Speaking Voice with Gwendolyn K.

I'm an opera singer with seven years of stage experience in Germany and the US, including top houses like the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin, Konzerthaus Berlin, and, since moving to the Bay Area, I have worked with Opera San Jose and Lamplighter's Theater. I have a MA in singing from the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin, and I have taught others to sing since 2014. I am also a 200 Hour Certified Yogalign teacher. Yogalign teaches the body how to come into natural, functional, comfortable alignment and strengthens it to stay there. I use it while teaching voice, but I also love to teach it on its own. In voice lessons, I constantly incorporate alignment practices because we use our whole bodies to produce sound. A free breath, which means good alignment, is the foundation of good voice technique. I believe that singing is a movement practice like any other. When we move our legs and feet properly, we move through the water, and we call that swimming. When we use our breath and our resonance properly while our vocal chords vibrate, we call that singing. It is all a matter of coordination, one we either naturally understood in childhood, or one we must be taught. It is my joy to guide people to this knowledge of their voices. With public speakers, my goal is to help people feel at home in their bodies and command the room with their voices while giving presentations. I have given seminars teaching scientific researchers in Berlin and Potsdam, helping them to present results in ways that are both informative and inspiring. Students in each area can expect to progress steadily week to week, provided they do the assigned exercises in between. The voice, the body, and language skills are all muscles we must train daily to expect any progress. I look forward to working with creative students who have a passion for self-discovery and honest self-expression. Let's have fun!