The New York Singing Teachers Association: A Brief History
By Dora Ohrenstein and Daniel James Shigo
The New York Singing Teachers Association was founded and incorporated one hundred years ago in 1906 and was the first association of singing teachers in the United States. First named the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the organization acquired its current name officially in 1917.*
NYSTA's origins are firmly grounded in the teachings of the Italian School. The original 10-member Board of Directors numbered five known exponents of Manuel Garcia, Pauline Viardot-Garcia or one of their students: Anna Lankow, Katharine Evans von Klenner, Oscar Saenger, Herbert Wilber Greene and Hermann Klein. Dr. Arthur de Guichard, who founded the organization along with Anna E. Ziegler, studied with Francesco Lamperti. In the second year of incorporation, the organization concerned itself with examinations and certification, holding public meetings to foster discussion and debate. This effort to establish standards was directed under the leadership of the first chairman, Herman Klein. A prodigious author, editor and voice teacher, Klein had the imprimatur of Manuel Garcia who remarked in a published letter: "It is gratifying to me to know that the great American people appreciate the sound theories of the old school, and they will assuredly find in you one among its few capable exponents."
Though the organization had the support of many illustrious artists of the operatic stage who were given honorary membership—among them Enrico Caruso, Emma Eames, Geraldine Farrar, Mary Garden, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Antonio Scotti, Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzini and David Bispham—Klein faced implacable opposition to certification from one key board member, Herbert Wilber Greene, an influential figure in music education, who proposed the establishment of a school. Klein resigned from the organization in 1909 and returned to England, his mission unfulfilled. Speaking to an audience in London about his experience in New York he remarked: "Strange to say, the National Association did accomplish this remarkable feat (the establishment of agreed upon principles) and the rock upon which we split was not a matter of mechanism but a question of policy."
The esteemed voice teacher, Oscar Saenger, a student of Jacques Bouhy (and the first Escamillo), led the organization into its second decade wherein a period of reorganization of purpose brought about the 1917 change of name. NYSTA established a code of ethics in 1924 and published a retrospective work: Twenty Years of the New York Singing Teachers Association, Incorporated; a Record of Agreement on Essentials, in 1928. The Red Book, as it is now known, reveals a vibrant organization concerned with all manner of subjects relating to singing and presages the 1930's, when all things scientific (one might say "electrical") came to the fore.
Discussion group meetings continued as they had from the start, where papers were presented on breathing, diction, tone production, interpretation, ethics, and acting for singers. Meetings moved uptown from old Steinway Hall on 14th Street to Aeolian Hall on 42nd and eventually even further north to the Salle des Artists on 67th. Members were presented with new technology, the "Constant Control System," which replicated the sound of the voice on radio, the "Mirror Voice," an early spectrographic device and the "Resonoscope" which measured pitch and vibrato. In 1931, Douglas Stanley's The Science of Voice was vigorously debated: "Nearly everyone spoke, often at once!" New technology also brought new concern: members wary of the "crooning" that was becoming popular in radio and film postulated that it would harm the profession irrevocably. Members also saw the vocal folds in high-speed motion picture format for the first time in 1939. Many artists and teachers were featured speakers during this era: Edmund J. Myers, Yeatman Griffith, Frederick Haywood, Estelle Leibling, George Meader, Lawrence Tibbett, Ruth St. Denis, Gladys Swarthout, Madame Marguerite d'Alvarez, Mary Garden, Richard Bonelli, Mario Chamlee, Lotte Lehmann, and David Mannes.
By 1940, active membership equaled associate membership, which grew to 200. That same year, NYSTA began printing its Bulletin, though publication was frequently interrupted because of paper and labor shortages. And what had been a small close-knit community of 100 or so during the 1920's now mushroomed to 350 by the end of 1945. Members supported the war effort with donations to the Red Cross and bought war bonds. Marshall Bartholomew, Edith de Lys, Franz Proschowski, Francis Rogers, Paul Althouse, Bernard Taylor, Dr. Victor Alexander Fields, Reginald Warrenrath and others became involved in the organization, representing a second generation that had its roots in the 19th Century.
The construction of Lincoln Center in the early 1960's signaled a change in the artistic life of the City and was mirrored within NYSTA with the revision of its Constitution and Code of Ethics in 1964. If the founders emphasized the teaching methods of the Old School (Klein and de Guichard both remarked at a meeting in 1907 that they refrained from using "scientific logic" with a student), members were now exposed to an ever-increasing amount of scientific information. Bulletins of this period reflect an intense curiosity with advances in science as represented in the work of William Vennard (1967) and others as well as a renewed appreciation for historic teaching methods.
General meetings were still held where an outstanding musical personality was invited to speak, a musical program presented or an award given to an American-trained singer. These events featured many esteemed artists, scientists and educators, among them: Roland Hayes, Eleanor Steber, Walter Cassel, Rise Stevens, Leontyne Price, Robert Merrill, Eileen Farrell, James McCracken, Regina Resnik, George Shirley, Marilyn Horne, Benita Valente, Norman Triegle, Phyllis Curtin, Helen Jepson, Charlotte Ordassy, Shirley Verrett, Evelyn Lear, Roberta Peters, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Anna Hamlin, Lisa Roma, Rose Bampton, Gordon Myers, Madeline Marshall, Bernard Kwartin and Samuel Margolis.
NYSTA further updated its Constitution in 2003 and today defines its mission as follows:
* To establish and maintain a standard of vocal production and voice instruction based on scientific principles.
* To encourage the highest standards of musicianship and artistic singing.
* To promote American vocal music and the craft of singing in English.
