Mr. Thomas Hampson

Thomas Hampson

Thomas Hampson
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Advisor Spotlight: Thomas Hampson

You may hear Thomas Hampson with Geoffrey Parsons in Schumann's Wanderung

Thomas Hampson is one of the world's leading baritones.Equally at home on both concert and opera stages, he has recorded art song extensively and has appeared in several television specials on song.Mr. Hampson studied at the Music Academy of the West, which Lehmann helped found.His major teacher, Sister Marietta Cole, was a former student of Lehmann.Another important teacher was Martial Singher at MAW.

Here is an appreciation of Hampson the Master Class teacher:

Close to 11 on this stormy night, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music was still packed.Few left even now, in the fourth hour of Thomas Hampson's voice master class - an event without a break.

And now, a stir ran through Hellman Hall.The quiet, well-behaved, fascinated audience suddenly became transformed into a stadium crowd at the climatic moment of the home team's playoff game.The crowd leaned forward collectively, rooting intensely for Sarah Viola to hit the high G in Schubert's "Gretchen Am Sprinnrade" on pitch and with the "right tone" Hampson has been hammering into her through a dozen repetitions by now.

The ball landed in the end zone, a cheer went up almost simultaneously with the voice, Hampson beamed. . . but the young soprano from Eugene rebuked herself angrily, as if she carried the ball for the Ducks and some upstart California team blocked her way.

A hug from Hampson and the continued applause didn't make much difference to Viola.

By the time she was done lifting a chair during the aria ("to help keep your ribs out"), got rid of her shoes ("so you won't lean forward"), pressed her cheeks together with the back of her hands ("to force the air upward, but keeping your shoulders high, which you don't get if you use your palms"), told to ignore the audience ("to hell with them"), and witnessed an intense discussion between Hampson and pianist Steven Bailey about the sound of the spinning-wheel - Viola was about as shell-shocked as a quarterback after a dozen concussions.

One thing though: she might not have realized, but everybody else - cheering lustily - certainly has: what seemed impossible 40 minutes ago, her getting that note right, did happen.

Enjoyable theater as Terence McNally's "Master Class" may be, the drama of a Meistersinger working with students is far more intense and moving.Vocal master classes, in my experience, are never about the "star" (if you listen to Callas' classes, you will find none of the preening and carrying on McNally ascribed to her), and this is especially true about Hampson.He cares passionately about the music and his young charges.On one hand, he uses intelligent, self-deprecating humor (talking about his golf game, for example) to put the young people at ease; on the other hand, he is involved in the class with a serious, almost scary intensity.

In fact, as the baritone was circling Patricia Barboza (a soprano from Concord, originally from Pakistan) working on Mahler's "Ich atmet' einen linden Duft," he corrected her posture, led her around, sang to her, towered over pianist Satoko Leisek, pressed in first his own cheeks, then hers - a bizarre image sprang to mind.

Hampson at his most intense (which is pretty much all the way through class and don't be fooled by the banter and smiles) and most effective, resembles a Filipino faith-healer reaching into the guts of their "patients" with bare hands, removing the "bad part" and seeing the sick rise and walk away in glowing health.
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Many times, when the answer is "no," Hampson says: "Exactly.Because she didn't hear it either."

Breath, obviously, is at the heart of the physical end of the singer's triptych (the others are "the spiritual," meaning the inexplicable magic of music and "the emotional"), and I have seen, here and elsewhere, Hampson improve breathing technique "instantly," time and again.

He has some standard tricks - holding the chair is his favorite - and he has a knack for explaining principles with great economy, but it is his understanding of the students, his empathy and physical/total involvement that makes the difference.

Along with the physical and practical, Hampson's emphasis on the text, the poetry, the meaning, the idea - the sources of music seems to communicate as well and as effectively.He tells the singer to breathe through the nose AND mouth, while warning her that "German romanticism must never be sentimental.. . it's all about release."Hear the music, he says, then touching her face: "breathe into THIS space."

Hampson's advice to focus on the beauty of the scene depicted in the music is simultaneous with the observation that "projection" is for physical objects, the task before the singer is to make the voice vibrate the right way.Goethe's unhappiness with Schubert ("the song is no longer the poem, it 's something new and different") is mentioned even as he is explaining that the voice goes sharp with too much air pressure, flat because of muscle tension.Through it all, he urges the singers - often in vain - to enjoy what they do, to acknowledge every little success, "not just remember the inevitable failure. . . find the pleasure that's inside the music you're singing."

