Lili Mann and Rebekah Grande are voice students at Interlochen’s Summer Arts Camp 2022.
They visited Studio A to talk with Keith Brown and perform music by Gabriel Fauré and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Soprano Lili Mann is originally from New York City. This is her second time at Interlochen Arts Camp.
She loves how many more people are on campus this time around with Interlochen back at full in-person enrollment, which gives lots more opportunities to make friends.
While warming up for her Studio A performance, Lili used an interesting technique that involved singing through a straw!
It’s called straw phonation. She explained a little about why she uses it:
“It’s a little bit of a weird sensation because hitting the notes is a lot harder in the straw than it is when you’re singing out on a stage… it provides your voice a kind of calm, and it gives a stretch for your muscles before you go out. So it helps me feel more comfortable doing quicker passages with higher notes, instead of trying to strain.”
She sang the song “Ici-bas” (“Down here”) by Fauré with collaborative pianist Xiao Wang.
Lili shared that she has loved swimming since around first grade. She was formerly on a team, but now likes to swim just for fun with her best friend back home.
Rebekah Grande comes to Interlochen from her hometown of Buffalo, New York.
She loves how Interlochen is helping her prepare for college auditions in voice performance.
Rebekah, a mezzo-soprano, sang an aria from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro called “Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio” (“I no longer know who I am or what I’m doing!”) with pianist Yi-Hui Chen.
In this selection, she plays the role of the young page boy Cherubino.
Rebekah has been a passionate advocate for mental health since the beginning of the pandemic. She started the Mental Health Awareness Committee at her school during her sophomore year, when she noticed a need for more mental health support for students.
“I got together a group of about ten people, and we just started pushing out different programs and initiatives and different activities, and providing support for the student body, and since then we’ve grown to a group of about fifty, and we’re still going strong.”
She shared that the experience has taught her a lot about leadership.
Lili studies voice at Interlochen Arts Camp with Dr. Todd Wedge, and Rebekah studies with Dr. Angela Yoon.
Special thanks to voice area coordinator Dr. Autumn West, and to Stefan Wiebe, who engineered this edition of Studio A.