* To uphold a code of ethics governing the relationship of voice teachers to each other, their students, and the public.
NYSTA has worked hard in recent years to provide teachers with the tools and inspiration needed for an increasingly informed and creative pedagogy. Immense advances in voice science, neurology, psychology, education theory, medicine, and mind/body healing offer new information and techniques from which voice teachers can draw. By making these resources accessible to members, NYSTA fosters a pedagogy rooted in the great traditions of the past while incorporating the new knowledge of our time. With these goals in mind, the Bulletin was renamed VOICEPrints-the Bulletin of the New York Singing Teachers in 2003 and is printed bimonthly, that is, five times a year between September and June. NYSTA also launched its own website that same year: www.nyst.org. One of its features, a "Find A Teacher" directory, has become an important resource for connecting voice students with well qualified teachers and coaches.
Over the years, NYSTA has played an important role in breaking down barriers among teachers and between teachers and those in related disciplines by encouraging a free exchange of ideas about the principles of good singing and the practices of good teaching. Leading figures in vocal performance, interpretation, pedagogy and health were presented in recent years, such as international artists Regina Resnik, Teresa Stratas and Elly Ameling; master teachers Oren Brown, Cornelius Reid, and Ruth Falcon, Dr. Peak Woo of the Grabscheid Voice Center, Anat Keidar, Ph.D., CCC-SLP of the Department of Otolaryngology at St.Luke's/ Roosevelt [now Mt. Sinai] Hospital, and Dr. R. J. Baken, Director of Laryngology Research at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. NYSTA events may include debate, but always within the context of mutual respect and high ethical standards. This atmosphere in turn enhances the standing of voice teachers among other professions, as attested by the recent invitation to NYSTA to co-sponsor a panel at the prestigious Voice Foundation Symposium, the nation's leading forum for otolaryngologists, speech pathologists and voice scientists.
While NYSTA's efforts towards certification for all voice teachers by the New York State Government during the 1920's and 30's was never implemented, this intent came to fruition six years ago with the establishment of the Oren Lathrop Brown Professional Development Program (PDP), spearheaded by Past-President, Janet Pranschke. The program offers a series of outstanding courses in Anatomy and Physiology, Acoustics, Vocal Health, Repertoire and Pedagogy, taught by leaders in each field. Those who successfully complete all five courses earn the designation Distinguished Voice Professional.
NYSTA has always encouraged youthful talent with the many recital awards that it has organized. The New York Debut Recital Award (formerly The Town Hall Recital Award), The Shull Bequest Recital Award, and The Young Artists Concert Award were prominent competitions (primarily annual competitions). These awards and other prize monies were given through the Gaeumann Competition and the Musical Theater Competition, and more recently, through the David Adams Art Song Competition, established in 2004, in honor of the much-beloved NYSTA president who died in 2003.
Now in its Centennial year, NYSTA still provides many of these programs in an updated fashion, as well as new ones, to service the growing and changing demands of singing and teaching. Singers and teachers face an environment much changed by technology as evidenced by the greater emphasis placed on amplification in the theater as well as efforts to replace the teacher's ear with computerized acoustic measures. Economic trends have also had a significant effect: the full-time private voice teacher is becoming a rarity now that the majority of vocal instruction takes place in educational institutions. Further, with greater demand for training from singers in the theater and popular music, teachers must adapt what they do to serve these new constituents. These challenges will require thoughtful and creative responses, as well as strong leadership, from NYSTA in the years to come.
Sidebar
Dora Ohrenstein teaches singing at Wagner College in Staten Island and in her private studio on the Upper West Side. She served as NYSTA President of NYSTA from 2002 to 2004. As a singer she was noted for her work in contemporary music, premiering and recording many new works, and for ten years she was the solo vocalist of the Phillip Glass Ensemble.
Daniel James Shigo is a voice teacher, author, and scholar of historical vocal pedagogy. The founding editor of VOICEPrints, he served on NYSTA's board of directors from 2003-2008. He has appeared in more than seventy productions with the New York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera, and on Broadway in Lady in the Dark with City Center Encores! He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: The Hermann Klein Phono-Vocal Method Based upon the Famous School of Manuel Garcia (VoiceTalk Publications, 2013), which brought to light rare Janet Spencer contralto recordings, and blogs at VOICETALK: Historical Perspectives on the Art of Singing, which now has more than 300,000 readers.
Footnote
* The organization that utilizes NYSTA's original name, NATS, was formed in 1944.
The article above was initially printed in VOICEPrints in 2006 during NYSTA’s Centennial celebration—an occasion this writer remembers with some humor. Taking place at the Kosciuszko Foundation, I was tasked with greeting guests and helping them find their way upstairs, where an awards ceremony took place.
Not forgotten are two esteemed guests who found themselves trapped in an elevator: the award recipient, who arrived mid-ceremony as her name was announced, hair piled beehive high, shrugging off her mink coat and stepping forward to the lectern, and the voice scientist, who, upon receiving his award, asked those attending, “What is a formant?” only to hear an opera star respond in resplendent voice: “Who cares?”
Also not forgotten were standing behind George Jellinek as he gave a 10-minute toast and meeting and talking with James Stark, the author of Bel Canto: A History of Vocal Pedagogy, who also received an award. What a gentleman.
I nominated Stark for the award as a member of the NYSTA board, which he richly deserved. I’m proud of that and of discovering (or did it find me?) Hermann Klein’s Phono-Vocal Method—he was the organization’s first chairman in 1906.
NYSTA’s Centennial award ceremony occurred on April 6, 2006, eighteen years ago. Though I’m a day late, my intuition is working.
