About Karyn

I’ve been been teaching voice and acting for thirteen years, the last eleven of which have been from my private home studio, where I offer both online and in-studio lessons to teens and adults of various styles and skill levels, from beginner to professional. I’m very excited and honoured to be joining the Indian Hill Music faculty this year, as well!

As a voice teacher, I draw from a number of disciplines, methods, and resources - from the Alexander Technique to bel canto to speech-language pathology - to create a flexible and individualized approach that helps my students achieve their singing goals.

Between my website (singwise.com), YouTube channel (singwisevocals), and workshops, I have a well-established online presence internationally. I’m a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and am an adjudicator for the NATS student auditions.

I’ve been involved in contemporary worship leadership roles at various churches and festivals, and teach a cappella singing classes to tweens and teens. As a singer, I got my start back in elementary school, where I performed in several plays and talent shows, then founded a teen quartet that performed at my church and as guests at other local churches. Later, I performed in several musicals and non-musical plays with a regional theatre company and at York University in Toronto, where I earned an Honours double major B.A. degree in psychology and French Studies. I studied bel canto vocal technique privately with Mitch Seekins (a student of Edward Johnson at the time) for nearly nine years while performing my original rock music and pop covers with my former bands at coffee houses, festivals, and concerts. I later studied vocal technique under Daniel Formica.

“I believe that the human voice is capable of tremendous versatility and expressiveness. However, for many individuals, that creativity and spontaneity of expression seem foreign and unattainable. When aspiring singers struggle to make the kinds of sounds that they want to make, it’s not because they ‘weren’t born with natural talent,’ but because they simply haven’t yet learned how to play their vocal instruments skillfully and they lack trust that their voices are, in fact, capable. One of the most important parts of my job as a voice teacher is to help my students pinpoint and address the interferences (be they physiological, emotional, or mental) that are preventing their vocal instruments from coordinating effectively and consistently so that they can then build that trust and confidence that tend to result from improved skillfulness. I believe that only once the voice is functioning freely will it then be able to be used as an effective tool of expression and communication with which we can make beautiful music.”