BIOGRAPHY
Rachelle Jonck is a world-renowned vocal coach, expert in bel canto, and the founding director of Bel Canto Boot Camp.
In a career spanning three continents, Rachelle has worked with singers at many of the major opera houses in Europe, the U.S., and her native South Africa. In 2024, Rachelle embarked on an extensive European coaching tour, which included a master class at Guild Hall in London, a workshop in Berlin, and coachings with singers at Stuttgart Opera, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Stadttheater Bern and Dutch National Opera. This season, she is teaching at the Wiener Volksoper, the Lunenburg Academy for Music Performance in Nova Scotia (Canada), the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto (Canada), and the National Association of Teachers of Singing intern program, where she will be training young collaborative pianists. In the summer, she will coach at Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Artist program, conduct L’elisir d’amore for the Mediterranean Opera School and Festival in Sicily, lead Bel Canto Boot Camp’s first coaching retreat in Tuscany and be a guest speaker at the Association of Teachers of Singing conference at Covent Garden in London. She returns to South Africa in August for a recording project with North-West University in Potchefstroom, Vocal Vocabulary, where in collaboration with students, Bel Canto Boot Camp will translate the essential vocabulary of bel canto singing into the 12 official languages of South Africa.
Trained at the University of Stellenbosch, Rachelle quickly made a name for herself in South Africa, where she started as a rehearsal pianist and vocal coach at Cape Town Opera and taught at the Opera School of the University of Cape Town. She later served as Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor at the State Theater Opera in Pretoria, founded the State Theater Philharmonic Choir, and was awarded the Nederburg Opera Prize—South Africa’s highest opera award. In 1998, Rachelle moved to New York City as Head Vocal Coach and Assistant Conductor of Bel Canto at Caramoor with Will Crutchfield. Her work with the young artists of this company was featured in an article in Early Music America. She has since served on the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, Westminster Choir College and The Steans Institute at Ravinia, and given masterclasses at many of the country’s leading training programs, conservatories and universities.
In addition to her work as a coach, Rachelle performs regularly as both pianist and conductor. She has given recitals at the Caramoor Festival, Weill Recital Hall, and Opera America, and released an album, Gabriel Fauré: 30 Mélodies, with tenor Steven Tharp. Her conducting credits include Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Spier Festival in Stellenbosch; Così fan tutte, Pauline Viardot’s Cendrillon, and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle with Caramoor; Bizet’s Le docteur miracle at the 92nd Street Y with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s; Werther, Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, and Anna Bolena with Baltimore Concert Opera; and La gazza ladra from the fortepiano with Teatro Nuovo.
While Rachelle’s studio includes professionals whose careers take them to the greatest opera houses of the world, she is also dedicated to spreading the principles of bel canto to all. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she established Bel Canto Boot Camp with longtime collaborator Derrick Goff. BCBC’s signature course The Vaccai Project teaches the essential elements of bel canto singing, period notation practices, ornamentation, and classical Italian poetry and libretto form—all based on Vaccai’s Metodo di canto. It is available world-wide on Amazon. Now a non-profit organization, BCBC breaks the often prohibitive barriers of distance, cost, and time to train and empower singers and audiences alike by making online and in-person training available to all.