FAVA in France

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Voice and Interpretation

Hubert Weller, Bass-baritone

Born in Montreal, Canada, the French-German Bass-baritone studied voice at the Conservatoire d’Aix en Provence, then at the CNIPAL in Marseille, and acting at the Cours Florent in Paris.He made his debut in the French capital in 1988 at the Comédie Française as an actor-singer in Esther by Racine and also in La Cagnotte, a vaudeville by Labiche.>Other appearances in various operas and operettas followed during six years with the Company Opéra Eclaté, touring in France and Spain.He has sung more than a numerous different roles in many Offenbach’s operettas in Paris with the Philipppe Ermelier Company. For 25 years, he is also a successful singing teacher, working with singers from various horizons: opera, baroque music,operettas, melody, musicals, but also from the Moulin Rouge and the Lido.

Julia Brian, Contralto

Contralto specialized in Mélodie, Lieder, Russian and Norwegian art song, with operatics roles in the works of Mozart, Bizet, Gounod, Prokofiev, Poulenc, and Wagner. After a career in dance and choreography, Ms. Brian studied voice at the Troyes School of Music and the Bordeaux Conservatory, where she received awards in her studies of the lyric repertoire. Her performance career has taken her to Paris, Nice, Bayreuth and beyond in productions of The Magic Flute, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, Les Dialogues des Carmélites. She has appeared numerous times on France Musique, and in 2005 recorded an album with Noël Lee dedicated to the Lieder of Brahms. She is currently a professor at the Périgueux Conservatory and directs the all-female vocal ensemble, Les Dames de Choeur, and the all-male ensemble, Vox Vesunna.juliabrian.net

Master Class Guests

Isabelle Aboulker, Composer

Isabelle Aboulker was born in 1938 into a family of artists and musicians. Her grandfather Henry Fevrier was a renowned composer and student of Massenet, Faure and Messager. Her father Marcel Aboulker was a cinematographer and writer. She studied piano, accompaniment and composition at the  Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, while composing for the cinema, theater and television. Early in her career she decided to dedicate her time to collaboration with singers, as the heiress of French Art Song tradition.
isabelle-aboulker.com

Anne Grappotte, Pianist Coach

Mrs Grappotte is a Professor of Vocal Accompaniment at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where she teaches art song repertoire to pianists and singers. She worked in master class with Christa Ludwig, Gerard Souzay, Regine Crespin.She has taught French art song in the Musikhochshule of Vienna, the Hochschule für Musik of Frankfort, the Northern Royal College of Music of Manchester and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.
 

Music Director

Olivier Kaspar, Composer and Conductor

Olivier KASPAR entered the Paris Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique) where he studied viola, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, orchestration, and conducting, and was awarded five "Premier prix".

He then turned to conducting: co-director of the Semaines Musicales de Clairac (Lot-et-Garonne), guest conductor at the Ensemble Orchestral du Val de Loire, at the Orchestre Symphonique de Tunisie…

He has composed over forty works, exploring a wide variety of musical genres.During his stay at the Villa Velasquez (1995-1999) he composed his first opera, "L’Annonce faite à Marie", based on Claudel's play.The Ensemble Musicatreize recorded his Mass for 12 Voices and Percussion for Radio-France.In 2001, the Academie des Beaux-Arts awarded him the Lili and Nadia Boulanger Composition Prize. After that, he received a grant from the Fondation Beaumarchais as support for the composition of an opera-comique.

He has done a number of transcriptions, notably that of La Belle Helene created by the soloists of the Orchestre de Paris at the Aix-en-Provence festival and then at the Salzburg festival in 2000.

His second opera, "Le Roi se meurt", based on the play by Ionesco, was produced at the Théâtre de Saint-Maur in April, 2008. olivierkaspar.com

Stage Directors

William Lewis, FAVA President

FAVA President William Lewis was a heralded leading tenor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1957 to 1992. Renowned internationally at Teatro alla Scala, Milano; Royal Opera Covent Garden, London; Vienna Staatsoper; Hamburg Staatsoper; Opera de Paris; San Francisco Opera; and the festivals at: Salzburg, Edinburgh, Spoleto Italy, Spoleto USA, Wexford, Ireland and Amsterdam.

 

He is a distinguished professor of the Butler School of Music of the University of Texas and the president of FAVA.

William Lewis was awarded the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France.

 

For more information, please visit WILLIAMLEWISTENOR.COM

Pianists

Jean-François Proulx, Pianist coach

Originally from the region of Ottawa-Gatineau in Canada, pianist Jean-François Proulx has been active for many years in the Greater Philadelphia Area as a collaborator, teacher and performer.  He holds degrees from the Quebec Music Conservatory, University of Montreal, and Temple University, having accumulated significant concert and competition experience during his studies.

Dr. Proulx is presently Adjunct Faculty in the Voice Department at the Boyer College of Music (Temple University), where he works as a coach and a collaborative pianist.  He is also the main accompanist of the University of Pennsylvania Choirs, and he runs a studio of approximately 35 private piano students.

Winner of several prizes, including national competitions in Canada, and an honorable mention from the Network for New Music for the composition of "Happiness," a work based on a poem by Stephen Dunn, Dr. Proulx has been praised for his clarity, vivid colors and intensity.

More recently, Dr. Proulx has been recruited as a vocal pianist for FAVA (the Franco-American Vocal Academy), an opera festival that takes place every year during July/August in France.  His next projects include a late-Brahms recital with baritone Lawrence Indik, in the Fall of 2017, and in the Spring of 2018, a solo piano recital of works by American composers.

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Nina Séné, Pianist coach

Taylor Hutchinson, Collaborative piano intern

Robby Baine, Collaborative piano intern

Craig Jordan, Collaborative piano intern

Dance and Choreography

Pedro Paulo Rosa

Brazilian dancer/choreographer Pedro Paulo Rosa began his career at the Official State of Bahia Dance Compagny Balé Teatro Castro Alves, where he performed repertoire ballets as well as contemporary creations. He moved to France in 1990 and created his own compagny Compagnie Ochossi, which focuses on the balance between contemporary trends and Afro-Brazilian traditional dances. cie-ochossi.com