Prestigious Emerging Artist Awards for Waikato music student

Prestigious Emerging Artist Awards for Waikato music students

The Freemasons Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist Internships have been announced for 2014 and Waikato University music voice students make up three of the five recipients.

The successful candidates are baritone Jarvis Dams, soprano Chelsea Dolman, and tenor Filipe Manu.

The prestigious Internships are run by New Zealand Opera with funding from the Freemasons Roskill Foundation and the Dame Malvina Major Foundation. They were created to assist young artists in developing skills for a professional career in opera.

The selected interns are chosen by panel audition and are given the opportunity to work with industry professionals as part of New Zealand Opera’s main stage activity.

Each of the interns will be exposed to a learning environment that places emphasis on practical experience within the professional opera world. This includes vocal tuition with Dame Malvina Major and coaching sessions with other opera practitioners.

21-year-old Filipe is one of the youngest to ever be selected for the internship. He is studying towards a Bachelor of Music, majoring in classical performance and is on a Sir Edmund Hilary Filipe says many great singers have taken up the internship before him and it will be invaluable.

"It will give me experience I wouldn't be able to get at university and put me in good stead for the Emerging Artists are also given small supporting and/or understudy roles where appropriate,

become part of the Company’s chorus, and undertake a variety of concert engagements.

The new Emerging Artists have already begun their induction, with several of the group already performing in NZ Opera’s current production of La traviata.

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