NYOA Curriculum
Our philosophy is that you learn best by doing. The curriculum combines performance training, career development, and immersive experiences, enabling students to take the skills they learn right to the stage.
Every class included serves a specific purpose in making each student feel as prepared as possible for everything that goes into being a professional performer. The curriculum develops familiarity with rehearsal vocabulary, professional expectations, musical preparation, staging, and collaboration.
- Staging Rehearsals: Staging rehearsals give vocal fellows practical experience with blocking, movement, dramatic intention, entrances, exits, and ensemble awareness.
- Music Rehearsals: Vocal Fellows rehearse daily with faculty and eachother preparing to sing in a fully staged opera.
- Coachings: individualized and group coaching develop interpretation, musicality, and performance within each fellow's repertoire.
- Working with Conductors: Vocal Fellows learn how conductors communicate musical ideas, give notes, shape phrasing, lead ensembles, and connect the stage with the orchestra.
- Working with Directors: Vocal Fellows learn how directors develop a production, communicate dramatic ideas, set staging, and guide character work.
- Acting: Acting classes focus on enacting and bringing specificity to your character, along with dramatic intention and stage presence.
Professional Insights Sessions
Vocal Fellows leave knowing what took their teachers a decade to learn, and what they wish someone had told them at 16.
Many singers focus only on their voice, but singing is only half of what it takes to be a professional artist. Much of the other half, marketing and communication, business insight, managing your mental well-being, and having something unique to say as an artist, is not learned until people are in the midst of their career. 2027 Insight Sessions will be announced soon. 2026 Industry Insight Sessions included:
- You, Inc.: The Business of Being an Artist: Led by GRAMMY® nominated baritone and director, Johnathan McCullough, this session helps students discover what their ideal career path might look like and how to start moving toward it. We’ll talk about how to set yourself apart by connecting your interests outside of opera with your artistry, and how to turn those from ideas into reality.
- The Whole Artist—Mental Wellness for Young Artists: Integrative Performance coach and critically acclaimed mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton leads an open conversation on cultivating emotional resilience, self-awareness, and balance, offering tools for young artists to navigate the pressures of creative growth with confidence and compassion.
- Introduction to Music Business: GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor, Luke McEndarfer, teaches how building financial awareness early empowers you to make informed choices leading to a sustainable career.
- The Art of Auditioning: Johnathan McCullough gives you insight into the tools needed to walk into any audition with confidence, showcasing your individuality, adaptability, and authentic storytelling on stage.
- Beyond the Stage—Building a Multifaceted Career in Music: GRAMMY® Award-winning baritone and composer, Will Liverman, discusses his journey as a performer, creator, and curator—from co-creating The Factotum and releasing chart-topping albums to reimagining what it means to build an artistic life that reflects the full range of his interests.
- From the Director’s Chair—Telling Stories That Matter: Resident Stage Director at The Santa Fe Opera and The Metropolitan Opera, Melanie Bacaling shares her approach to storytelling through opera and theater, exploring how collaboration, perspective, and authenticity bring depth to every production and empower artists to find their own voice in the creative process.
Masterclasses
Students sing for and learn from the insdustry's leading stars.
- Sun-Ly Pierce: Sun-Ly Pierce returned to The Metropolitan Opera for the world premiere of Mason Bates' The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Recent debuts include LA Opera, Semperoper Dresden, and The Santa Fe Opera. She has won top prizes in the Marilyn Horne Song Competition, the Dallas Opera National Vocal Competition, and the Butler Opera International Voice Competition, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and Bard College Conservatory.
- Justin Austin: Hailed for his “mighty lyric voice” (The New York Times), Drama Desk Award-nominated baritone Justin Austin was named Rising Star of the Year at the 2024 International Opera Awards and is a recipient of the 2024 Marian Anderson Vocal Award. Recent highlights include his house debut at San Francisco Opera in the title role of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Jake in Porgy and Bess at Houston Grand Opera, his Metropolitan Opera debut in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, and Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Champion at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
- Kevin Burdette: Dubbed “the Robin Williams of opera” by The New York Times, American bass Kevin Burdette has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious opera companies and symphony orchestras, including Teatro alla Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Santa Fe Opera, Teatro Colón, Opéra de Montréal, Washington National Opera, Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra.
