Vocal coaching for musical theater students, grounded in Somatic Voicework™ (The LoVetri Method) and led by a working musician. Healthy belting, mix, legit, and audition song preparation.
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Musical theater singing is a craft of its own. The repertoire crosses three or four distinct vocal idioms in a single audition cut. The technique demands have to coexist with acting, storytelling, and (often) dance. And the wrong vocal habits, pushed belt, locked jaw, breathy mix, can shorten a singer’s career before it really starts.
Voice lessons here for MT students focus on three things: healthy contemporary technique (so you can sing eight shows a week without losing your voice), stylistic range (so you can switch cleanly between belt, mix, and legit when the score asks for it), and audition song preparation (so the cut you bring into the room actually works for you).
The technical foundation comes from Somatic Voicework™ (The LoVetri Method), a science-based approach developed specifically for contemporary commercial music. It teaches you how your voice actually functions: how registration works, what makes a healthy belt different from a strained one, and how to access different vocal qualities deliberately rather than by accident. The result is a more flexible, more reliable, more sustainable voice.
For audition prep specifically, the studio’s recording setup means you can leave with polished recordings of your cuts, ready to send to a college program, an agent, or a director. Self-tape submissions, demos, full takes of your audition book. More on the studio →
For students preparing audition cuts, whether for a school show, a regional theater audition, or a college BFA program, lessons cover repertoire selection (finding cuts that genuinely showcase what you do best), song work (understanding the character, intention, and arc within a 16-bar or 32-bar cut), and the technique to land the highest notes cleanly under pressure. Piano accompaniment is included during lessons, so you don’t need to bring backing tracks.
The studio’s recording capability matters here too. Audition prep students can leave with polished recordings of their cuts, useful for self-review between lessons, useful for video pre-screens, useful for the audition itself if a recorded submission is part of the application. More about the studio →
We can also work on repertoire that doesn’t exist yet for your voice. A lot of MT students get assigned the same overused audition pieces because they’re what their teacher knows. Part of the work is figuring out what genuinely fits your voice and your type, sometimes that means an unexpected song, sometimes a familiar one approached from a new angle.
This is voice and audition-song coaching, not a full-service college audition prep program. If you’re looking for monologue work, dance audition coaching, college list strategy, or pre-screen filming, you’ll want to also work with one of Chicago’s dedicated MT audition coaches alongside lessons here. What this studio offers is the vocal half of that preparation, done well.
“For my daughter, this meant audition preparation for musical theatre and choir, but also allowing her to celebrate her love of Taylor Swift. Nicholas is very perceptive at quickly getting to know a student as a unique individual.”
Yes. Modern MT requires healthy belt and mix singing. Both are core to Somatic Voicework training. We work the technique and apply it to actual MT repertoire.
Yes, audition prep is one of the most common reasons students come for MT voice. We work technique, repertoire selection, and the practical side of presenting cuts. Most audition-prep students start with weekly lessons and keep going as long as the audition calendar demands.
Yes. Bring the cuts in and we work them, phrasing, technique notes, transitions, what to do when your voice is tired by lesson #4 of the day.
Yes. That's a meaningful advantage of taking voice with a working pianist. In-person lessons include live accompaniment on real piano, which sounds nothing like backing tracks.
Depends on starting point. For students with prior voice or theater training, 4–8 weeks of focused work can substantially polish existing material. For complete beginners, 4–6 months gets you to a competitive audition skill set.
In person: live piano accompaniment, the physical space to perform in, and the ability to work staging cues. Zoom covers the weeks you're traveling or under the weather.