Robert Blake

Robert Blake is a classically trained singer and actor. Growing up in the Southeast, he was active in a variety of musical styles from gospel to classical and many between. He studied theatre for a while at the North Carolina School of the Arts and received vocal training at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Robert was active as a professional singer and teacher in the music community of Brazil from 2002-2008. Prior to Brazil, he spent several years in Germany singing opera and musical theatre, in Seattle singing and writing rock and roll and country, in South Florida writing songs and singing the blues, and in North Carolina directing young singers in a variety of performance pieces. He's acted as frontman for several bands ranging from Southern rock to blues-based folk to American rock 'n' roll. He has sung on recordings and performed with members of the band Zeke, the Boss Martians, Black Finger, Soundproof and has appeared in concert and as a soloist on several recordings with the Symphonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais. Robert moved back to San Francisco in 2008 and is involved with several opera companies in the Bay Area while still pursuing his passion for teaching, songwriting, singing and recording.

The core of Robert's studies and teaching deals with the process of presenting oneself wholly from a place of minimum effort, and finding the unique voice within the individual regardless of the genre of music. While Robert has been singing opera professionally since 1996, he believes that branching out to different styles of music is essential to the developing of an artist. Here is his personal statement:

"As a singer, teacher and performer I have been searching for a simple method that can be translated to any style of singing; techniques based in breath awareness and direct delivery where the words lead the pitch and not the contrary. Years of training in theatre has brought me to believe that unless there is communication, there is no music. So we begin with what it is we are attempting to express, from where it is said, and how to sustain it.

"Whether you want to sing rock, soul, the blues, jazz or opera, posture, relaxation and coordination are essential, and above all things an openness to learn a new dialogue encompassing music as a language with many dialects."