The Academy
Six weeks of immersion in the heart of the operatic profession — where learning is transmitted through practice, and where practice finds its meaning in front of an audience.
Learning in front of an audience, not just in front of a mirror.
The ICAV Academy welcomes a cohort of approximately fifty early-career opera artists each summer. Singers, conductors, vocal coaches, and collaborative pianists — four disciplines working together, in the same room, before the same mentors.
The pedagogy is rooted in professional practice. Each day alternates between masterclasses, individual coaching sessions, piano score reading, and stage and language workshops. The guidance is demanding; it is also warm — all of the mentors were, at one time, participants just like those they now support.
What sets ICAV apart is the inseparability of training and performance. The Academy is not a school that prepares students for a hypothetical concert: from the very first week, it is connected to the public season of the Concerts Lyriques. The repertoire studied in class is the same repertoire that will be performed on a Montreal stage just days later. The classroom opens, and the singing begins.
From Baroque repertoire to grand opera, from French mélodie to oratorio: the Academy does not train a particular voice type or style — it trains complete artists, capable of inhabiting a text, a language, a score, an audience.
The Concerts Lyriques share the same season, the same mentors, and the same summer schedule.
Singers
At the heart of the Academy: the voice, and the way in which it is constructed as an instrument and as a language.
- Soprano
- Mezzo-soprano
- Contralto
- Ténor
- Baryton
- Basse
- Contre-ténor
The singing fellows work on a repertoire chosen with their mentor at the beginning of the session — opera aria, art song, oratorio. The vocal work itself is inseparable from the dramatic, linguistic and stylistic work: one sings a text, in a language, in a period, for an audience.
Each intern benefits from individual sessions with a vocal coach, regular piano accompaniment, and stage workshops. The masterclasses bring the entire cohort together around a guest mentor — five to six interns work in public, in front of their colleagues. It is demanding; it is also the moment when the Academy becomes a community.
Conductors
A training where conducting is worked in front of singers, pianists and mentors — not just in front of a score.
The conductors admitted to the Academy are few — four to six per session. The practical conducting component is central: they conduct our singers and pianists on a daily basis, working on repertoire that will be performed in concert just a few days later. No simulation, no fictional ensemble: real work, under a mentor's eye.
The program combines score analysis, gesture, rehearsal technique, and ear training. At the end of the session, each conductor leads at least one public concert of the Concerts Lyriques. For many, it is their first — and the stepping stone toward their next professional engagements.
Vocal Coaches
A discipline often invisible from the audience, but crucial behind the scenes: advancing a voice, score by score.
The vocal coach is the singer's primary partner: they prepare the role, the text, the language, the diction and the style — hour after hour, score after score. At the Academy, coaches in training take charge of a small number of singer-trainees throughout the entire duration of the session.
The programme includes sessions supervised by mentor coaches active on the major operatic stages, language workshops (lyric Italian, German, French), and regular work on the standards of the repertoire. It is also an opportunity to build, from the very start of training, the professional network that will structure the career.
Accompanying pianists
Not just accompaniment: an active role, which suggests, supports, proposes, and keeps the musical ensemble in balance.
Accompanying pianists are at the heart of the Academy's daily practice: they play for singers in coaching sessions, for conductors in rehearsal, and for masterclasses. This intensive presence is itself a lesson: one learns opera by accompanying it, score after score.
The program covers sight-reading from an orchestral reduction, stylistic work on the major repertoires (recitative, lied, mélodie, aria), conducting a rehearsal, and public performance in recital. Several of our graduates are today répétiteurs in major opera houses.
The artists who direct and coach the Academy's graduating classes.
See the schedule of Opera Concerts
The Academy Fellows
Discover the operatic artists who make up the 2026 cohort of the ICAV Academy.