Résumés, biographies and audition repertoire lists are the print materials most commonly requested at auditions and for Young Artist Program application submissions. Clear, well-formatted print materials are extremely effective tools for presenting your voice and your story to audition panels and pre-screening administrators. By contrast, a poorly organized bio or résumé can be very confusing and frustrating to read; not only do they make you look unprofessional, they may also make it look as though you have something to hide.
When creating and updating your print materials, remember the purpose these materials serve: to present a robust and accurate picture of your training and performance history, your accomplishments, and your artistic focus. List items in a clear chronological order so that the reader understands where you’re coming from and how things are now developing for you. List not only what you have done, but also when and where. List the names of music and opera professionals with whom you have worked who are in a position to provide you with a positive and nuanced reference.
Keep things as simple and factual as possible, especially where your résumé is concerned. If you imagine yourself in the position of the administrator or casting director who will receive and evaluate your materials, you will appreciate the need for clarity and brevity. They do not have a great deal of time to spend on every bio or résumé that passes through their hands and must scan each quickly for relevant information. While it’s only natural for you to want people to be excited by your accomplishments, do not exaggerate or distort information on your résumé to make it appear more impressive or clutter up your bio with superlatives.
Résumés
Your singing résumé should be a single page in length and should include:
- Your name and contact information.
- Your Fach. Keep it simple, i.e. “Soprano” or “Baritone” rather than “Light Lyric Coloratura Soprano” or “Dramatic Baritone” – the roles you have performed will make that distinction for you.
- Performance experience, including company/location and year.
- Awards and competitions.
- Education and training.
- Teachers, coaches, conductors and directors with whom you have worked.
- Relevant special skills.
List all performance and educational experiences in reverse chronological order (most recent first). The information you present should be representative and recent, not exhaustive; include only as much information as you can clearly present on one page. Format all material with clean columns and tabs. Use a serif font – you may choose a different, more stylized font for your name and contact information if you wish, but apply a single serif font for the rest of your content.
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Mezzo-soprano Cindy Sadler is dedicated to helping singers take ownership of their talent and leadership of their careers. Cindy provides advice and mentoring on the business of singing through a monthly Classical Singer column “Ask Erda,” her Business of Singing seminars and in private consultations. What categories of information belong on a singer’s résumé? In what order should they appear? This isn’t a simple question! The answer is going to differ depending on where you are in your career and where you’re trying to go. But some things are universal. The first thing to ask yourself when writing a résumé is, “What kind of work am I trying to get?” Your résumé should be tailored to that – list the experience which is most relevant to that work first. The second question is, “What experience do I have?” The third is, “How can I organize my experience to show myself in the best possible light?” Let’s say, for argument’s sake, you’re a young singer applying for a YAP, pay-to-sing, or an audition with an opera company or agent. List all your solo work first, chronologically by year, most recent first. Your first category should be OPERA. This is a list of all the full roles you’ve done. You can include anything upcoming at the top of the list, in bold. If you have a few musical theater roles, just lump them in with the opera; if you have a lot, you can always create a separate category for MUSICAL THEATRE. Next, if (and only if) you have room on your résumé, you can list OPERA EXCERPTS. (I hate the term “partial role” – it seems self-aggrandizing. We all know that means you did a scene). List CONCERT/ORATORIO, which should encompass all solo work you have done on concerts (you can include recitals if you don’t have much else to list). As a young artist, it’s fine to list chorus work on your résumé, especially if it was opera and you don’t have a lot else to list. But make sure you list CHORUS after all other solo work. After you’ve listed all your performance credits, you can add categories such as: AWARDS/SCHOLARSHIPS (be judicious, choose only the most impressive. There’s no need to list every honorable mention you ever got). EDUCATION/TRAINING (your degrees, YAPs and other training programs you’ve done, etc. Please don’t list master classes. Singing once for someone for 20 minutes is not a credit. If you did a semester-long workshop, that’s a different story). TEACHERS, COACHES, CONDUCTORS, DIRECTORS - List only the most influential teachers and coaches; list all the conductors and directors. Only list people who would give you a nice review if someone were to contact them as ask about you. Also, don’t list a conductor unless you worked with them as a soloist (unless your whole résumé is for choral work). If you still have room on the résumé, you can list things like LANGUAGES and SPECIAL SKILLS, but these are pretty much “filler” categories that should exit your résumé as soon as you have more performance credits to fill up all the white space! Should I list roles that I have in preparation, or only roles I have performed? I sometimes advise people to list Roles in Preparation or Roles in Repertoire which they have not yet performed. It depends on the circumstances. No one is going to look at these and think of it as a credit, but it can show what you are working on and can be useful for reflecting a Fach change or a return to singing after time off. The rule of thumb is don’t list them if you don’t have to (you can always have a repertoire list on your website with ALL the roles you feel qualified to sing, whether you’ve had the pleasure or not). Also, if you’re going to list Roles in Preparation, list no more than three. I don’t believe you’re actively working in more than 3 roles at a time, learning all the recitatives and ensembles. Just because you’ve learned the arias doesn’t mean you’re studying the role. Should I list the teachers I have studied with? Yes, but you only need to list the most influential and then only if they would say nice things about you if someone were to call them and ask.