Hampson practices the spiritual-emotional-physical synchronicity he preaches. -Janos Gereben
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Thomas Hampson

THOMAS HAMPSON, BARITONE

PABST

3/28

MSO WITH PIANIST

MARCUS CENTER

It's apparently a favorite for many of these superstars -- a hefty number of them (baritone Thomas Hampson, pianists Lief Ove Andsnes and Richard Goode, mezzo-soprano von Stade and guitarists Manuel Barrueco and Sharon Isbin and more) perform year after year.

Advisors | Dalton Baldwin | Benita Valente | Olaf Bär | Thomas Bagwell | Juliane Banse | Steven Blier | Barbara Bonney | Phyllis Bryn-Julson | Grace Bumbry | Violet Chang | Hugues Cuénod | Mary Dibbern | Fred Fehleisen | Lukas Foss | Nicolai Gedda | Christine Goerke | Nathan Gunn | Thomas Hampson | Barbara Hendricks | Wolfgang Holzmair | Marilyn Horne | Jorma Hynninen | Graham Johnson | Warren Jones | Judith Kellock | Carol Kimball | Jennifer Larmore | Natalie Limonick | Lotfi Mansouri | Carol Neblett | Birgit Nilsson | Marni Nixon | Kurt Ollmann | J.J. Penna | Troy Peters | Christoph Prégardien | Derek Lee Ragin | Frederica von Stade | Nathalie Stutzmann | Dan Welcher | Robert White | Edith Wiens
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Thomas Hampson
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Thomas Hampson Thomas Hampson is one of the world's leading baritones. Equally at home on both concert and opera stages, he has recorded art song extensively and has appeared in several television specials on song. Mr. Hampson studied at the Music Academy of the West, which Lehmann helped found. His major teacher, Sister Marietta Cole, was a former student of Lehmann. Another important teacher was Martial Singher at MAW.

Here is an appreciation of Hampson the Master Class teacher:

Close to 11 on this stormy night, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music was still packed. Few left even now, in the fourth hour of Thomas Hampson's voice master class - an event without a break.

And now, a stir ran through Hellman Hall. The quiet, well-behaved, fascinated audience suddenly became transformed into a stadium crowd at the climatic moment of the home team's playoff game. The crowd leaned forward collectively, rooting intensely for Sarah Viola to hit the high G in Schubert's "Gretchen Am Sprinnrade" on pitch and with the "right tone" Hampson has been hammering into her through a dozen repetitions by now.
...
A hug from Hampson and the continued applause didn't make much difference to Viola.
...
Vocal master classes, in my experience, are never about the "star" (if you listen to Callas' classes, you will find none of the preening and carrying on McNally ascribed to her), and this is especially true about Hampson.
...
Hampson at his most intense (which is pretty much all the way through class and don't be fooled by the banter and smiles) and most effective, resembles a Filipino faith-healer reaching into the guts of their "patients" with bare hands, removing the "bad part" and seeing the sick rise and walk away in glowing health.
...
Many times, when the answer is "no," Hampson says: "Exactly. Because she didn't hear it either."

Breath, obviously, is at the heart of the physical end of the singer's triptych (the others are "the spiritual," meaning the inexplicable magic of music and "the emotional"), and I have seen, here and elsewhere, Hampson improve breathing technique "instantly," time and again.

He has some standard tricks - holding the chair is his favorite - and he has a knack for explaining principles with great economy, but it is his understanding of the students, his empathy and physical/total involvement that makes the difference.

Along with the physical and practical, Hampson's emphasis on the text, the poetry, the meaning, the idea - the sources of music seems to communicate as well and as effectively. He tells the singer to breathe through the nose AND mouth, while warning her that "German romanticism must never be sentimental.. . it's all about release.
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Graham's project to record the entire Schubert Lieder for Hyperion continues to attract critical acclaim, including the 'Gramophone' Solo Vocal Award in both 1989 (for his disc with Dame Janet Baker) and 1996 (for Die schöne Müllerin with Ian Bostridge); his other collaborators in the series include Thomas Allen, Brigitte Fassbaender, Thomas Hampson, Christoph Prégardien, Dame Margaret Price, Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Edith Mathis, Philip Langridge, Arleen Auger, Lucia Popp, Marjana Lipovsek, Christine Schäfer, Matthias Goerne and Peter Schreier.
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In January 1996, Miss von Stade celebrated the art of American song with Thomas Hampson, Marilyn Horne, Dawn Upshaw and Jerry Hadley in a program at New York's Town Hall titled, "I Hear America Singing," which was televised by PBS.

Thomas Hampson, one of the original Advisors, speaks profoundly about Lehmann's interpretations.