Professor Jonathan Lemalu (ONZM), pictured with Erin Connelly-Whyte, the winner of the inaugural Honor McKellar award that will see her being mentored by Jonathan.
Keep doing something until it no longer makes you cry may sound like an unusual piece of advice, but for up-and-coming opera singer Erin Connelly-Whyte it makes perfect sense.
Erin, an Otago alumna and currently working at the School of Physiotherapy, is the inaugural winner of the Honor McKellar Memorial award, a prize created by and includes training by Dunedin-born, world-renowned opera singer Professor Jonathan Lemalu.
Honor McKellar was an Otago alumna and Otago’s first full-time executant Voice teacher who taught some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most renowned singers, including Jonathan, Patrick Power ONZM and Matt Landreth.
Honor died in 2024 and the Honor McKellar Memorial Scholarship was established to honour her.
Erin, who graduated with a BSc in Anatomy and a BMus in 2023, adding Honors to her BMus in 2024, is very grateful to be selected as the inaugural winner of the mentor award, she says.
“It’s a huge honour to be chosen by an international singer who is also working at the Royal College of Music in London and is ready to just invest his time into you.
“He’s really focusing on what I need to do to be able to have a professional career, so he’s going to be using all of his knowledge, networks and experience.”
Networking is important because if you don’t have the networks, you won’t get the gigs, she says.
“Having this access is going to hopefully get my name out there more.”
The mentorship will be tailored to meet Erin’s needs and could include coaching and mentoring sessions, assistance with putting together an audition package for overseas programmes and work, help refining her repertoire and stagecraft, as well as work to improve her performance skills and vocal techniques.
“We're only just at the very start of it because there's no expiry date, which is great. And he's wanting to get to know my voice a lot better.”
She also hopes the mentorship will teach her how to manage her career as a full-time opera singer, as there are a lot of things people don’t consider, such as the administrative side, like how to pay tax in a foreign country.
Erin is in the midst of studying the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, a character whose story is devastating.
Which is where the crying comes in.
“It’s very emotional music and text and I find I’m probably crying too much. Part of the character’s story arc involves Suor Angelica losing her child and wanting to be with him in heaven. I’ve been told to ‘Keep singing it until you don’t cry anymore’, and then you can perform it.”
Some performers put more focus on their singing technique than on emotion while performing, and vice versa, she says.
“It just depends on how much you’re willing to sacrifice for the other, and can you portray it to the audience without feeling it too much that you look like an emotional wreck on stage.”
Erin performing as Cathleen, a character from Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea.
Erin enjoys embodying various characters and performing in front of an audience, saying it’s “quite a thrill, a rush”.
“And then just getting the applause, and everyone’s just got these big, smiling faces.
“I walk off stage going ‘I did it!.’”
She loves the emotions and feelings composers are able to invoke via the music of opera.
“You know when you’re going to be sad, to be happy, when you’re going to feel anger or when you’re desperate, when there’s desire or love there – you can hear it. You can then feel it in your body.
“I just get chills every time.”
Erin, originally from Ashburton, started singing when she was around five, and also took part in school choirs and musicals, but didn’t really take it seriously until she was 16, when she began voice lessons.
“I went on to do Trinity College London singing exams. I got my Grade 8 with Distinction, which was the highest mark in the district that year.”
She began her study at Otago in 2019, intent on getting into Dentistry but quickly realised “something was missing” and that she needed music in her life. She auditioned for one of the Music papers, thinking it would be something she could do for fun.
She was taking her first singing lessons with Dr Anna Leese when she saw an anatomical model of a human sinus. That moment helped her see that music and anatomy were complementary to each other.
“That just made me go wow. Breathing is the foundation of singing, you can’t sing without breath, as airflow passes through the vocal cords and creates sound. The pharynx then helps to produce the resonant sound needed to project over a full orchestra in a large theatre.”
Erin soon found herself studying towards a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy, which she graduated with in 2023. She added Honours to her Music degree in 2024.
“I sing a variety of genres but I’m mainly focused on classical now.”
Erin took up her role at the School of Physiotherapy over a year ago.
“I really enjoy it. It’s helped me see the staff side of the University… see the background work that goes into creating the student experience.
“It’s a great place to work.”
Erin was presented with the award in May.
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