Classical Voice

About

The Classical Voice Department offers top quality training to school-age children through to adults in their “golden years”, to absolute beginners through to highly advanced emerging artists. The voice is the most natural of all instruments, and the first instrument a child will discover. It is an instrument one cannot easily see and therefore to develop it, one must use great care and have expert guidance. This is where our excellent Voice faculty come in to help students find their voice and develop it through careful rigorous training that helps build a foundation for singing that lasts a lifetime.

What We Offer

In addition to individual lessons, voice students are encouraged to participate in the following activities:

• Voice competitions
• Masterclasses
• Serenata Concert
• Music Theatre Workshop Series
• Annual Mother’s Day Musical Garden Tour

Student and Alumni Accomplishments

• Acclaimed tenor Benjamin Butterfield has enjoyed a near 30-year career in opera both in Canada and abroad. Since 2006, while continuing his singing career, Benjamin has been teaching voice to the next generation at the University of Victoria, where he became a full professor in 2016. Benjamin began lessons at the Victoria Conservatory of Music with Selena James when he was seven years old.
• Kelly Derrickson is a First Nation artist from Westbank, BC. She won the 2015 Coachella Valley Music Award for Best Country Artist and won Best New Artist at the 2015 and 2016 Indigenous Music Awards. She loved music from the age of four, and while at school in Victoria, she began studying opera at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
• Patricia Au is a Resident Teaching Artist at the Boston Lyric Opera where she works in Boston Public Schools to empower youth with little or no formal music education to create and perform original opera projects. As a youth, she studied at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, later joining the faculty.