Welcome to my teaching website. On this page, I will share with you some of my background. Why I started singing and why Opera?? You can read my professional biography here. It will tell you lots about me as a performer.

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Who am I?

I am a professional singer and mum of two young adults. I love to sing and I REALLY love to perform. It took me a long time to commit to teaching as I was very busy performing and developing my career. Priorities change and now I love teaching too. It is exciting to bring all those years of learning and experience into a room with someone and share it. To help them grow and be empowered to be master of their own singing. It is my goal to help all my students find their best voice and the freedom to express whatever style of music they love.

 

Background

I wasn't always a singer. I grew up riding horses on a farm. The youngest of six, I went to agricultural school. I learned piano as a child. I had a love-hate relationship with the piano and gave it up many times. Yes. I am yet another adult that wished her mother had made her keep up piano....

 

I had always enjoyed singing but thought that singers were born into entertainment families just like I was born into a horsey one. Nevertheless, a school classroom prank where I pretended to be an opera singer led to my first lessons at 17. My first teacher thought I might have the potential for opera. I loved this idea as it was really different and I felt a certain thrill at the sound of my own voice coming back from the walls.

 

So off I went to drama school. The stage is an addictive place and I couldn't wait for all those years of training to become an opera singer, I just had to be on stage immediately. So, I started auditioning for plays, learned to belt and got my first acting work.

 

Performing

There were small parts in films, a big role in Theatre Restaurant and I played Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Talent competitions led to a contract in Japan for six months, singing in a cabaret. From there I went to London and looked for work in Music Theatre in the West End.

 

I worked and studied hard (singing, acting and dancing classes) and got into various small shows then landed a job in Show Boat. A three month London season and five months touring. I also did some plays including Dido, Queen of Carthage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And Pantomimes!!

 

Showboat was filled with opera singers so I decided to head back towards my original goal. As Showboat finished I got my first Opera role in a semi-pro production. I thought I was on the road already.....WRONG!

 

The path was long with many obstacles but eventually, I became good enough for major roles in mainstage performances. It is hard to quantify the thrill of singing over a 100 piece orchestra without a microphone and knowing that you can touch people with your voice.

 

Teaching

During all of this, I taught on and off. Sometimes standing in for friends or helping out someone who asked. But due to travelling a lot with my singing, I didn't want to commit to regular teaching until recently. So here I am. I have over 25 students - children and adults. I have completed my Masters of Music Studies specialising in Vocal Pedagogy at Griffith University, and I continue to develop my skills through workshops and classes whenever possible.

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My course covered anatomy and physiology, vocal health and analysis of both singing and speaking voice, critical listening, technique for both classical and contemporary singing, vocal change, pathology and detecting problems including whom to refer them to, or if I can help, Accent Method Breathing, performance anxiety, presenting, research, vocal acoustics and more... 

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I love everything about singing and exploring what the voice can do. I will never stop learning and in addition to being a passionate performer, now, I am a passionate teacher too. Each student is different with different physiology and mind. It never gets boring. I have had many teachers and learned a lot of different approaches. This has helped me to develop one of my own which is growing every day.