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Juilliard professor Edith Wiens teaches voice and vocal arts to undergraduate and graduate students, and offered me an afternoon to observe her teaching at the School. What I witnessed was nothing short of a miracle with each of her students, and what I saw in her and experienced in our chat the following day was a being of such sentience and articulate wisdom I have adapted my own teaching to include her ideas. This article focuses on her approach to teaching, her views on learning and student involvement in their own development, and the issue of teacher-dominated focus in lessons.
I sat for an all-too-brief afternoon in studio 539 at The Juilliard School, where Professor Edith Wiens instructed several of her students in what had to be one of the most inspiring afternoons I spent at Juilliard (three hours passed before I realized I was late for a meeting). I have been to voice lessons and master classes before, collaborated with singers and played recitals of vocal music, but as I watched this sweet-toned, and. frank sage work with her pupils I was asto.nished. by what I saw. The exacting guidance in her work was remarkable. Her teaching bears all the evidence of a distinguished, career transmitted. into practical terms for each student, and her career is worth admiring by any student and every teacher.
Edith Wiens is a Canadian treasure. She was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and. grew up in Vancouver, BC. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada who has performed, as a celebrated, lieder singer in London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, Florence, Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. She has several honourary Doctorate degrees, and. has received, both Grammy and. Diaspora d'Or Awards. Her operatic appearances include principal Mozart roles at Glyndebourne, La Scala, the Santa Fe Opera, Amsterdam Opera, Tokyo, and. Buenos Aires' Teatro Colon, and her recordings, including the works of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Grieg, Mahler, Zemlinsky, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Strauss, are represented amply by the EMI, Erato, and. Philips labels. She is the Artistic Director of the summer Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, which was patronized. by none other than Maestro Kurt Masur. Edith Wiens has been attracting multitudes of singers from around, the...