"a vocational singing teacher who likes to sing"
With a singing-teaching diploma, 20 years of teaching experience, a B.A. in English literature and an M.A. in Critical Theory (philosophy and linguistics) and qualifications and teaching experience in T.E.F.L., Linda draws on a wide range of skills to create a unique cocktail of vocal diagnosis and tuition.
Linda is a vocational singing teacher who likes to sing, not a singer who has to teach. Her roots are in the amateur choral tradition in which she has sung at every level with provincial and London choral societies, select chamber choirs, professional ensembles, quartets and as a soloist. Her musical interests encompass oratorio, jazz, barbershop, gospel, lieder, opera, cabaret, music theatre and, above all, a capella close harmony.
In 20 years of teaching Linda has specialised in training choral singers of all standards, especially welcoming beginners. She has turned rank and file choral singers into soloists, enabled the so-called tone deaf to join choirs, prepared candidates for diplomas and entrance auditions, enabled elderly singers to return to singing after they had withdrawn into premature retirement, and restored voices in real trouble.
Linda is passionate about dispelling the myth that you have to be a would-be soloist to take singing lessons. Nor does having your voice 'trained' mean you have to sound like an opera singer if you don't want to!
In recent years Linda has developed series of popular vocal workshops ('Voiceworks') exploiting the benefits students gain from listening and watching while others are being taught. While it is helpful to get one-to-one attention it is also hugely beneficial to observe while others are learning. Observers get a chance to hear the 'before' and 'after' of someone else's voice. They get to hear more dispassionately the difference in sound between what the student is doing and what Linda wants. Linda's group lessons also lend themselves to developing ensemble skills such as holding one's own melodic line and blending. Such workshops are helpful to choirs who choose to put some rehearsal time towards vocal development.
Linda teaches privately at her home near Glyndebourne in East Sussex and runs workshops in Forest Row, near East Grinstead and in Farnham, Surrey. She took part in the ABCD Convention, 26-28 August 2005.
In 1998 she moved to Sussex from North London with her three children and dog to take up residence at Laughton Lodge, a co-housing community which she founded (The Community Project, http://www.cohousing.co.uk/index.htm). Co-housing, maze-making, portrait photography and shared bottles of wine are among her special interests.