The I Encuentro Vocal de Madrid offers young emerging singers a comprehensive training experience that bridges technical development, artistic growth and real‑world professional insight. Through individual vocal coaching with Aurora Peña, repertoire sessions with Giorgio Celenza, and a wide range of lectures, workshops and round tables led by industry professionals, participants explore vocal technique, stylistic interpretation, stage work, musicology, career development and the realities of today’s musical world. Active students receive priority access to all activities, take part in the closing concert, and finish the programme with new tools, perspectives and a clearer sense of their artistic path.
Philosophy of the I Encuentro Vocal de Madrid
The I Encuentro Vocal de Madrid was created with the aim of offering comprehensive training to young emerging singers who are in the process of developing, refining, and building their artistic careers.
Vocal and musical work form the core of the Encuentro. The singing classes, taught by soprano Aurora Peña, are based on an individualized approach to vocal technique: each voice is a unique instrument and therefore requires work adapted to its characteristics, needs, and possibilities. Technique is approached through the search for healthy, free, and expansive vocal production, working on muscular balance and the appropriate relationship between energy and relaxation, as well as the use of resonators and the natural resources of each instrument. The goal is not to apply a uniform vocal model, but to provide each singer with the tools to understand, develop, and make the most of their own voice.
The repertoire classes, led by pianist Giorgio Celenza, delve into the relationship between voice, style, and interpretation, rigorously addressing the particularities of each repertoire, pronunciation, and the different musical languages. The aim is for the singer to fully develop the possibilities of their instrument within the stylistic demands of each work: not to adapt the repertoire to a single way of singing, but to learn to place the resources of one’s own voice at the service of different styles and vocalities. Technique and repertoire are thus conceived as two inseparable aspects of the same training process. The long-standing professional and pedagogical collaboration between Aurora Peña and Giorgio Celenza, as well as their shared vision of vocal and stylistic work, allows both areas to be approached in a coordinated and complementary way, offering students a coherent line of work between the singing studio and repertoire study.
But a singer’s training does not end in the classroom. One of the main objectives of the Encuentro is precisely to build a bridge between academic training and the reality of the professional world, offering young performers the opportunity to broaden their perspective beyond the conservatory environment and to learn first-hand about different viewpoints on today’s artistic, musical, and scenic landscape. For this reason, throughout the Encuentro, professionals from diverse areas of the sector will participate, sharing knowledge, experiences, and complementary perspectives through lectures, workshops, and round tables on a profession that today requires increasingly complete and versatile preparation.
The programme will therefore include content dedicated to interpretation and stage work, musicology and the study of historical repertoires, the professional preparation of an operatic production, as well as self-management, communication, and artistic career development.
Although the activities of the Public Programme —conversations, round tables, workshops, and other proposals— will be open to the public free of charge until capacity is reached, the Active Course students will occupy a central place in the dynamics of the Encuentro. In addition to singing and repertoire classes, they will have priority access to all activities, preference in larger spaces and programmes, and, depending on availability, the possibility of participating in orientation and feedback sessions with some of the invited professionals. They will also take part as performers in the Encuentro’s closing concert and will receive a diploma certifying their participation as active students.
The I Encuentro Vocal de Madrid seeks to offer tools, references, and new points of view. Its ultimate goal is for each young singer to finish the experience not only having advanced in their technical and artistic training, but also with a broader vision of the professional world and a clearer idea of how to continue building their own path.
