About

MARCIA GREEN INTERVIEW

MG: How did you become involved with Studio A.C.T.?

AV: The total time spent in the ACT faculty family was 14 years.

The private studio assistantship I had with Mr. Sayegh and his American Musical Theater Workshop (AMTW), brought me to ACT. He took me as his teaching assistant for the Master of Fine Arts program at ACT in 1992.  I stayed as his teaching assistant until 1994.

Frances Devlin visited my private studio in 1997 and approached me with the offer to teach Singing I and Singing II in the A.C.T. Studio Program.  She was taking a sabbatical. At that time I was looking for a larger studio space to add classes for my private lesson students. The SACT offer seemed like the right move at the time.

When Mrs. Devlin returned in two years, the classes had morphed into a one hour Voice Building Class in the Garcia-Marchesi tradition and a Master Class.  Mrs. Devlin was not interested in taking back the Singing I nor the Singing II classes for herself. She saw that they had moved in a stronger direction.  I had fully brought the Garcia-Marchesi tradition to the Studio program. Shortly after that I decided to present the additional class program to Mr. Bruce Williams. I taught in the Studio Program from 1997- 2009.

MG: You are a prominent cabaret artist as well as a pop singer. How would you distinguish between the style and repertoire of a cabaret singer and a pop singer? Are there any other artists (male and female and opera singers) who  have inspired you?  

AV: Prominent, hum! Now that’s a big jump there.  (Laughs.)  I’m good at it in the early style as outlined in Lisa Appiganesi’s book, The Cabaret.  She writes about the small rooms in Europe, most of them before pianos, where a good number the singers/entertainers accompanied themselves on the guitar. This is the world into which Bud Dashiell brought me.

I had been singing in and out of clubs, hotel lounges, here and abroad. The Purple Onion was a fun moment for me. I had my first concert at age 16 and I just kept going. One venue followed another. I sang weddings, membership clubs, restaurants, lounges, open-mikes nights and revues. I was cast in original musicals looking for investors and angels. What I learned from Bud, was how to put together a Cabaret show and how that differs from a lounge set. He also introduced me to the musical theater repertoire for guitar and voice. Some current Cabaret shows are pretty much closer to a pumped up lounge act.

Much later, in San Francisco, I met an amazingly skilled voice teacher, Mr. Edward Sayegh (AMTW). He heard me singing in a piano bar. In 1988, I started voice lessons with him. Already with many years of band singing, I took nine more years of intense vocal training and building to include the American Musical Theater repertoire in my skills. Before I started these lessons, I sang easily but with a smaller vocal range and not much power. When I started my training, Mr. Sayegh advised that I not perform while he would be reworking my voice from the bottom up. I had just been cast in a show. I called the director and declined. I wanted this training to work and I respected my teacher. I wanted to train right. I enjoyed the training process. It had a certain amount of solitude in it that appeals to me.

MG: Many times during my private lessons and in the salons you mention NATS.  What is it and how do you get to be a member?

AV: It’s an acronym for National Association of Teachers of Singing.  My teacher, Mr. Edward Sayegh  (AMTW), and another northern California teacher, Mr. Bob Bernard, sponsored me into NATS in August 1995.  I really appreciate the code of ethics outlined in the bylaws.  I know teachers who do not care much for the guidelines, and for obvious reason.  They like to make up their own rules and behave in ways that are more financially competitive.  Business is business, but for “carny” barkers to masquerade as singing teachers becomes tiresome.

MG: What got you interested in this tradition and how does one find a person who is qualified to teach this method?

AV: I became interested in this tradition of singing when I began studying with Mr. Edward Sayegh in the fall of 1988 in San Francisco, CA. I was a student in his American Musical Theater Workshop (AMTW) and then later his teaching assistant.  He met me singing in a San Francisco piano bar. He gave me his card. I made a few calls to Los Angeles and found out that he had apprenticed with the wonder man, Dr. Dean Verhines.  Dr. Verhines worked with many other famous singers. This was the kind of voice training I had always wanted. In 1991 Mr. Sayegh asked me to be his assistant. He later assembled a teaching team. He helped me start my studio and sponsored me into NATS. The training was solid. I came to his studio and observed lessons and assisted  him in his classes.  I got what I needed for the guitar from Bud Dashiell in Westwood, CA. Mr. Sayegh is from Orange, CA. I had to move to the Bay Area to get a southern California transplant to be my voice teacher.  Life is funny like that.

MG: What is your singing “family tree”?   How do you trace your connection back to Marchesi?
 
AV: I have a singing family tree back to Marchesi through my training with Mr. Edward Sayegh  (AMTW).  Here goes my account of how I connect to the Marchesis.  Mathilde Marchesi taught her daughter Blanche. Blanche then had students and one was Muriel Alston Sutherland, yes, Joan Sutherland’s mother, next came Percy R. Stephens, Paul S. Althouse (tenor), Dean Verhines (tenor), Edward Sayegh (lyric-baritone), and Ava Victoria (lyric-mezzo-soprano). An aside, the Garcia family took the name Garcia as a stage name. The father’s name was Rodriguez. My mother tells me that on her father’s side of the family there was a Rodrigues lineage. The Portuguese usually spell with an “s” and the Spanish with a “z”. My mother’s father’s family moved from northern Spain to Portugal but I can’t verify any connection to the Garcia family. My father had a wonderful voice. My mother also sang for weddings and church. My father had guitarists and singers on his mother’s side. My mother’s brother was an actor who had a beautiful speaking voice (Stoddard W. Kerby).

The interviewer is Dr. Marcia Green.  Her musical education consists of a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.), University of Southern California; Master of Education (M.Ed.), State University of New York at Buffalo; and Bachelor of Music (B.M.), Eastman School of Music. She studied with Eileen Farrell.  She is currently a student of Ava Victoria’s.

A forthcoming interview with Ava Victoria and her knowledge of the Garcia-Marchesi tradition of singing is in preparation for a volume of Interdisciplinary Humanities--a journal published by the Humanities Education and Research Association. Please visit:  http://www.h-e-r-a.org