Doctoral Colloquium (Music) | Nicole Chan
Doctoral Colloquium:听Nicole Chan (Research Alive finalist)聽
Title:听ItCan聽be Sung:听Italian Lyric Diction for聽Cantonese Singers
Linguistic articulation in Western art music classical singing often relies on resources that assume English or European language backgrounds and pre-existing International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) knowledge, treating diction as a technical skill. This approach places Cantonese-speaking singers at a disadvantage, as they may be perceived as having poor Italian diction due to limited resources. By analysing recordings of Cantonese-speaking singers across proficiency levels, I develop a linguistically informed framework for teaching Italian lyric diction to Cantonese speakers. Findings show that common vowels exist between Cantonese and Italian, but that half of the Italian consonants do not exist in Cantonese. My method recommends using聽Jyutping聽Romanization and corresponding聽Han聽characters to familiarize Cantonese singers with sounds in Italian lyrics. Through live demonstrations, I will illustrate the contrast between Cantonese and Italian as well as apply the proposed framework in practice.
Hong Kong鈥揅anadian soprano and harpist聽Nicole Chan聽is a Doctor of Music (Voice) and a Graduate Certificate (Choral Conducting) candidate in the Schulich School of Music. She holds an MM (Voice and Vocal Pedagogy), a BM (Voice) from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, as well as an MBA. Nicole is fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, and conversant in Danish, Italian, German, French, and Shanghainese.
The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.
