On April 12th, Paul Phineas, an owner of the Grammy Awards, came to the first Boya Lecture on Art held by the university. As a former member of King's Singers, a British a cappella vocal ensemble, Paul shared his experiences and thoughts with more than 300 teachers and students, and did vocal music training with students from the school chorus.
King's Singers was world-renowned for their a cappella. As a former member, Paul Phineas had 17 years of rich experience in music teaching and more than 2000 shows. Since he withdrew from the band in 2014, Paul has started his new career as a music teacher.
The school chorus sang 3 songs, including the Mighty River Flows Eastward. Their performance was frankly commented by Paul: pay attention to your intonation, which is the most fundamental; right singing state makes us happy, thus we should act as if we were energetic fighters all the time. He went into the depth of Farewell Again, Cambridge and some other songs: breath is primary to intonation singing.
“Singers should pay close attention to audiences instead of just staring at the commander,” Paul said as he stepped down from the stage to the auditorium. In this way, he believed, singers could have better emotional exchanges and resonance with audiences. He also led the students to read lyrics and hoped them to interpret works with authentic pronunciation. “To become an outstanding singer, it is necessary to try to sing songs of different styles and receive multicultural edification.” he said. He even sang with the chorus as a tenor, which brought about the climax of the lecture and harvested warm applause from audiences.
What’s more, Paul carried out an activity of “organizing a chorus within ten minutes” with the audiences: over 50 teachers and students went onto the stage and sang together under the instruction of Paul. The beautiful melody, Paul’s rich body languages and the happy atmosphere brought all the teachers and students present the happiness of music.
The director of the chorus expressed that in the university, humanistic quality lectures and scientific spirit and practice lectures were popular, while the Boya Lecture of Art was concentrated on creating artistic atmosphere by inviting art masters to exchange with teachers and students in the university.
“This gave us an international horizon. There are no limits of national borders and languages in music. Paul’s training gave us a taste of different idea of vocal music.” the captain of the chorus said happily.
Boya Lecture on Art: Boya means erudition and liberal. The lecture series is held to provide and promote the artistic appreciation for the students and faculty.
