Miles Mykkanen
Lesson Feesfrom $35.00 / 30 Minutes
Promotions Available
About
**Please check back next fall for updated availability. I will teach a limited number of lessons until November 2021.
Hello, I'm Miles, a Sing! Collective instructor for Lessonface.
The Sing! Collective is a virtual collection of classically trained professional vocalists working together to bring you specialized training to meet your goals. Sing!'s instructors, masterclasses, group classes, and subscription packages are here to help you establish healthy and beautiful singing technique, develop confidence, and share your voice.
For more information about Sing! click here.
A winner of the 2019 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Miles Mykkanen has garnered recognition on the world’s concert and operatic stages for his “focused, full-voiced tenor” (The New York Times). Of his performance in the title role of Candide at Tanglewood, it was reported in Opera, “Mykkanen sang and spoke feelingly and superbly, with crystalline diction, a powerful lyric sound seemingly capable of infinite dynamic gradations.”
Miles has performed as a soloist with The Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Canadian Opera Company, Seattle Opera, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta de Lausanne, and Mostly Mozart Festival. Also passionate about chamber music, he's appeared with Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, New York Festival of Song, Vocal Arts DC, New World Symphony, and in recital at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. His repertoire ranges from Mozart, Britten, Tchaikovsky, Handel, contemporary music, Strauss, Gluck, Poulenc, and Stravinsky.
Mr. Mykkanen trained at Juilliard and received his Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, along with his Master's and Bachelor's degrees. He spent two summers studying German Lieder at the Franz Schubert Institut and three summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, where his performances spanned from art songs of Brahms and Britten to chamber music of Brett Dean and Jonathan Dove with distinguished guest artists Mitsuko Uchida, Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Lydia Brown, and many others. His frequent collaborators are Margo Garrett, Ken Noda, and Brian Zeger.
In addition to his credentials in the classical music world, he is versed in the musical theatre repertory. During the Leonard Bernstein centennial celebrations, Miles appeared as Tony in West Side Story with the New York Philharmonic and Caramoor Festival, and starred as the title character in Candide at Tanglewood, Ravinia, Opéra de Lausanne, Arizona Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Orlando Philharmonic, and Lithuanian National Opera. He has a close rapport with music directors Steven Blier, Andy Einhorn, and Rob Fisher.
Miles loves working in a breadth of repertoire and discovering how different genres can inform each other. His primary voice teacher is Cynthia Hoffmann and also works with Neil Shicoff. Miles studied the Alexander Technique with Lori Schiff for five years, and acting with Stephen Wadworth, Mary Birnbaum, and Eve Shapiro.
I believe healthy singing is a balance between Mind, Body, and Spirit. No matter the genre or repertoire, you can't give a beautiful and compelling performance without those three components constantly at play in your singing.
Mind: Musical details, finessed language, role study, musicianship, style, character's dramatic roadmap throughout a performance
Body: Efficient breath usage, anatomical knowledge of the vocal mechanism, posture, maintaining physical awareness
Spirit: Artistry, inspiration, balancing emotion with singing, opening your heart to the audience
These three areas create a singer's technique. In our lessons we will start with technical exercises to expand your vocal facilities, but then turn to musical examples to incorporate those exercises into the score. Developing breath support, raising physical awareness in your body, understanding how to form vowels and release consonants (legato singing), balancing emotions so they don't affect your sound, expanding your range, cultivating your own personality into your singing, and gaining confidence on stage will all be goals in our lessons. I believe bel canto ("beautiful singing") is the basis of good technique, and can be applied to every genre (opera, classical music, belting, musical theatre, etc).
The Juilliard School (Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, Master of Music, Bachelor of Music); Marlboro Music School (three summers); Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (Gerdine Young Artist and Gaddes Festival Artist); Franz Schubert Institut (two summers); Interlochen Arts Academy (graduate)
Grand Prize Winner of Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and recipient of awards from the Richard Tucker Foundation, Sullivan Foundation, Toulmin Foundation, and youngARTS.