Max Rydqvist

Background

About Max Rydqvist

To this very day the emotional echoes of my first classical concert experience resonate profoundly within me whenever I engage with my greatest passions and vocational endeavors. Despite my junior age of six at the time, I starkly recall the raw physical power and potent emotional radiance bestowed upon me by that unique collection of human voices. The occasion helped engender a lifelong fondness - both directly and indirectly - for music and particularly for vocal science. Resultantly, I have sung and performed ever since: from a professional boys choir in Europe, to private lessons and high school choirs as a teen, to opera chorus at the advent of college, to a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in vocal performance, and ultimately to my present status as a freelance professional musician in a metropolis. I currently retain years of performance experience in opera, art song, oratorio, chamber music, church services, cantillation, choral music, as well as some musical theatre, both within the U.S. and abroad. Moreover, I speak four languages (three fluently). I endeavor to draw upon my multifarious cultural experiences, amalgamating them into my art, to reach a greater array of audiences, enhance my own artistry and, as a pedagogue, to disseminate pertinent knowledge to fellow musicians and students. Moreover, my love for music, including its theory, its history, and its cultural merit, has recently spurned a passion for adding the piano to my expressional palette. I now revel in teaching elementary to intermediate piano lessons as well as music theory and music history. Although foremost a musician, I am a strong advocate for interdisciplinary work and, in my particular case, for the union of music and science for the betterment of both. My research and teaching engage with the study and application of voice science, vocal pedagogy, meditation, and the Alexander Technique. My work strives to fuse elements from each discipline. My teaching endeavors to bestow students with a holistic comprehension over their instruments, focusing not only on the vocal mechanism itself but also on the awareness, sharpness, and health of the mind and body as a comprehensive and essential supporting unit. I strongly believe that this marriage of musical and scientific understanding can benefit both individual singers as well as the broader fields of musical and interdisciplinary research moving forward into the twenty-first century. I am delighted and honored to contribute to this journey within the scope of my capability.