Vicky Mountain, voice instructor, believes people sing from the inside out, and looks at the physical act of singing more as a sport than an art. The sport is the vocal technique and the art is the interpretation of the music and poetry. The integration of the two makes for a complete and healthy performer.
Vicky, a former student herself at MacPhail, has been teaching at MacPhail since 1986. Though the majority of her students are adults, she enjoys working with students of all ages, appreciating the way her younger students keep her current on all styles of popular music. She ‘loves’ all styles of music and is open to teaching anything though her specialties are the popular styles of jazz, rock, musical theater, country, folk, gospel, R & B and blues. Vicky works with her students in helping them find their own personal healthy vocal technique. Together they develop goals for advancing musical, technical and performance skills. Some of Vicky’s students have gone on to compete in the Miss Minnesota Pageant, record and perform nationally, and have even made it to Hollywood Week on American Idol.
Vicky is a very versatile performer working in such venues as concert halls, clubs, jazz festivals, churches and on concert tours, including a big band tour in South America with the Lakewood jazz Ensemble, at Winnipeg’s Folklorama, the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, the Dakota Jazz Club and the Guthrie Theatre. She is a well respected vocalist and plays with some of the finest musicians in the Twin Cities. She has recorded 3 CDs of her own and works as a vocal producer in the recording studio for many of her students.
She attended the University of North Dakota, the University of Minnesota and continually updates her teaching and singing skills at workshops, vocal seminars and master classes around the country.
Vicky is also a founding member of The Jazz Vocalists of MN and has been a long time member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).