Should I list the dates of my performances? I am squarely in the “list dates” camp. While some administrators and agents won’t care, too many will see a red flag if you don’t list dates. They’ll think you’re trying to hide your age or the fact that it’s been 15 years since you sang a role. It’s better to deal with any issues up front. While we’re talking about dates – please DON’T list “May 2013” or “Fall 2011”. The year is plenty of information; the rest is just clutter. What if I don’t have much performance experience yet? Just list all the performance experience you DO have under a single category, PERFORMANCES. Don’t worry about a thin résumé – just make sure you apply for opportunities that are appropriate for your level of experience and you’ll be fine. What if there is a gap in my performance history? Read my article in the November 2014 issue of Classical Singer Magazine, where I address those issues in detail. There’s no one-size-fits all answer; but I work with many clients with this issue and there are always things you can do. |
Biography
Your biography can be of any length so long as you organize information with the same inverse pyramid style recommended for press releases. Front-load all of the most important details you want the reader to know about you in the first few sentences, then flesh out those details in subsequent paragraphs beginning with the ones most relevant to the organization receiving your bio and ending with the most incidental.
Your résumé must stick to the facts, but your biography tells your story in narrative form. It is up to you whether you would like to present a crisp, factual approach or use more poetic language to describe your voice, artistry and accomplishments. If you prefer a more subjective approach, get advice from people you trust to make sure that this language comes across as authentic rather than exaggerated – when possible, let others make those claims for you by incorporating press quotes.
Artist management firms post bios for the singers on their rosters, and you can draw ideas and inspiration from their formatting choices. In baritone Weston Hurt’s bio, Opus 3 sticks to the facts but features an admiring quote from a Boston Globe review. |
 
Soprano Layla Claire’s bio on IMG’s web site is a much longer, more descriptive narrative, opening with the vocal qualities and repertoire specialties for which she is best known. |
In crafting your bio, be specific and sparing with superlatives. Layla’s bio can accurately include the claim that she “has been celebrated as a unique artist with a voice of special color and expressivity” because it is supported by the quote from Musical Toronto stating that “Her ample, clear, flexible soprano has power as well as grace, with a tone coated in addictive, sweet carmel.” Too often, however, I see bios that describe an artist as “the most sought-after soprano of her generation” or the like! Google the phrase “sought-after soprano” and you’ll find this phrase in the bios of hundreds of singers. Who is seeking after all these sopranos, and who is keeping tabs so that we can calculate who is the most sought-after one? Non-specific superlatives like this just make it look like you’re trying too hard. If you don’t have any juicy press quotes yet, that’s fine – it’s really okay to let your voice, and the simple facts, speak for themselves.
Repertoire List
It is both useful and courteous to provide your audition panel with a printed list of the repertoire you are prepared to offer. Even though they will hear at most only two or three of your aria selections, the list provides them with an informative snapshot of what you sing best right now. It relieves you of the responsibility to recite a list of arias and the operas from which they are excerpted in several different languages, and it absolves the panel from having to remember what you said.
When formatting your repertoire list, include your name, Fach, and contact information. List not only your arias but also the operas they are from and the composer’s name. Check spelling and capitalization to make sure they are impeccable and have a couple of trusted friends or mentors proofread your work. Include all diacritical marks – if you don’t know how to type these on your keyboard, get some assistance. Learn and apply the capitalization rules for titles of operas in all languages represented:
- In Italian and French, only the first letter of the title and proper names should be capitalized;
- In German, only the first word and all nouns should be capitalized;
- In English, the first word and then all words except articles, conjugations and prepositions are capitalized.
While you’re at it, make sure that you have been meticulous with your spelling, diacritical marks and capitalization in your résumé and bio as well!
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As an Artist Manager with IMG Artists, Sam Snook frequently reviews print materials submitted by singers; he also works with the singers on his roster to make their materials as clear, effective and attractive as possible. Here is his advice for creating and formatting professional quality résumés, bios, and repertoire lists. Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to field many résumés, biographies and repertoire lists from singers. As an artist manager, I also have the responsibility of writing and updating biographies for my artists, helping tweak résumés, and advising on audition repertoire. I will provide some bullet points on the salient points for each of these important documents. Résumé
Biography
Repertoire List
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