American bass Gregory Stapp has won acclaim while appearing with scores of prestigious opera companies, music festivals and symphonic orchestras across America as well as when singing in Europe, Mexico, and Japan.
Featured on telecasts in Italy and the United States, he has also been heard on dozens of radio broadcasts in America. Praised for his exceptional enunciation, musicality, dramatic presence, and comic timing as well as for his deeply melodious, fabulously rich bass voice, Stapp has won a variety of major prizes, awards and fellowships. (Performance Biography)
In addition to his active performing schedule, Gregory Stapp maintains a private vocal studio in San Francisco. His students have won prizes in major competitions and may be heard in operas, concerts and musicals with professional companies across America.
Stapp believes that everyone can and should learn how to sing well. He enjoys working with beginners, amateurs, and those who are in need of remedial vocal therapy or are otherwise vocally challenged, as well as with advanced students and professionals.
In master classes, workshops, and private lessons, the training and experience he has gained during a lifetime of singing lets him guide singers to the discovery and mastery of their own, true, unique voices.
In his pamphlet, Myths and Realities of Professional Singing, Stapp provides insightful perspectives on the many challenges of singing professionally. However, while few may possess the talent, fortitude, perseverance and sheer good fortune necessary to achieve a professional singing career, he is confident that every singer can derive great benefit from studying voice with a qualified teacher.
Stapp’s own qualifications are impressive. Fortunate to have been raised in a supportive, musical family, he benefitted from metropolitan Denver’s commitment to music in both secular and religious environments by being able to participate in various bands (flute, piccolo), orchestras, choirs, choral camps, workshops, musicals, all-city and all-state choirs.
Thus, his formal musical education at Doull Elementary School, Kunsmiller Junior High School, and Cherry Creek High School was extensive, and at times, extraordinary. During in his senior year at Cherry Creek, in addition to five academic solids, his course load included seven music classes: three choirs (one of them toured Japan), two bands, orchestra, and 2nd-year music theory. That summer he toured Europe with a madrigal choir and attended choral/vocal workshops with George Lynn and Paul Christiansen.
These exemplary experiences continued when he was later awarded scholarships to Loretto Heights College, Indiana University and the Academy of Vocal Arts. In college, in addition to his vocal performance studies, he received specialized training as a conductor and teacher. Individualized, independent courses of study were created for him and he was given many responsibilities as an assistant instructor, routinely teaching conducting classes and directing the jazz choir at Loretto Heights while still an undergraduate, himself.
Stapp participated in a customary student-teaching residency in choral/vocal music for Wheat Ridge High School, and then was allowed to perform an unprecedented six-month practicum residency at his old alma mater, Cherry Creek, where he simultaneously student-taught two supervising music teachers’ full course loads. He also served as vocal music director of My Fair Lady and Jesus Christ Superstar productions at Cherry Creek.
He earned a secondary music teacher’s certificate from the State of Colorado and later was a graduate-assistant Instructor in Voice at Indiana University’s School of Music.
While studying at the Academy of Vocal Arts, the exclusive conservatory devoted solely to the training of professional opera singers, he gave master classes and sang many concerts and recitals under the auspices of the AVA Concert Bureau and appeared in fifteen roles with the AVA Opera Theatre, including Charlemagne in the 1980 American premiere of Schubert’s opera Fierrabras. During this time he also made his debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Opera Theatre and Philadelphia Orchestra.
Then, for three incredible years, first in the celebrated San Francsico/Affiliate Artists-Opera Program, and then as a recipient of one of the San Francisco Opera Center’s four inaugural Kurt Herbert Adler Fellowships, he was under the direct tutelage of the artistic staff of the San Francisco Opera.
He has studied with many excellent coaches and teachers in multiple disciplines. Richard Woitach, Renato Capecchi, Ted Puffer, Martin Smith, Max DiJulio, Lucile Lynn, Thomas Miyake, Michael D. Mendoza, James Dalton, Charlotte Adams, Jack Fredrickson, Maxine Westfall, Max Rudolph, Dino Yannopoulos, Kathleen Joiner, Thomas Grubb, David Agler, Felix Popper, Vernon Hammond and Christofer Macatsoris have been particularly influential on his musical life.
His exceptional vocal instruction has been with:
George Lynn Former Music Director of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, Dr. Lynn was a highly distinguished composer, arranger, conductor, organist, pianist, accompanist, clinician, educator, editor, publisher, and church musician, who possessed an incredible voice. A protégé of Roy Harris, Randall Thompson, Carl Weinrich and John Finley Williamson, among others, his own students continue to achieve great success in all facets of the music industry. Dr. Lynn’s collected compositions are available at the University of Colorado.
Dorothy DiScala Long-time faculty member of Philadelphia’s famed Academy of Vocal Arts, DiScala was a protégé, and later a colleague, of Sidney Dietch, the famous teacher who headed AVA’s voice department from its founding until his death. She also studied extensively with Ricci in Italy. Her students continue to sing with the Metropolitan and other international opera companies.
Margaret Harshaw Famed dramatic soprano Margaret Harshaw garnered even more laurels as an incredibly successful Distinguished Professor of Voice at Indiana University. Perhaps no other voice teacher in the last forty years had so many students proceed to successful international operatic careers.
Janet Parlova An excellent chamber musician as well as an extraordinary voice teacher, devoted to freeing the master singer inherent in each of us. Formerly a professor at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Parlova’s students continue to sing leading roles at major international opera companies and festivals throughout the world.
Jerome Hines The most famous and successful American bass of his generation, Hines had the longest career of any principal singer in the history of the Metropolitan Opera. He sang all over the world, authored three books, composed an opera, performed in numerous recordings and telecasts, and founded an advanced training program for singers that produced some wonderful singers.
Judith Natalucci Ms. Natalucci, formerly on the faculty of the University of Southern California, consistently produces new competition-winners even while her long-established students continue to sing leading roles in major opera houses around the world. Her awesome understanding of the vocal process is truly inspiring. Her website is at judithnatalucci.com.
