In 2024, the studio and our singers achieved much success. Most regular singers returned to lessons and we welcomed many new singers. This year, I’ve had the pleasure of working with singers who have sung in choirs and bands, those who are passionate about taking their singing capabilities further and those just beginning their journey.

I feel it’s important to celebrate your successes – especially creative wins – no matter how big or small. Most singers focused on improving breathing and articulation, and having a relaxed jaw and open throat. Many keenly worked through their range and transition points. Others honed their performance skills, or made their debut singing in public at our studio concert. Overall, they gained the confidence to sing with resonance and clarity, and have much to celebrate.

So, here’s our 2024 studio recap.

Singers’ performance wins

In May, long-term singer, Joanna Copeland gave a recital of Elgar’s ‘Sea Pictures’, accompanied by studio pianist Alison Cameron, at the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club in Mosman.

Joanna Performing

In May and June, rehearsals for our annual concert geared up, and we held a number of workshops for singers with Alison Cameron. The concert afternoon saw 13 singers perform a mix of classical, original dance compositions, and music theatre repertoire.

KCST Singers doing warm up exercises before the 2024 Studio Concert

Our singer-songwriters, Roze and Gemma, released new songs across their social media platforms and performed them live.

In July, Anne Richardson gave a recital of French songs at St Stephens Uniting Church, in Sydney’s CBD. Accompanied by Alison Cameron and guest cellist Sophia Hillyar, Anne had created and planned the event all herself – a real achievement in stepping out of your comfort zone!

Anne’s recital of French songs accompanied by Alison

More resources for more singers

With the studio welcoming many new singers, and increased demand for lessons, both the city and our Hurlstone Park studios were busy with singers most weeks. Next year, we’re adding more morning sessions in our city studio. I would love to hear from interested singers.

Our monthly email newsletter and blogs have seen a high open rate, and we’ve shared more singing tips and video and audio content on Facebook and Instagram. You can view our useful voice technique demonstrations on our YouTube channel.

Sharing and building my knowledge

As well as teaching singers, I enjoy expanding my knowledge of singing training, and working with future singing teachers.

In March, I began mentoring a final year Griffith University music student towards setting up and running their own independent music studio. It’s my way of giving back to a creative industry.

In September, I completed two online seminars on aspects of voice production. The first, ‘Psychological influences on voice production’, with Dr Miriam van Mersbergen, explored emotional and cognitive processes in singing. The main takeaways were learning to sing requires high levels of cognitive attention; moods can affect learning; and your attention requires auditory (hearing), visual and kinaesthetic (feeling) faculties.

‘Understanding and applying singing voice acoustics’, with Dr John Nix, covered vowel modification. As studio singers know, when we sing, we often need to change a word and its parts to produce a more beautiful sound, or one with more resonance.

I look forward to sharing this knowledge in upcoming singing lessons.

Congratulations to all our studio singers who achieved so much this year! Some of the feedback I’ve had is: singers feel more confident to devise, prepare and deliver their own recitals, concerts or gigs and online albums. They also enjoy the process of learning to discern supportive breathing, open throat and refined articulation. And their joy in discovery is rewarding for me to be part of.

Thank you to all who make our singing studio the success it is! I look forward to seeing what 2025 will bring.

Do you have a goal to start learning to sing? Or improve your existing technical and performance skills? Kathleen Connell works with beginners to advanced singers – and everyone in between.

Whether you want to sing in elite choirs, perform in concerts, or aspire to be a soloist, there’s an in-person or online singing package to suit you. Call 0402 409 106 to enquire.