Luis Garcia
Staff details
Luis is a specialist in vocal pedagogy and is the Supervising Tutor in Singing Voice Technique.
Luis’ attention to the individuality of each voice has resulted in his students having been cast in most of the West End shows in London including; Wicked, Motown, Godspell, Phantom of the Opera, Six, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Hairspray, The Lion King, Shrek, Parade, Jesus Christ Superstar and many others.
He combines his multidisciplinary skills of performance, voice technique and teaching to deliver effective and clear goals in his work on voice with students. Each student’s voice is different and it is this cultural and physical diversity of muscularity and acoustic individuality that results in Luis’ bespoke attention to individual needs.
Luis is also convenor and teacher on repertoire assessment and has co-convened the Performance Praxis for the BA Musical Theatre course. He lectures on vocal health and the development of a healthy sustainable vocal resonance, Dramaturgy, Musical Theatre history and advanced voice technique.
Academic qualifications
- Mopera, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- MMusic, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- MBA, Strathclyde University
- BA (Hons), Guildhall Conservatoire of Music and Drama
Research interests
EdTech is a field that is of special interest to Luis and development of research towards completion of his PhD. As a member of Google Campus in London, Luis gained knowledge of some of the tools available and later volunteered to present on the implementation of computer literacy for people disenfranchised by technology.
His background includes training in AWS Cloud technology as well as more recently developing a partnership with Microsoft towards Microsoft Certified Educator and Microsoft Innovative Educator. He continues research on the intersection of education delivery and analysis with technology to contribute to continuous improvement and reflective practice.
As a founding member of the London Centre for Voice, which will be based within the Goldsmiths Voice Research Centre, Luis aims to encourage research into voice care and training. The proposed Centre will encourage the exploration of praxis across a range of gender identities and ethnicities– evolving voice pedagogy (examples such as Trans voices and the gender barriers of contemporary and classical musical theatre.)
Luis wishes these initiatives to inspire the next generation of musical compositions intersecting the demands of voice, gender, race and utilising the new technological mediums to bring this to a wider audience worldwide via the online platform in order to initiate workshops for producers and new writers for underrepresented performers of colour.
Recently, Luis has developed practice-led research involving in-depth pedagogy and coaching with industry professionals on Broadway as well as in most of London’s West End major shows including: Into the Woods (Regent’s Park), Wicked, Les Misérables, Six, Phantom of the Opera, Hamilton, Book of Mormon, The Lion King, Porgy and Bess, Motown, West Side Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Mary Poppins, Sunset Boulevard, Woman in White, Hairspray, Motown, Come from Away, Urinetown, Rent, Fiddler on the Roof, Avenue Q, Dear Evan Hansen.
Professional Experience
Luis is a successful and passionate performer wishing to focus that passion into helping others to succeed and to understand the voice better. As a guest instructor he has worked all over the world including; Canada, Hawaii, NYC, France, Switzerland, Germany and Japan. He has participated in masterclasses with Nelly Miricioiu, Philip Langridge, Ian Storey, Paul Kiesgan and Philip Langridge.
Beginning Autumn of 2005 he was accepted as one of only two students chosen worldwide and began working with the renowned performer and voice specialist Michael Rhodes. It was a privilege for Luis to work with one of the last grand masters in voice pedagogy who himself had performed and worked with many of the legends in classical music such as Luciano Pavarotti, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Weede and Jonas Kaufmann. It is from this Bel Canto lineage that Luis has developed his work in Musical theatre voice technique and crafting the healthy sustainable resonance in a modern perspective to arrive at his trademark Open Voice Technique.
Luis received international acclaim for his performance of Rodolfo (La Boheme) at the Spoletto festival in Italy, performed with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the direction of Guido Ajmone-Marsan and went on to perform over 25 roles all over the world.
Luis is the founder and artistic director of OnStageVoice (OSV). He created this online platform to help empower and drive forward young performers by providing access to masterclasses with internationally renowned West End and Broadway professionals. OSV also exists as a community where composers write new works.