Q & A with Fountain School of Performing Arts 2024 graduate Samantha Fullerton
Samantha in DalOpera's double bill 2023 production Mese Mariano by Umberto Giordano and La chanson de Fortunio by Jacques Offenbach. (photo Kate Hayter)
After four years of intensive study at Dalhousie’s Fountain School of Performing Arts, Samantha Fullerton is receiving her Bachelor of Music, with a concentration in Vocal Performance.
She’s wanted to become an opera singer since she was 13.
Tell us a bit about yourself and life before you started Dalhousie.
I've been taking singing lessons since I was nine years old, but I've only been focused on classical singing, and more specifically opera, since I was in 9th grade. It was something I could see myself doing as a career.
What led you to your major here at the Fountain School?
For me, it was a natural progression – the Performance stream is more geared towards students intending to pursue classical music, with additional opportunities such as recitals and other performances.
What's a favorite memory from your time here?
The opera has been a super intensive procedure every single year, and I've had a blast with it – It was a lot of work but was 100% worth it. The performance of it is the fun part, but even the long nights leading up to it, the training, learning the music, and the staging were amazing. We were also able to collaborate with students in other programs at the Fountain School, like set design and costume studies.
What do you think is unique about the Fountain School?
Dalhousie is one of the few programs that has undergraduate opera opportunities – that was one of the big draws I had to the program. I found that, particularly this past year, it gave incredible insight and experience into what an operatic career is like.
What was your favorite class or faculty and why?
I took a lot of interesting classes throughout my degree - I loved the technical classes, like Intro to Composition and Tonal Counterpoint. This year I did orchestration, which is an extremely difficult but very rewarding course. I was also fortunate to take several classes with Dr. Estelle Joubert in Music History and Musicology, which are both subjects I’ve taken an interest in.
What practical skills do you think the program has armed you with to head into your masters?
I had to get really good at time management last semester. I was taking the maximum number of credit hours and then also doing the opera which is basically from end of October to early December. We worked pretty much every single weeknight until 10:00pm and then all day on Saturdays. Doing all my class work on top of that, I became extremely good at managing my time.
What's been the most rewarding part of your time here?
At the end of every school year, I would go back home to Fredericton and do my local music festival - last year, I was fortunate enough to go on to the Provincial and National festival – and each year I've heard from other music teachers and collaborative pianists how much they hear my improvement, how much my sound has changed, and how much my dramatic interpretation has flourished. That’s the most rewarding part.
What’s next?
I'm going to be attending the COSA Canada Summer Vocal Intensive in New Brunswick for a week, and then the Orford Summer Music Academy in Quebec. After that, I'm moving out to British Columbia to start my master’s at the University of Victoria in the Fall. I've never been further out West than Toronto, so it's going to be a dramatic change for me.
What does graduating mean to you?
It’s a big deal for me - I graduated from high school right in the middle of the COVID lockdown, so I didn't really get a real graduation. I worked hard for this degree, so I'm really proud of myself and how well I’ve done.