational than transactional (thanks to Graham Cozzubbo of Soundstreams for putting it so succinctly!).  That’s how I was finding it as an audience member.  There were singers I know quite well but hadn’t seen for a while and it was great to catch up and to hear how they sound now.  It was good to hear some of the newly minted voices because there have been relatively few opportunities to see what’s emerging at, say, UoT because of the pandemic.  And, of course, there were singers new to me.  It was also good to be able to network with folks from the organisations; such an important part of writing about the arts.

But ultimately I don’t really understand where an event like this fits into the weird and wonderful and highly politicised business of hiring singers; whether for gigs or ensembles or whatever.  The prevailing conditions in North America can be summarised as educational institutions turning out a (growing) surplus of aspiring singers for a market that’s in fairly steep decline.  Who ends up getting employed is as much about having the right connections and having the right boxes ticked (and those two things are closely connected) as they are about objective artistic talent (whatever that means).  I think Ryan deserves credit for making a serious attempt to provide an additional avenue for talent but he’s more optimistic than I am about the possible impact and, indeed, about the future of the industry in North America. (It’s a good thing that somebody is!)

But hey, I got to hear some excellent singers and catch up on what’s what in the industry so it was an afternoon well spent.

The photo at the top shows the reps from the arts oreganisations, namely, from left to right: Andrew Ager, Co-Artistic Director-New Opera Lyra (Ottawa), Jennifer Tung, Musical Director-Toronto City Opera, Graham Cozzubo, Director of Artistic Planning-Soundstreams, Ivan Jovanovic, Musical Director-Toronto City Opera, Gordon Gerrard, Musical/Artistic Director-Regina Symphony Orchestra/City Opera Vancouver, Dr.Elaine Choi, Artistic Director-Pax Christi Chorale, Melanie Dubois, Artistic Producer-Tapestry Opera, Ryan Hofman,Larry Beckwith,Artistic Producer-Confluence Concerts, Renée Salewski-Freelance Director/Producer,Stuart Graham, FORO S: Professional Artist Incubator: Toronto-Mexico-City,Andrew Adridge, Executive Director-Toronto Consort, Rafael Luz, Musical Director-North York Concert Orchestra.