(Excerpted from The New York Times)
By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
A singing competition is no ideal biosphere for music to flourish.
That much was clear from the finals of this year’s George London Competition, which offered the unnatural spectacle of opera arias morphing into sales pitches in the hands of 24 young American and Canadian singers. In the presence of a jury including opera greats like Nedda Casei and George Shirley, contestants apparently felt compelled to force out top notes and sing very loudly — notwithstanding the aggressively amplifying acoustics of the Gilder Lehrman Hall at the Morgan Library & Museum…
(Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/arts/music/george-london-competition-at-the-morgan-library.html?ref=music )
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As we’ve previously ranted on this site, the current mania for competitive singing may be to the eventual detriment of pop music, if it hasn’t already. And the above excerpt suggests such effects may not be limited to pop, but have been seen in the classical music realm as well.
If young singers can be made to understand the difference between singing as conveyance of emotion and singing as a July 4th fireworks display (in shorthand, the difference between, say, Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion) maybe it’s not unthinkable we’ll see another Karen Carpenter or Roberta Flack on the charts again someday. But as long the prize-givers are in control, it’s unlikely.
Every Moment Has A Song 