She has performed some of the most well-know operatic and concert pieces for royalty, rulers and ambassadors from Australia to Bangkok to Washington D.C., and now Sandra Partridge, a Plymouth resident who runs a voice studio out of her home, brings her considerable skill and experience to those who want to develop their own vocal talent.
Partridge, who was born and educated in Australia, had a rather fortuitous entry into the world of opera. While Partridge always sang in her church choir and had lead roles in her high school musicals, she never really thought of herself as a singer. Instead, her extensive training was in piano and violin, and she intended to play the piano as part of the rigorous entrance exams needed to be accepted to the University of Sydney, where she planned to continue her music studies. After hearing her sing, though, several of her teachers asked, “Why don’t you sing for your exam instead?”
“I can’t believe I agreed to do that after only three voice lessons in my entire life,” says Partridge, looking back now with some amusement on that fateful day. “And then I chose to perform an aria sung by the Countess in the Marriage of Figaro, which is wonderfully lyrical and dramatic, but quite an advanced piece for a beginner and not at all suited to my particular voice style.” Partridge explains that she is instead a lyric coloratura soprano, an operatic soprano who has a very agile, light voice with high upper extension capable of fast vocal coloratura (lots of runs, trills and leaps—think of Beverly Sills). Her naiveté paid off, though, because her audition went “really well,” and she was accepted to the university where she got her music-education degree.
But at the end of those four years, one of top voice teachers in Australia and an advisor to many of that country’s opera singers told Partridge that her vocal skills were so good she needed to try performance rather than teaching. Taking that advice, Partridge then successfully applied to the Sydney Conservatory of Music, what she calls “the primary [Australian] feeding ground into the opera world.”
Three years later, she received a diploma of opera and licentiate of music in singing, one of only three awarded yearly. From there, she won several music competitions, earning nearly $50,000. She was then selected by Australia’s national opera company, Opera Australia, and performed in some of the world’s most renowned operas for several years, including the roles of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro and Pamina in The Magic Flute. “It was a tremendous experience and I loved every minute of it,” recalls Partridge fondly. “It is inexplicably exhilarating and feels almost spiritual when you make a connection with the audience by communicating the thoughts and feelings of the character through the music.”
During that time, Partridge met and married her husband, whose work as the CEO of the American Refugee Committee requires him to travel all over the world. While this took her away from Opera Australia, it opened new opportunities, including performances with the Bangkok Opera in Thailand, a guest artist stint at a music school in Hong Kong, and sing at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, China.
Performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (Ode to Joy) and Brahm’s German Requiem in the Forbidden City still evokes strong emotion in Partridge as she reminisces about singing western music in a venue that had been sealed off to the public for centuries. “It was a wonderful honor to bring this beautiful music to the Chinese people,” says Partridge. But the most memorable part of her experience was singing the Ode to Joy with a group of disabled Chinese who had been learning this piece thanks to volunteers who worked with them. “The handicapped don’t have a good life in China,” Partridge says. “They typically have no joy or pleasure, but the [professional] performers could see how much this music resonated with them. By the end, we all had tears in our eyes.”
Her husband’s work eventually brought them to Minnesota, where she now teaches beginner and advanced voice students in genres from opera to musical theater to contemporary. One of those students, Maddy Bland, a senior at the Main Street School of Performing Arts in Hopkins, describes Partridge’s teaching ability as “incredible” and very different from other voice teachers with whom she has worked. “She really knows what she is talking about and works on techniques with me that are specific to my voice and range” Bland says. In fact, Bland’s Performing Art School teachers have commented on the noticeable improvement in the command and control of her vocal “instrument” since Bland started working with Partridge about 18 months ago.
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Interested in vocal lessons with an opera star? Contact Sandra Partridge at 763.951.2502 or via email or her website.
