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REVIEWS

For Durey Rediscovered

San Francisco Chronicle Joshua Kosman, July 2017

Pianist Jocelyn Dueck, who is evidently the Durey scholar behind the project, serves as the stylish accompanist for a first-rate quartet of singers that includes tenor William Burden and baritone Sidney Outlaw.

Music Web, International Rob Barnett, October 2017

It's good that pianist, professor, coach and music researcher Jocelyn Dueck has, in recent years, been at the forefront of Durey scholarship. She has now, through this art-song project, added invaluably to this composer's presence in the catalogue. Durey's family entrusted Dueck with this revival and with his vocal piano manuscripts of which she has a collection of sixteen cycles and stand-alone songs.

Music for Several Instruments Dean Frey, April 2017

I was completely bowled over. These songs are nearly all gems, with obvious beauties standing out right away, and others that reveal their fine qualities after a few listens. The musicians, led by pianist and Durey scholar Jocelyn Dueck, along with a team of very fine singers: baritones Jesse Blumberg and Sidney Outlaw, tenor William Burden and mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, make the best possible case for this enigmatic composer, who is perhaps to be valued much higher than he is presently.

For The Lay of the Love and Death

NY Times ArtsBeat Blog - Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, July 2015

Mr. Blumberg, a golden-toned baritone, and Ms. Dueck, an attentive pianist, bring effortless storytelling to the neo-Schubertian music, while Mr. Jacobsen adds reflective solo interludes.

 Opera News Joanne Sydney Lessner, November 2015

Baritone Jesse Blumberg imbues these songs with just the right balance of strength and fragility, while pianist Jocelyn Dueck tears ferociously into the piano parts.

 SFGate Joshua Kosman, July 2015

Some of Bielawa’s text-setting — the equestrian tone-painting of the opening “Riding,” or the turbulent song “Storm in the House” — brings Schubert right to mind, and the superbly sonorous performance by baritone Jesse Blumberg and pianist Jocelyn Dueck places it right in that tradition.

Jazz da Gama Raul da Gama, September 2015

The masterfully composed work is made all the more memorable by the interpretation and darkly powerful baritone of Jesse Blumberg who can evoke, without a hint of a wobble, exactly the kind of rhapsodic lyrical drama that Rilke’s epic and Ms. Bielawa’s monumental work demands. The exquisite pianism of Jocelyn Dueck and the violin of Colin Jacobsen further contribute to the rich solemnity of the piece. Strong characterisation and the full-bodied almost Germanic vocal score shape the melodic and miraculously beautiful ten-piece opus that Ms. Bielawa must be justifiably proud of. The impact on the marvellous score is guaranteed to strike at the heart of the listener as few pieces of music are likely to.

Reviews for Language Preparation

 French Diction

WashingtonClassical Review “Satiric Worlds Collide” Seth Arenstein, June 2019

Conor McDonald’s Merlin was downright hilarious, complete with a purposefully bad Canadian accent.

The New Yorker “The Indomitable Humanism of Darius Milhaud” Russell Platt, June 2017

“La Mère” is still a work lovingly overstuffed with music and words, but the singers’ coaching in the French text is exemplary, and the direction is viscerally dramatic throughout.

Milhaud’s La Mère Coupable, OnSite Opera

Voce di meche Meche Kroop, June 2017

… the French diction was quite good all around thanks to Jocelyn Dueck.

Milhaud’s La Mère Coupable, OnSite Opera

English Diction

Voce di meche Meche Kroop, April 2017
Petr Nekoranec, in his first year of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program is the possessor of exactly the type of tenor we most enjoy. It is a sweet sound but with a rich texture; moreover his English diction (thanks to English Instructor Patricia Brandt and coach Jocelyn Dueck) is exemplary and puts to shame that of native American speakers. 

Lindemann Young Artist Program, Met Opera

Voce di meche Meche Kroop, February 2015

Jocelyn Dueck merits special mention for getting each and every artist to enunciate each and every word clearly so that not a single word was missed, thereby overcoming our dislike of operas sung in English.  The dialogue, based on Le Viol de Lucrèce, a play by André Obey, has language that rivals that of Homer with some beautiful metaphors that deserved to be heard and savored. They were.

Rape of Lucretia, The Juilliard School 

Additional Reviews

New York Times, “A Score of Ways to Serenade a City” Allan Kozinn, January 2012 

The violinist Harumi Rhodes and the pianists Jocelyn Dueck and Thomas Bagwell were solid, colorful accompanists.

Five Boroughs Songbook Manhattan Premiere

Baruch Performing Arts Center

New Civil Rights Movement Scott Rose, April 2014

A critic might well reproach the out-of-condition piano used on this occasion for its production of bizarre buzzes and twangy twinges just where the critic least desired them. Bagwell and the evening's second pianist, Jocelyn Dueck, made a silk purse out of that sow's rear by navigating around the defective instrument's eccentricities with increasing aplomb throughout the Songbook.

Five Boroughs Songbook Brooklyn Premiere

Galapagos Art Space 

Night after Night Steve Smith, May 2007

If you missed this concert, you missed something far more personal and touching than your everyday lieder concert. Particularly in the Barber and Harbison selections, Bird proved herself a singer capable of not merely delivering the notes—although she certainly did—but also of getting under the skin of a piece, touching its inner passions and revealing them to a listener. It's going to be a thrill to revisit Hillula when she gets that deeply inside of it, and vice versa. Dueck was a sensitive, versatile accompanist, as well as a full partner in the drama Bird had constructed for her program.

I Have Some Light: Songs of Spirit

Gallerie Icosahedron, Tribeca

New York Times “Premiere Commission Holds Gala” Allan Kozinn March 2006

Ms. Bielawa's vocal line, sung with power and clarity by Jesse Blumberg, is essentially lyrical, but with a current of nervous energy suggested by the tragic text. Yet much of the action, and outright passion, is in the densely chromatic piano writing, played by Jocelyn Dueck, and in a series of violin interludes, or "Meditations," played from the balcony by Colin Jacobsen.

 Bielawa’s The Lay of the Love and Death - Alice Tully Hall

City Pages “Free Woman in Paris” Christy Desmith, September 2004 

Tucked into an inconspicuous corner of the stage, pianist and fellow France-lover Jocelyn Dueck is equally, albeit less extravagantly, adaptable: hard driving when Leap's character is seductive, whispering when she breaks, invisible when she sings most voraciously.

Ça C’est L’amour with Andrea Leap

Bryant-Lake Bowl, Minneapolis

TESTIMONIALS

Jocelyn was an amazing and charming coach for me when I was in NYC. She helped me a lot on my musical understanding, singing language skills and even the networks in NYC! I could not have applied successfully for my master study in the east coast school without her kindness and assistance!!

Jocelyn 是一位十分热心并且专业度极高的艺术指导。在去年的几个月的时间，Jocelyn通过指导我语音嘴型的发音和歌曲情感艺术的表达，让我的声乐提升了很大一步，并且在Jocelyn指导我的那几个月里，她积极帮助我找到适合我的声乐老师，让我在纽约的声乐圈里认识了许多之后帮助到我的老师！至今我都会运用Jocelyn告诉我的方法进行自我训练。Jocelyn绝对是一个会帮助学生，让学生自身能力提升很多的一位完美的艺术指导！

-Jinjin

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I had the greatest luck in meeting Jocelyn. She is not only a professional coach and teacher but also a loving mentor to me. She is the first teacher to open the door to studying classical voice in the United States. Jocelyn gave me ideas of how to manage my studies and prepare for auditions. Besides that, Jocelyn has always given me lots of support and love! Do not miss a chance to work with her!

- SH