Tish Oney's Music Blog

I am thrilled with the relatively recent news that I have been selected by Ithaca College School of Music faculty to be their 2011-12 Robert G. Boehmler Visiting Artist ! Each year this faculty selection committee chooses only one outstanding international performing artist to visit the campus and provide a week or so of workshops, clinics, master classes, lectures and concerts for the Ithaca music community. While the details of this artist residency have not yet been finalized, I look forward to providing this performance/teaching package during the first week of October 2011, and I am greatly pleased and humbled to be the recipient of this distinctive honor! Having previously served as a voice and vocal jazz professor at several universities and colleges, and now a full-time touring/recording artist, I feel particularly qualified for artist residency work. I have loved teaching music since the first day I attempted it. I also have personally experienced the joy and wonder of bei...

I love being what some refer to as a "crossover artist." All it really means is that you are good at more than one thing: you excel as a singer in multiple genres. Being one such type of performer gives me the opportunity to stretch different vocal mechanism muscles (really!), hone my precision and technique, challenge myself musically and intellectually, and keep from being bored singing in one style. The main thing I keep in mind is that I strive to be an expert in whatever style I'm singing, rather than dwelling on the "C" word ("crossover"). I sing "classical" or "legit" soprano repertoire (baroque and contemporary art music mostly, but also classic and romantic period material in 6 languages) from the standpoint of being a specialist in those genres rather than as a jazz singer dabbling in crossover. Likewise, I sing jazz from the perspective of a specialist in that genre, calling to mind the greats who have gone before m...