VAIKE KIIK-SALUPERE, JAAN ROSS. Voice Teachers’ Strategies to Cope with the Performance Situation 55 Performance anxiety VOICE TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES TO COPE WITH THE PERFORMANCE SITUATION VAIKE KIIK-SALUPERE Department of Music, Institute of Fine Arts & Department of Educational Sciences, Tallinn University, Estonia vaike@cens.ioc.ee - www.tlu.ee/muusika JAAN ROSS Department of Musicology, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Estonia jaan.ross@gmail.com ABSTRACT Nowadays, increasing competition among musicians means additional requirements in terms of preparing professional classical musicians, including singers. In addition to stable and high-level technical skills, the majority of vocalists need to cope with the performance anxiety and competitive environment, which has become an integral part of artistic life. The purpose of this study is to learn how professional classical singers and voice teachers cope with the performance situation. What kind of features would be beneficial for singers and what are the most common disturbing factors for a classical singer. We are interested in how singers maintain well-being and mental balance needed for a successful performance as well as in which pre-performance activities they find the most efficient and which ones suggested to their students. Semi-structured interviews with the average duration of two hours were conducted with 12 professional classical singers and vocal pedagogues from the Estonian national music institutions. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and subjected to analysis with the qualitative data processing software NVivo 9. The results show that the most important requirements for a classical singer are related to the singer’s voice, personality, physical and mental health, and intellectual and artistic skills. All vocalists had developed a day routine for coping with problems related to the performance anxiety and all had their own strategies to ensure the physical and mental balance. The most commonly taught to students with breathing exercises. The voice teachers admitted, however, that despite of the majority of their students experiencing problems with performance anxiety, those problems were rarely addressed in a focussed manner during the course of training. The voice teachers stressed the importance to be