FOUNDER
“When did we start singing? It seems like forever. Maybe it got started by people just mimicking birds. When we look back at history, singing has been a part of all times, all cultures, and who can say why? I suppose it’s something we have to do. We sing little babies to sleep. We do it to send people off to war. We do it in praise of God. It’s clearly so very important to us.
The rich tapestry of song weaves back through time and connects us somehow to the distant past. Our celebrations are all suffused with singing.
Singing as art has grown like wildflowers in all the byways of our hundreds of civilizations. What king hasn’t had a singer or singers? What religion hasn’t had singers? What school is without a song?
The more we’ve sung, the more kinds of songs have been cultivated by those who study them. It’s strange that something so omnipresent and powerful, something that moves us, comforts us, and lifts us up, can seem peripheral.
My vision for JTVA is to celebrate singing and singers. I want them to be encouraged to sing and to study singing and to keep at it. We need them for all the songs in our lives.”
Photo courtesy of Reenie Raschke
JTVA Founder and General Director James Toland has been a private voice teacher for the past thirty years, whose students have performed in major opera houses and on concert stages throughout the world. He has served in recent years as a master teacher for the prestigious San Francisco Girls Chorus, and has taught for the Piedmont Children's Chorus and Young Women's Choral Projects of San Francisco. Mr. Toland was director of the Pacific Masterworks Chorus (now renamed Chorus Eclectic) from 2014-2020. Now semi-retired from his university position, his focus is on continuing to teach both master classes and private students, as well as authoring a book about diction and its importance in vocal technique.
He has been a clinician for multiple choral groups such as: the Peninsula Women's Chorus, Cantare Con Vivo, the Young Women's Choral Projects of San Francisco, the choirs of Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota as well as the University of Tennessee. He led the chorus of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California for seven years. In addition, he has served as the vocal coach for the musical theater productions of the Diablo Theatre Company. He has been a frequent adjudicator for numerous voice competitions, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. In the early 2000s, he served on the board of directors of Festival Opera, as well as Livermore Opera. Prior to his work in the Bay Area, he spent more than a decade as the artistic director of the Eugene Opera, where his stage direction was featured in an NPR segment of "All Things Considered." Prior to that, he was the company manager of Texas Opera Theater, the touring arm of Houston Grand Opera.