My calling is to awaken singers to the empowerment they can gain by firmly anchoring their singing in the words and therefore reaping the benefits of easing
so-called “vocal problems”. . . I wish to guide them on the path to capturing the full spectrum of the poetic, emotional, and intellectual contents of the text by opening up to it with objectiveness, curiosity and an unbiased fresh glance.

By restoring the cult of the text to former levels of respect and dedication, it is possible to achieve higher levels of intensity and avoid the frequent criticism of superficiality and lack of coloring in the voice.

Palma Toscani, a native of France, started her vocal studies at the Rennes and Bordeaux conservatories and continued them in Paris, where she received a number of certificates in concert and operatic singing from the Union Nationale des Maîtres du Chant de France while pursuing advanced studies in languages and literatures at the Sorbonne. She went on to win several first prizes in Paris vocal competitions and made her operatic debut as Nedda in “I Pagliacci” at the Calais Opera in 1964. By that time she had also earned an “Agrégation” (Ph.D.) in romance languages from the Sorbonne. Soon after, she came to the United States and acquired additional training at Temple University and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

As a winner of the Concert Artists Guild competition, she gave her debut recital at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1968. This was followed by many recitals, chamber music concerts, and radio and television appearances in the United States and Europe. Palma Toscani has been praised as a singer of “uncommon interpretive class” (La Nazione, Florence), whose performances are “always marked by intelligence and musicality” (Le Nouveau Journal, Paris) and whose singing “always captured the correct mood and atmosphere” (New York Times). In New York she has performed at Carnegie Recital Hall, Town Hall, Merkin Hall, Kaufmann Concert Hall, the National Arts Club, the Maison Française of Columbia University, Hunter College, Federal Hall, the Roosevelt House, the Bruno Walter Auditorium, the Italian and Spanish Cultural Institutes, and was a guest on the Bob Sherman Show, WQXR, and on Radio France. She has also been featured in a play in the original Italian language in off-off Broadway performances.

Her album of three song cycles by Debussy, released by Musical Heritage Society, earned her the following comment in the NATS bulletin, April 1983: “Vocal colors are used excellently. It is a fine work for students to hear simply because the diction is excellent, and the style, flowing as it does from the pronunciation of the words, is authentic.”

For several years Palma Toscani taught the French and Spanish languages and literatures at the University of Pennsylvania and at Brooklyn College. She was the instructor in French for Singers at the Manhattan School of Music between 1985 and 2001 and at Mannes College of Music between 1990 and 2000. At the Manhattan School of Music, she has also been the diction and interpretation coach in opera productions such as Massenet’s “Chérubin” starring Susan Graham and Gluck’s “Iphigénie en Tauride” starring Pamela Armstrong. In the fall of 1998 she coached Ravel’s “L’enfant et les sortilèges” for the Minnesota Orchestra. She has been called upon to teach Italian diction at the Yale University Graduate School of Music. Her teaching credits also include master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory and the National Conservatory Luigi Cherubini in Florence, Italy. In her New York studio as well as in Paris and in Italy she conducts two types of workshops and private sessions: those for non–singers on all aspects of the spoken voice and those dedicated to diction and interpretation in classical singing, with emphasis on the literary and dramatic preparation of recital and opera repertoire through in-depth analysis and expressive recitation of the texts as a natural and direct path to the stylistically authentic and personalized performance of vocal music.