Guest Musician Performs with Style(s)
Pick a style — actually, pick more than one.
Guest musician and Loomis Chaffee voice instructor Chelsea Lorraine took the stage at Hubbard Performance Hall on Monday, February 3, for a voice recital that encompassed a variety of song styles and singing techniques. She was joined by LC piano teacher Tamila Azadaliyeva in music by Franz Liszt (Hungarian), Giacomo Puccini (Italian), Richard Strauss (German), and other composers. At the end Chelsea picked up her guitar and played a song by Joni Mitchell, who came out of the 1960s folk music scene.
Classical music, opera, show tunes, folk — Chelsea does it all. When she hit various high notes, one could almost imagine the fresh snow outside being shaken loose from the trees. When she finished with “Cactus Tree” by Mitchell, one was transported to a coffeehouse setting in the ‘60s.
Sue Chrzanowski, head of the Performing Arts Department, said Chelsea is a master at cross training the voice, which is the ability to create a range of sounds that work for classical music and musical theater performance.
Chelsea’s resume stretches as far as her voice. She is a classically trained soprano who said in an interview by email before the performance that she grew up “singing in choirs and in theater and found much joy in playing the guitar and singing the folk songs that I loved to listen to.”
Chelsea Lorraine and Tamila Azadaliyeva. Tamila's fingers floated across the piano keys as Chelsea showed great range with her voice.
In 2015 at the University of Rhode Island, she received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in voice performance. That tug from music pulled her back into college, and she got another bachelor’s degree, this one in music, from the University of Connecticut in 2018. A year later she added a graduate performance certificate in vocal performance from UConn. She also has taken acting classes at HB Studio in New York City, which was founded in 1945 and has a lengthy list of well-known actors as alumni.
Chelsea has performed with many local opera companies, singing roles such as Gretel and Dew Fairy in Hansel and Gretel, Annina in La Traviata and Sophie in Werther. She teaches voice at Loomis Chaffee as well as at the Hartt School of Music Community Division.
“The majority of my training is in classical singing, but I was really lucky to have had a teacher that encouraged me to learn classical and musical theater technique at a young age,” Chelsea said. “I later studied classical music more deeply, but always held on to the mixing and belting that teacher taught me and would still explore that in my free time. As a teacher, I have taken classes on cross training, and learned different exercises that can help build the voice in both ways. There are different exercises that target different skills, and by having a full understanding of the vocal mechanism, we can use the similarities and differences of each style and choose how to approach the song.”
Her goal coming into the performance sounded a bit like, “You can do it, too.” She said she wanted students to feel they can sing any style, even multiple styles, and to never worry about “fitting into a box.”
“Even if someone's voice doesn't fit the style perfectly, it doesn't mean they cannot sing the song with their voice and make it their own,” Ms. Lorraine said. Singing is joyful and healing and when we worry too much about making the ‘right’ sound then we miss the story. I hope the students feel like exploring the style of singing that feels most true to them. I always want my students to sing efficiently and sustainably, but even more so, I want them to sing what makes them feel inspired.”
Ms. Lorraine seemingly has been the embodiment of those words. She says most singers can benefit from learning different styles and that developing a contemporary sound has made her a better classical singer.
“I love my classical singing, because it feels so free and open,” she said, “but my favorite style of singing is really a combination of classical singing and contemporary. I love to sing folk singer- songwriter music and let my voice tell the story through emotion and words. This style of music has always felt honest and true to me.”
It’s not everyday you’ll hear the variety of music from the same performer on the same day. Don’t worry about Ms. Lorraine ever “fitting into a box.”
Chelsea said she grew up “singing in choirs and in theater and found much joy in playing the guitar and singing the folk songs that I loved to listen to.”