Nick is an old friend of mine from high school whom all of us admired for his gifted ability with music. Whether it be instrumental or vocal, the range of his talent seemed to know no bounds and he went off to college to study music and then specifically, opera. I've been lucky enough to know Nick and to have worked with him on several occasions, academically and otherwise. We appeared together in high school in Funny Girl and Carousel (he was our Nick Arnstein & Billy Bigelow). I also worked on his incredibly amusing concept album - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the Musical; his final project for AP English. I would actually love to hear the latter, it's been eight years since I last gave it a spin. He also was one of the most accessible and gracious people I've ever known, with a considerable sense of humor and the most unique infectious laugh I think I've ever heard in my life. All around, a really great friend.
Anyway, he's just launched his updated website which introduces him for the first time as a countertenor. The countertenor is a male singer who can sing in the alto/mezzo-soprano range (some of the more flexible and rare venture up into soprano territory), either by use of a good falsetto or a ridiculous extension of the tenor range. He's trained at UNCG, the Manhattan School of Music and most recently at Hunter College. A lot of years, kids, a lot of years. I wish him all the best.
Nicholas Tamagna, Countertenor
Saturday, May 31, 2008
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He sang Billy Bigelow???
I heard him last week in the low alto role of Ulrica (in this production Ulrico) in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. The voice is extraordinary - even and without hoot throughout a brilliant range, enormous in size, and clearly alto. I congratulated him afterwards, and he was giddily charming, slightly knocked out by his own outrageous feat.
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