Vocal Focal: Exploring your Vocal Registers

Singaporean Soprano, vocal coach and arts educator Rachel Lim is well-versed in a variety of styles, expressing her versatility through performing classical, pop, jazz, R&B and musical theatre. She is also the founder and director of Singapore-based vocal teaching school, VOCA Academy and Adjunct Faculty lecturer in the Voice Department at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore (NUS).

Lim graduated with a Bachelor of Music with Honours (Distinction) degree in Vocal Performance from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, NUS. She received a double Masters in Vocal Pedagogy and Music Education (Autism Concentration) at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, USA. She is honoured to be a recipient of the National Arts Council Postgraduate Scholarship 2018 and grateful to receive generous support from the Trailblazer Foundation and Tan Kah Kee Foundation as one of the inaugural Li Siong Tay Scholarship awardees.

In her work as a vocal coach, Lim believes that each individual has a creative voice that can be used for self-expression and connection with others. Her goal is to help her students discover and find that voice in song through an awareness of the body and how it moves and functions with regards to singing. She believes that healthy singing comes from a combination of having a flexible voice and full-body engagement, which allows for greater freedom and expression. In her teaching, she also emphasises the importance of being a versatile singer and encourages her students to explore singing different styles and repertoire through cross-genre training. She also frequently conducts voice discovery workshops around Singapore to encourage a higher standard of effective voice production and singing.