Vocal Instruction

Susan Gregory helps singers and speakers maximize their personal and professional potential. Her unique expertise as a voice specialist, breath educator and performance coach helps transform singers into powerful performing artists. In addition, her specialized training and experience as a counselor is available for singers and speakers who wish to overcome personal blocks in order to achieve confidence and full expressiveness on stage and in daily life.

Who can benefit?
  • Singers
  • Actors
  • Dancers
  • Public speakers
  • People seeking their creative paths
  • People in life transitions
  • Helping professionals

   Susan Gregory’s multi-faceted approach provides expert instruction for professional voice users, and for voice explorers and singing enthusiasts. For professional voice users, the goal is to bring voice and repertoire to the highest presentational level and to enhance performance power. For voice explorers, the aim is to enrich life by building confidence and skills in singing and speaking. Singers can expect improvement in range, control of dynamics, breath support, vocal quality, pitch accuracy, performance style, audition skills, musicianship and languages.

   Susan Gregory is a teacher, singer and counselor with a private studio in Manhattan.

   An award winner at the Metropolitan Opera Competition, and gold medalist in Italy at Concorso G.B. Viotti, Ms. Gregory has sung as principal artist with the New York City Opera.

   Praised in the New York Times for her “voice of striking individual beauty”, she has concertized in the United States and England and recorded contemporary chamber music with the New York Philomusica.

   Ms. Gregory has performed musical theatre at the Saratoga Playhouse and jazz with luminaries Roswell Rudd and Perry Robinson. She was heard nationally on NPR in Lenny Pickett’s jazz opera “Welfare”, and on WQXR in a recital of art songs. On WKCR, she presented an evening of operatic arias with guest commentator Bidu Sayao.

   While chairperson of voice at Third Street Music School, her students appeared in NBC-TV’s special “America Is”. She has served on the board of directors of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, NY Chapter and is a member of the New York Singing Teachers Association. Her article “Beyond Mental Health” was published in Classical Singer Magazine.

Testimonials

“In thirty years of professional performance, I have never experienced the creative growth and vocal security that I have achieved with Susan Gregory.”
Russell Leib, actor

“Susan Gregory is a remarkable teacher. She approaches each singer individually and customizes her style to match the student. She helped me develop a roundness and richness of tone, a more seamless voice, and an approach to musical style that comes from withinÑthings I had been searching for my entire career.”
Roberta Jackson, singer

“In studying singing with Susan, I have discovered
a new and enjoyable avenue of expression.”
Frances Rosario, dancer

“With Susan’s help, I recommitted to my singing and found joy once again in performance.”
Michael Lengel, puppeteer and writer

“When I work with Susan, she is so attentive to my singing that I learn something each timeÑabout myself, about singing, and, yes, about life itself.”
Kathy Geary, singer

“I am now able to sing well the music I longed to sing all my life.
It feels as if Susan made a miracle.”
Daryn Kent-Duncan, dance teacher

“Her diagnostics are always right on the dot and her vocal remedies really work. But what I appreciate most is her open, patient, generous capacity to hear and observe the student.”
Paule Ollman, translator

“Each week is a joyous exploration of music and of the creative process itself.”
Carol Conn, writer

“Susan’s physical/mental approach to singing has made me more aware of the expansive potential of my body and mind as I strive to achieve richer tone and more natural expression of the poetry that is found in music.”
Gladys Nussenbaum, psychotherapist

 

   The following aspects of the craft of singing are subjects of instruction in Susan Gregory’s vocal studio, where a holistic approach to vocal instruction includes attention to

  • all details of vocal technique over which a singer must have mastery,
  • the singer's professional and personal goals, including the genre within which she or he wishes to sing,
  • the singer's state of bodily ease or tension,
  • the skills of accessing and expressing feelings through music,
  • familiarity with reading music, keeping time, hearing pitch, coordinating with musical ensembles,
  • the skills of stage craft and personal presentation which make for compelling performances,
  • information about the business of singing and how to mobilize resources needed for success.

   Ms. Gregory teaches singing and performance enhancement in her studio in New York City. She works with singers on all levels, from professional to beginner. Her students include opera soloists, Broadway singers, cabaret performers, choristers, teenagers, and persons from other professions who have a love of singing or who have always wanted to try singing.

   In addition to being an essential skill for all stage performers, singing is also a potent avenue for personal growth. through encountering the experiences of expressing feelings and being seen and heard in the world. For those whose interests lie in the area of self-discovery, the GestalSing studio is an ideal place to experiment with voice as an avenue to Self.

   For professionals and aspiring professionals, the GestalSing studio is the place to develop powerful performance skills and excellent range, breath control and vocal quality.

   Susan Gregory was formerly a principal artist with the New York City Opera and a prize-winner in the Metropolitan Opera Competition. She has given recitals throughout the United States and in Great Britain. She has recorded Meyer Kupferman's A Nietzsche Cycle with the New York Philomusica. She has starred in Kismet, Oliver and Anything Goes in regional theater, and as a jazz soloist has performed with such notables as Roswell Rudd and Perry Robinson. Ms. Gregory was formerly chairperson of the voice department of the Third Street Music School Settlement and has been a faculty member at the New York Open Center. She was voice consultant for the NBC-TV special America Is with the late Joe Raposo. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, New York Chapter, and of the New York Singing Teachers Association.