Sylvia McNair was born on June 23,1956 and is an American opera singer and classical recitalist who has achieved notable success in the Broadway and cabaret genres.
17 Facts About Sylvia McNair
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Sylvia McNair was born in Mansfield, Ohio, the daughter of George and Marilou McNair.
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Sylvia McNair attended and graduated from Lexington High School, just south of Mansfield.
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Sylvia McNair originally enrolled in the undergraduate music program at Wheaton College in Illinois as a violin major, but was encouraged by a violin instructor there to study voice as well.
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Sylvia McNair commenced vocal studies at Wheaton with Margarita Evans, and finding herself more suited to singing, discontinued violin as her major.
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Sylvia McNair earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1978 from Wheaton and subsequently a Master of Music with Distinction in 1983 from Indiana University School of Music, where she studied voice with Virginia MacWatters, John Wustman, and Virginia Zeani.
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Sylvia McNair made her professional concert debut in 1980 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
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Sylvia McNair appeared regularly at the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Santa Fe Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and at the Metropolitan Opera, and has soloed with many major European and American orchestras.
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Since the late 1990s, Sylvia McNair has changed the focus of her singing career to Broadway and jazz styles.
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From 2006 to 2017, Sylvia McNair was part of the voice faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, her alma mater.
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At Indiana University, Sylvia McNair was hired to teach English diction, and opera workshop.
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Sylvia McNair had a small studio and taught a few female singers and one male student.
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From 2012 to 2017, Sylvia McNair has served as a judge and mentor for the Songbook Academy, a summer intensive for high school students operated by the Great American Songbook Foundation and founded by Michael Feinstein.
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Sylvia McNair's treatments have included mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
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Sylvia McNair said that Dutoit "tried to have his way" with her after a March 1985 rehearsal with the Minnesota Orchestra.
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Sylvia McNair has made over 70 recordings, including many complete operas, and Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
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Sylvia McNair has recorded a number of recitals, ranging from "Mozart arias" with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields to CDs with Andre Previn of music by Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen.