You’re here because you want to be the best singer you can be.
You’re here because you want to find the perfect songs to show off your own unique voice.
You’re here because you want a teacher you trust to make singing the fun, holistic, easy experience our bodies know it can be.
Our sessions will be tailor-made to your individual needs, but you can expect to study singing as an extension of speech, techniques to use your whole body in your singing practice, and exercises that you can apply to whatever style of music you like.
HOW DID I GET HERE?
I still sit on my Grandmother Ruth’s piano bench -
I can’t help it, I’m a Cancerian.
For my entire life, no matter what else has been happening, music has been a constant presence of joy, calm, play, and growth. Recordings of Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Leontyne Price, and Maria Callas were my earliest teachers, showing me how music can touch our hearts and change our lives.
While I perform as a pianist and musical director, I’ll never give a piano lesson because that process began at such an early age that I cannot recall not knowing how to play. However, I distinctly remember thinking:
“I love singing, but I wish I understood it more so I could do it more freely and sing all of the music I love listening to and accompanying.”
This thought followed me throughout my life - from playing piano for my elementary school choir (Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time,” obviously) and savoring every word of instruction the choral directors offered.
It followed me through nine years at Interlochen Arts Camp, where to this day, there is still a practice cabin that says “Doug Peck Voice Studio 1997.”
It followed me to Northwestern University, where, despite being an English major, I spent every waking moment working on theatre, playing for acting classes, and accompanying voice lessons. Playing for these master teachers and huge talents, I got twenty-five voice lessons a week, and began to see the pluses and minuses of the more traditional ways of teaching.
My peers and classmates began asking me to accompany them and, in time, to coach and teach them.
After graduation, I found myself welcomed into the incredible Chicago musical theatre scene, and my artistic heroes quickly became my directing partners. We tackled the classics, new work, and regional premières, taking text and music and movement seriously, and always aiming to deliver fresh, visceral moments of truth and beauty to our audiences. The legendary late Hollis Resnik asked me to play piano for her outside of the theatre, and a true love for cabaret and concert work began. I loved the direct partnership between singer and musician, the allowance to craft musical stories without the framing of context or narrative.
More and more, the singers I worked with asked for my opinion on their performances, their style, and eventually, their vocal technique.
“I love singing, but I wish I understood it more so I could do it more freely and sing all of the music I love listening to and accompanying.”
The thought had returned. It led me to deepen my studies as a singing teacher when I relocated to Los Angeles.
When I bought a ticket to Meredith Monk’s opera Atlas, I didn’t expect my life to change.
In the program, I noticed that Ms. Monk employs a vocal consultant named Jeannette LoVetri. I instantly knew that I needed to meet Ms. LoVetri and learn from her.
Over her fifty-plus year career, Ms. LoVetri - Jeanie, as she’s known by her colleagues - has worked with singers of every genre imaginable and synthesized her learnings into Somatic Voicework™.
The modern world pulls us so far out of our Soma (our Body), and this approach to singing welcomes us home to ourselves in simple sound and movement exercises. I worked through all three levels of Jeanie’s training, and she invited me into her Faculty Development Program to continue pedagogical studies with her. She then promoted me to her Associate Faculty, and we are currently partners in long-overdue scientific studies on singers who use amplification.
During the pandemic, I pursued deeper studies in the field of Vocology from the legendary Dr. Ingo Titze (the pioneer of straw phonation) and his faculty at the National Center for Voice and Speech.
The part of me that always said “I love singing, but I wish I understood it more so I could do it more freely and sing all of the music I love listening to and accompanying” was becoming so satisfied, and I noticed that all the humans who trusted me with their singing training were sounding better and better and enjoying the process more and more.
No matter who walks through the door and what they want to accomplish, I know we will have a rich, joyful experience together, honoring our bodies and the music.
As I keep my performer chops up as a pianist and musical director in venues like the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and support my clients in performances from the Oscars to the Grammys to Wembley Stadium, I feel so blessed to experience the joy of these partnerships every day in my private studio - now in Los Angeles AND New York!
Ready to get started?