Ken Tamplin here, vocal coach for KenTamplinVocalAcademy.com

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Sorry for not responding to this earlier, I was out of the country and didn’t check comments here.

Yes, the comment about her name is, kind of, racist, pretty much by definition. But I don’t think overly so, or very surprisingly so in this context.
These cultural gut reaction are pretty common, even if entirely not PC, because at some level they’re still rooted in reality. Wrong many times on an individual level, but true in current statistics. In this case different kinds of music and entertainment originally came from different cultural groups and countries, and the correlation still exist today even if it’s not strong and happily keeps getting weaker.
It is a touchy subject, of course, but I don’t think it should be insulting.
I don’t feel I should be ashamed for admitting my first impressions, not very meaningful and based only on a name, went that way. Especially so considering that in this case the stereotype really was irrelevant, as I did write quite explicitly.

If I knew for a fact that several singers are offended by what I write, and what exactly offended them, I’d certainly either stop, or change how I write these things. I hope you understand that you writing that you know that for a fact isn’t quite good enough, since I don’t know who you are, what is your relation to the singers, and how exactly were these feeling of offence portrayed to you. You claim to be from the IVAI, but used a non-ivai email address that refers to the NYC part, and sent this message from a location in Israel. Which, if you are, means that you should be a part of the program’s staff that came now for this year’s program. I think it’s a bit too early for that, but I don’t know that for a fact. But I believe that anyone from the actual program’s staff, who came all the way here from NY for the program, would not have a problem identifying by name. Which you didn’t.
This doesn’t affect the merit of any of your claims, except for the part where you ask me to do things based on things that you claim to personally know. I can’t base anything on claims of facts without the actual facts, made by someone I don’t know at all. There’s no basis for trust in this. If you are from the IVAI and the program, then you obviously have spoken with many singers, and could know how they feel, even if you don’t provide the details. But if you’re not, then you make statements without basis to support your own personal opinion, which I have no real reason to value over my own.

What I do know is that none of the singers who read what I wrote here ever bothered to post a comment saying that they felt I offended them personally in what I wrote about them. From general experience offended people tend to complain. So if I offended “MANY” singers, where are they?
And I know that personally I don’t think there is any offence in what I intended to write, or what I did write, so unless someone can clearly articulate their problems then I simply can’t see it.

Saying that Israel is a small country isn’t relevant. A very large percentage of the singers come from abroad. It’s an international ‘market’ with international singers. Foreign singers perform here, and Israeli singers perform abroad. I don’t think a singer’s home country, or mine, is a consideration here.

I do agree that they’re all starting their careers, young, and usually inexperienced. I never stated otherwise. But I do state explicitly that the performances were done on a master-classes, and by young and still-training singers. And I state explicitly that these are my own personal impressions on how they performed on that specific occasion, with a song they, by definition and intentionally, haven’t yet completely mastered.
That does make it perfectly fine to point out some of the weaker points in their singing. These were the weaker points by my opinion, or the teacher’s opinion. And I believe I never, ever, “trash”ed any of the singers, and even when my overall impressions were not good I was still pretty mild. With most singers my overall impressions were good, and I wrote that, so mentioning the weaker aspects of a good performance can hardly be taken as “trash”ing anyone.

If you have any specific cases where you think I went overboard, was insulting, or implied things about a singer that should be offensive (Note: saying that a singer did not make a totally perfect performance on a master-class does not fall into any of that), please give me the details. If I have been hurting many singers, as you claim, I’m sure you can give some specific examples of things that you think were offensive, or that they did.
The problem isn’t that I don’t care about hurting the singers, it’s that I genuinely don’t think that I am, and don’t see how I do, or possibly can.

In addition, I would also like to say that although it’s wonderful to see how enthusiastic you are about the opera program, you are hurting MANY singers with the way you write about them. And I think, once again, that someone who is writing publicly must adopt a certain responsibility towards the people he is writing about. They are human, they are trying out things, some of them are very young and inexperienced, and your disclaimer in the first paragraph doesn’t make it OK to then go and trash them. This is a small country and things you write innocently can then be quoted by others who read them. The program’s goal is to provide a relatively safe environment for people to try out new things and to grow artistically. I know for a fact that singers read what you write, I know that they are offended by some of the things you write about them. That in itself should be enough for you to consider how your writing affects others. Thank you for your consideration