Tribute to José van Dam

I had a pleasure to be part of a group of first alumni of Chapelle in 2004 and had attended numerous lessons of José Van Dam with a fellow colleague, a baritone who was a student of Maestro. José Van Dam was a man of great wit and wisdom, paying great attention to relation between poetry and music. Lessons with him were always a pure pleasure and, even being a pianist myself, had strongly shaped my views on how to phrase and how to pay attention to the expressiveness of sound. He will be surely missed.