- WHAT MUSIC PROFESSIONALS SAY ABOUT NINA:
In Nina’s hands, you feel confident. Learning to deliver your text so that it comes across and is understood by the audience through the emotion of the piece is really her forte. Nina has invested years and years in listening to and training singers, with the emphasis being on what is important and what isn’t. This sounds simple, but believe me it isn’t. She is fun and positive and I have watched her in action many times as the “a-ha” moment occurs with young singers.
Kammersängerin LINDA WATSON, opera singer
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Nina Radtke is an exceptional teacher of German Lyric Diction. I met Nina in 2005 when we were
both on the faculty of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. This is an intensive
summer institute for singers and pianists, where Nina teaches German lyric diction and I voice lessons.
Through our work together at the AIMS institute over the past decade I have had the distinct
privelege to get to know Nina and her superb work with singers of a variety of different backgrounds and vocal experience.
Nina is an expert in the pronunciation, articulation and interpretation of all types of German vocal
repertoire; Art Song, Opera, Oratorio. She is able to achieve success with students who have had
no prior knowledge of German as well as with those who speak it well. All can improve when working with Nina.
In addition to being a native German hoch Deutsch speaker herself, which she cultivates in all of her
students, she can diagnose and address articulation inadequacies and inaccuracies such as
insufficient breath energy, incorrect place or manner of articulation, or mispronunciation,
and give students specific, detailed instructions and strategies to correct each one.
She focuses on the process as the long term solution and is disdainful of the common
misunderstanding that it is possible to “fix” a person’s diction in a single meeting.
Accurate and optimal lyric diction takes time to develop and cultivate.
Nina is a liscenced Speech Language Pathologist and as such she brings a unique approach to the
field of lyric diction. She understands the complete vocal instrument in terms of function
and optimal use and applies this knowledge to her work with singers. She is especially
adept at determining the native speech issues common to speakers and singers of specific languages.
At AIMS, speakers of American English, British English, Australian English, Italian, and Russian,
among other languages, all bring a differing sensibility and habitual articulation movement to
their study of the German vocal repertoire.
Nina is expert at bringing them to their best German diction capabilities for their performances.
I myself teach lyric diction (English, Italian, German and French) to undergraduate voice majors
in the United States at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ.
Over the years in Austria, I have learned a great deal from Nina Radtke which I then bring back
to my American students.
She is my primary source for any questions concerning German. and I feel fortunate to have her
as a colleague. Nina Radtke is quite simply the finest German Lyric Diction coach I have ever
encoutered in my long career as a Professor of Voice and Lyric Diction.
Sincerely,
Dr. LORI MCCANN, Coordinator, Vocal Performance Program
Associate Professor of Voice
John J. Cali School of Music, Chapin 348
Montclair State University
Governor, Eastern Region, National Association of Teachers of Singing
National Association of Teachers of Singing