Ascham offers individual voice tuition to students from Year 6 to 12. It is a conscious decision to defer voice training until Year 6, as the voice strengthens and matures throughout adolescence. We have a number of highly experienced vocal teachers who specialise in a number of different areas, including Classical, Contemporary, Jazz and Music Theatre.
Girls who learn singing are expected to be involved in the co-curricular choral activities on offer within the school. Our choirs cover a range of age groups, some are open to all girls while some are by audition only and all choirs attend Music Camp and perform in major concerts throughout the year.
There are many other performance opportunities for singing students at Ascham. We have a number of Twilight Concerts throughout the year as well as a Vocal Recital in Term 2.
Each year, all singing students are required to participate in a process which examines the progress they have made throughout the year. This can take the form of an AMEB exam (or equivalent) or the Ascham Vocal Review, in which all voice students demonstrate technical exercises, undergo a short sight-singing test and perform one song of their choice. This process takes place in Term 3.
Rachael has performed professionally with Opera Australia for over two decades, touring with them to China, Edinburgh and regularly to Melbourne. She has performed in hundreds of operas, oratorios and operettas and has performed and understudied many roles over the years. Most recently Rachael also performed with the Victorian Opera Company in their production of Sweeney Todd at the Sydney Opera House.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Music in Performance Voice from Canterbury University (NZ), Rachael then moved to Australia and completed a Diploma of Opera at the Sydney Conservatorium. She holds her LTCL in Voice and ATCL in Pianoforte from Trinity College, London. Rachael was a young artist with Opera Queensland performing Adele in Die Fledermaus and Dew Fairy and Sandman in Hansel and Gretel. As a young artist with Pacific Opera, Rachael debut the role of Chloe in the Australian premier of Daphnis et Chloe. She has also recorded with the ABC and toured for Musica Viva and the Opera Australia Schools Company (Papagena and Queen of the Night).
Rachael is a qualified Vocal Massage Specialist and lectures frequently on Vocal Health – most recently for The Song Company, Opera Australia Young Artists, Pacific Opera Young Artists and NZ Young Artists. She is passionate about singers having a healthy and free vocal technique and knowing how to care for their voices. She currently teaches Voice at Nida, the Glenaeon Steiner School and runs a private voice studio in Cheltenham.
Amelia Farrugia
Amelia Farrugia is a renowned Australian soprano; since her professional stage debut in 1990, she has enjoyed a highly successful international career in opera, operetta, music theatre, recital, concert events, television & recording. In 2012 & 2015, Amelia joined the roster of soloists at The Metropolitan Opera in New York, covering Renee Fleming as The Merry Widow & Anna Netrebko & Diana Damrau as Manon.
As well as her teaching at Ascham, Amelia is the owner of Sydney Sings Pty Ltd. She teaches singing in Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation’s library in Neutral Bay and is a vocal tutor at the University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music & High School. In the last few years, HSC students have been accepted into Juilliard School, Tisch NYU, Parsons the New School, New York and Royal Academy of Music, London.
Amelia enjoys working with beginners and giving them the foundations of vocal technique. Her focus is to improve & strengthen the beauty of the natural voice.
Georgia Powell
Georgia holds a Diploma of Opera at the NSW Conservatorium of Music, her AMusA and LMusA in Singing, having initially completed a Bachelor of Economics at the University of Sydney.
Georgia has performed with Opera Australia as a member of the Chorus since 2002. She has performed a number of roles for the national opera company and understudied many.
Georgia also has a diverse background in performance in musical theatre and concert work. She has been teaching at Ascham since 2007, and loves working with each girl to develop their vocal technique and confidence in performance. Georgia focuses on musical theatre and classical repertoire.
Orly Terkasher
Orly completed a Bachelor of Music (Hons) at The University of NSW in 2001 and has since regularly completed several singing technique and pedagogy courses. She also attended Berklee College of Music’s summer jazz and gospel program in Italy. She specialises in Jazz, Pop, RnB/Soul/Funk/Gospel, Rock & Musical Theatre styles of singing.
Orly has performed at festivals, on the stages, and television screens in the USA, Italy, France, London, New Zealand and all around Australia for over 20 years. She lived in both New York and Los Angeles from 2006 to 2017, where she performed, taught singing, wrote and recorded 2 albums, wrote songs for other artists and recorded vocals for media and television companies.
With 22 years of teaching experience, Orly has a passion for all things singing and singing technique. Along with teaching her students to embrace the artistry behind singing, she loves to pass on her knowledge of vocal technique and vocal hygiene, so that singing becomes both easy and fun for her students, which in turn will also build their confidence.