Teaching the world and hometown folks to sing

As a vocal teacher, Judith Farris has a reputation for helping actors not known for their voices get up on a Broadway stage and sing.

She coached Anthony Quinn ("Zorba the Greek") and Matthew Broderick ("How to Succeed in Business"). As an accomplished opera singer herself, Farris could give them hints to develop the stamina it takes to work eight shows a week.

In grade school, lots of people were told they can't sing when they really can, Farris says. "I believe we all have the capability of using our God-given voice. We can't all be Pavarotti, but we all have an instrument and should be able to use it if we know a little bit about how," she said in a phone interview from New York.

The New York City resident and Cape Girardeau native hopes people who want to improve their singing voice, whether just so they can carry a tune or sing out more in the church choir, will attend the free master class she will offer the community Saturday afternoon at Academic Auditorium.

No one at the community master class will be asked to sing by themselves. There will be a small amount of group participation.

People know how the strings on a piano work, she says, "but they don't know about these two little vocal cords."

Everybody's vocal cords look the same, but some of us can hear a pitch and think a pitch and produce it. "It's quite a miracle," Farris says.

Most people make the mistake of working too hard to get something good posture and breathing techniques can provide. "You have to let go of that breath in a way that these tones just happen," Farris says.

One of her areas of expertise is helping singers who have damaged their voices through misuse.

Farris graduated from Central High School in Cape Girardeau and initially planned to be a grade-school music teacher. Her love was accompaniment, but she had to take a vocal music class to get a music education degree. She discovered she liked standing up and singing even more.

After she graduated in 1971, mentors like Mary Lou Henry and Dr. Doyle Dumas encouraged Farris to see where her voice could take her. She attended Southern Illinois University for a year and briefly the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, but she realized she already had learned at Southeast what they were trying to teach her.

Next stop: New York City.

Farris' first break was winning an apprenticeship with the highly regarded Santa Fe Opera, becoming the opera's first apprentice allowed to sing two roles during the summer season.

"That was right away verification that I was doing what I was supposed to do," she said.

Performances with the St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony, American Symphony, the Opera Theater of St. Louis, The Washington Opera, the New York Philharmonic and many others have followed. She rates her 1988 solo recital at New York's Lincoln Center as the high point of her singing career. The concert was well attended, well received and well reviewed.

"It proved something to myself and all those people who believed in me," she said.

Her awards include the Marian Anderson Scholarship, the National Arts Club of New York City Contraltos, The Minna Kauffman Rudd Award from the Metropolitan Opera, the Lucrezia Bori Award and the Metropolitan Opera Katherine Long Grant Award.

In 1992, Farris returned to Cape Girardeau to give a concert and receive an Alumni Merit Award. She is still an opera singer but is focusing more on teaching now.

Farris also will teach a master class for university students today. For the university students, she hopes to say "something that makes a difference, encourages them, enlightens them, spurs them on to the next level."

It may be something their own teachers have been trying to get across. "But because it's said by a person from New York ... it may be heard in a slightly different way, and a light bulb may come on."

Tyne Daly and the late Peter Allen are among the other singers Farris has taught, but she says most of the singers she has helped aren't stars -- yet.

"The stars are people you would have never heard of but will hear from," she said. "They came from nothing and are establishing their technique little by little."

That describes almost everyone who might attend her master classes, she said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182