Lisa Houston is a writer and classical singer from Berkeley, California. She is a frequent contributor to the website San Francisco Classical Voice and has interviewed many of the world's greatest singers for national and international magazines. She is the founder of Singer’s Spirit, a website dedicated to cultivating the love and art of classical singing. She writes historical novels set in the Berkeley of long ago, and present-day mysteries set in a fictional town in Marin County.
Lisa began her career as an actor in New York where she studied at Lee Strasberg and received her B.F.A. in Acting from New York University. After college, Lisa toured Europe in avant-garde theater, performing in the UK, France, Spain, and Italy, working with director Robert Wilson. After being booed in Wilson's production of Salome at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, Lisa devoted herself to learning the craft of singing opera, earning a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After grad school she returned to California, where she performed leading roles with opera companies throughout the state and as soloist with choral ensembles, symphonies and musical theatre companies. Lisa then returned to Europe where she performed in concert, and studied numerous dramatic soprano roles with Kammersängerin Deborah Polaski. Lisa has taught voice for many years. Her focus is building confidence and developing a healthy technique for both singing and speaking. Some other fun facts... Most demanding role : Strauss's Elektra, sung in a workshop production with Maestro Kent Nagano, who coincidentally was the conductor a notorious La Scala production of Strauss's Salome which Lisa performed in. In a street fight, who would win, Carmen, or Elektra? In her mezzo days Lisa sang the title role in Carmen (in the well-known operatic capital of Modesto, California;) Carmen is an easy role vocally, but a tough one because it requires a lot of physicality along with the singing. But in a street fight, Elektra would take Carmen down, no question. Carmen is fickle, and has a knife. Elektra is obsessed, and has an axe. Funnest gig ever: playing legendary diva, Astrid Varnay in Kammeroper Leipzig’s comic pastiche, See You in Walhalla. Most meaningful gig: performing an arrangement of Song of Solomon by the Lithuanian Composer Laureate Anatolijus Šenderovas at the National Philharmonie in Vilnius, a century after her Jewish ancestors fled that region due to persecution. Lisa's current pack: Lisa lives with three dogs. A black and white Shih-tzu mix named "Gadget," a black lab she found roaming the streets of Hayward named, surprisingly, "Hayward," and a white chihuahua-mix with caramel-colored spots, named "Toffee." Something to ponder: unlike theater, life's most important moments are rarely preceded by rehearsal. And a question: do we read novels to make sense of our lives, or do we make sense of novels by applying wisdom from our lives? |