What is the Art Song Project?

Our spring Art Song Project is a song performance course for singers and pianists aged 30 or older who would like to improve their interpretive, collaborative, and performance skills as part of an intensive course on the songs for voice and piano of a featured composer or composers.

Led by PSC artistic director Kathryn Whitney, who is joined by pianists Anna Cal, Robert Holliston, and Alex Chen, the course is taught over a series of weekends in April and May, with final concerts typically taking place in the first week of June. The course takes place at the Victoria Conservatory of Music in its downtown Victoria location. Our concerts are held in the beautiful acoustic of the VCM’s Winifred and Robin Wood Hall.

The Art Song Project offers singers, pianists, and non-performing auditors the chance to take part in a unique joint performance project exploring the music, poetry, and performance tradition of the songs of some of the finest composers to write for voice and piano over the past 250 years.

Inspired by the tradition, established in Franz Schubert’s lifetime, for songs to be written for and performed by anyone who wishes to purchase and sing or play them, we welcome all pianists and singers to participate in our course, whether amateur or professional.

Collaborative Performance

Collaborative work is a key component of the project. The course will teach students about the chosen repertoire, but it is designed to go deeper into the music as a reflection of the intimate and convivial performing traditions that support it.

The project is thus more than simply a course leading to a performance of beautiful and important music; it also affords participants unprecedented insight into the intimate and intriguing collaborative relationship between pianist and singer that lies at the core of the song repertoire for voice and piano.

Our Partners

The Art Song Project is a collaboration between the Pacific Song Collective, the Victoria Conservatory of Music and the SongArt Performance Research Group (UK), a research arm of the Institute for Musical Research at the University of London.

How does the course work?

The Art Song Project achieves this balance between instruction and exploration by placing collaborative performance at the heart of our courses.

Our students include performing singers and pianists, understudy singers and pianists, and observers. Each type of student plays an important role in the project, whether as part of a performing pair, as a member of an understudy partnership, or as an engaged audience member and classmate who provides receptive listening and commentary to both the students and instructors throughout the course.

Following this link to read more about the specific course provision for each of the three student categories.

Singer-pianist Duos

Singer-pianist duos are the cornerstone of the Art Song Project. All performers and understudies will be paired with a number of partners to form singer-pianist duos that will work together to explore the songs within collaborating partnerships.

Song Selections

Each student will work on between two and six songs over the course of the project (more for pianists who request it), exploring these both as individuals in their private sessions, and with their duo partners in both private coachings and group sessions.

Group Sessions

The majority of our work together will take place in group sessions, which are timetabled for Saturday or Sunday afternoons in April and May.

Group sessions include Masterclasses, Workshops and Lectures, and Faculty Open Rehearsals, all of which are attended by performers, understudies, and observers. (See links on the right of this page for more information about individual elements.)

Private Coachings

Singer-pianist duos will take a number of private Duo Coachings with Kathryn Whitney, Anna Cal, and Robert Holliston, in which they will work with each instructor separately to explore the intricate and intimate settings of their songs from the perspective of a collaborative pair.

Additionally, each student will attend a number of private Solo Coachings with Kathryn Whitney (singers) or Anna Cal or Robert Holliston (pianists), at times to be arranged to suit mutual timetables. Singers on the course also receive preparatory private coachings with pianist Alex Chen to help them learn their music in advance of the start of the course.

Final Performances

The course finishes with four final concerts: a private Omnibus concert, in which students perform all the music they have worked on for fellow students and faculty; two public student concerts in the Wood Hall at the Victoria Conservatory of Music; and a final faculty concert. Each student will perform all their songs at the Omnibus. Students will perform two to three songs in the public performances (choice at the discretion of the instructors).

The Final Faculty Concert, which follows the week after the student concerts, repeats the same program. It is a chance for student to hear their teachers performing the repertoire with which they have become so familiar. It is also a showcase of how collaborative musical instruction is, and highlights how much the instructors have learned from their students while teaching this intensive course.

For further information about each aspect of the course mentioned above, please see the ‘Course Elements’ listings on the right-hand side of this page.