Outreach Activities

Tenor John Duykers & Stage Director Melissa Weaver offer Master Classes, Workshops and Labs to Expand the Limits of the Operatic Form

Their collaborative process with performers, writers, composers, directors and designers, involves improvisation, movement, spoken and sung text, instrumental music, character development and rigorous exploration of objects and interaction of light and scenic materials.

Opera/Theater Performance Workshop & Residency Options include:

Master Class for Singers  (3 - 4 hour class)
- Aria preparation, character development, exploring the integration of singing and acting techniques

Acting & Movement Workshop for Singers (2 sessions total 6 - 8 hours)
- Concentration, relaxation, stage presence, period movement, creating back-story and articulating character

New Performance Lab for Singers, Actors, Dancers, Instrumentalists, Composers, Writers, Directors and Designers (1-week intensive)
- Evolving Opera - Creating New Work

John Duykers appeared with many major opera companies throughout the world in more than 55 world premieres, perhaps most notably as Chairman Mao in John Adams' Nixon in China.  He has collaborated with composers including Philip Glass, Anthony Davis, Kurt Rohde, Erling Wold and Janice Giteck; and directors including Peter Sellars, Robert Wilson, Mary Zimmerman, Robert Woodruff and Joanne Akalaitis.  Recently he has been performing The Tyrant, written for him by Paul Dresher and directed by Melissa Weaver. From 1977-79 he was music director of the Berkeley's Cazadero Music Camp, during which time he evolved the curriculum to reflect world musical traditions.  From 1979-81 he served as Chairman of the Classical Music division of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

Melissa Weaver has worked with artists including, Chris Wilson, Patsy Swayze, Paul Dresher, Rinde Eckert, Leonard Pitt, Jess Curtis, Amanda Moody, George Coates and Kent Nagano.  She has collaborated on many original music-theater works and toured around the world.  Duykers and Weaver were guest directors for two years at the Communications Academy in Marin County where they created original works with high-school students based on their history and literature studies. Duykers and Weaver were on the faculty of California Institute of the Arts, from 1999-2004, where they created the Opera Theater Performance Project, developing original "composite-operas" with Cal-Arts students.  Duykers gives private voice lessons and master-classes in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.