After the success of the 2004 Summer School John O'Hara and Philippa Reeves, both highly skilled teachers, are running a Winter Weekend Course - designed for actors to enhance their vocal coaching, acting through song and music theatre skills. The two and a half day course will explore singing technique, harmony and acting through song.
As an actor, the ability to sing is vital, and this course is designed to top up singing skills for all forms of theatre.
Who are these people?
Philippa Reeves & John O’Hara first worked together in February
2003 and it was a real coming together of like minds. Both classically trained
musicians, but working extensively in the field of drama, they have a unique
perspective on the mixed art media that is singing.
Philippa Reeves
Along side her own performance work, Philippa has lectured in singing technique
and acting through song in the Drama School of the Royal Welsh College of
Music and Drama for over ten years.
A classically trained singer, she has worked in Britain and Europe in a wide
range of musical styles, she has performed with the physical theatre company
ELAN in Europe and the American composer and choreographer, Meredith Monk.
She has gained a reputation for her work in contemporary music and through
this Philippa has developed the skills to move between the expressivity of
operatic jazz and the diversity of alternative vocalism.
Through her work as both singer and teacher she continues to explore the notion
of the interdisciplinary singer, an actor singer who can move effortlessly
between the demands of text and music and it is this expertise that she brings
to her teaching.
John O’Hara
John is a graduate of The Royal Northern College of Music. His work spans
a wide range of styles including performances with The Halle, The Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, Rambert Dance Company, Kalengo Percussion Ensemble
and the Lindsay Kemp Dance Company.
John was the resident composer / musical director at the Bristol Old Vic for
eleven years and in that time worked on most in house productions, titles
include : Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Moll Flanders, The Chimes, A Christmas
Carol, The Beggars Opera, Up the Feeder Down The Mouth, Blues Brother Soul
Sister, Maid Marian the Musical, The Rise and Fall Of Little Voice, Stone
Free, Too Much Too Young. Other Theatre work includes: The National Theatre,
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Leicester Haymarket, Liverpool Playhouse, The Royal
Exchange and The Lyric, West end.
Television commissions include: A Miracle on the River Kwai, History in Action,
Nicks Quest, Run With The Ball and Time and Tide.
He is currently scoring, conducting and performing with Ian Anderson (Jethro
Tull) on his solo project, touring Europe and the USA.
Where is it happening?
In Cardiff, at the Royal Welsh College Of Music and Drama, in the Anthony
Hopkins Centre.
