Hockley resident, and internationally renowned tenor, Mark DuBois. Hockley resident, but internationally renowned tenor, Mark DuBois teaches promising young singers in the antique rural United Church in Hockley Village.

Years ago, he tutored singers but it was an occupation he had ignored for many years until a production at Theatre Orangeville, with the Young Theatre Group, of Les Miserables in 2003 brought him back to teaching.

Unofficially at that time, DuBois coached the male

leads to help produce arguably the finest musical show ever staged with the young people at the Opera House. Whether he anticipated it nor not, the singing youth beat a trail to DuBois to learn more — and more. Somewhere within himself and within his busy life, DuBois has found the time to accommodate a long list of students who are sufficiently dedicated to their own musical lives.

DuBois now auditions about 10 prospective students a year, of whom he takes on two or three.

“I look for their other involvement in the theatre,” he said, “whether they’re studying a musical instrument or drama or dance. I don’t have a single student who isn’t doing two other nights a week with some lesson or another — in theatre studies. In Canada, you need to do everything — sing, dance, and act.”

There are other, more subtle criteria the observant teacher notices about his students. “If they look at the clock during the lesson — I could never have enough of my lessons; some students actually live with their teachers — their mentors — to learn all they possibly can.”

Also, he notes the relationship between the parents of the student and the lessons: who wants these

lessons more — the parents or the student? He is not interested in teaching those young people whose parents are more concerned that they study with him than they are.

Demanding criteria meant to initiate real achievement. All art is discipline, whether as a life’s journey or as life’s favourite hobby. At this moment in each of their lives, singing and the theatre counts for a great deal to each of DuBois’ students and he extends himself to see to it that they all have as much information as they need to decide on the role that music will play in their future lives.

“I invite them into my life with the concerts we do. They get to understand the kind of tension involved in a concert. And then, once we’re there, I might change my mind on the stage and they have to adapt.”

This year, DuBois and his students have performed for several fundraisers: at the Markham Theatre for Canadian Literacy, Evergreen Hospice, My Sister’s Place in Alliston, Relessey Church

in Mono, Orangeville Heritage Fund, Oshawa General Hospital, Canadian Friends of Herzog, and Faith Community at the Wesleyan Church in Highway 10. To wind up the year, they are participating in the Hockley United Church Candlelight Service this Saturday, Dec. 23, and the First Night celebrations in Orangeville at the Opera House.

Last year, among many other concerts, they sang for the Tsunami Relief fund in Orangeville and, in Barrie, with the Georgian Bay Symphony at Christmas.

I caught up with DuBois and some of his students at the Wesleyan Church last weekend to chat with them and see their performance. They congregated in a small room off the dining room where the tables had been set for a lunch to follow their concert.

They were crowded in but happy to warm up with each other and catch up on their gossip. Of the ten of them, there was only one young man, although DuBois has more male students on his roister.

This one is David, who has been studying with DuBois for two years and is just now reaching that tender stage of his first voice change. When he started singing with DuBois, music was a hobby. Now he takes it more seriously and has begun to think in terms of its being his career.

Of the rest, two had only begun to study with DuBois since the summer, while some others were old-timers now in their third or fourth year with him. One of these, six-foot-tall Katelyn “couldn’t live without the music — to sing is the dream, but the plan is to be a doctor.”

One of her friends gave me their standard joke about her: “A doctor by day and a singer at night.”

“She’s going to be my doctor,” claimed DuBois, joining the story, “and keep me going — somehow.” They all laughed at a wellthumbed, well-loved image.

Completely serious about her future in the theatre, though, is young Nickie, in her fourth year of study with DuBois. She knows herself; she will pursue her dream with all the considerable talent she has: the brilliant voice and manner, the great looks and presence, the natural ease on stage.

Included in this group was 10-year-old Elisabeth Du- Bois, who has sung solos within the framework of her father’s concerts since she was six. She is so happy having fun singing and doing parts in the last two Christmas plays at Theatre Orangeville. None of her older three sisters has taken to the stage and she — wise beyond her years — is keeping her options open.

I asked them questions and garnered their enthusiasm. For all of them, the concerts are what bind and instruct them. They have to learn to adapt. If the venue is different, if the microphones are unreliable, if one of them feels less than at full throttle, they have to learn to cope with whatever the circumstances might deliver. And none of them would willingly miss a concert.

Moreover, they praised their teacher. Emily, now in her third year of study with DuBois, told me, “For my first lesson, I could suddenly belt out this song and I went home and thought, ‘That’s how they do it — that belting.’ I couldn’t believe how he showed me to sing like that.”

Others were just as impressed with their initial encounter with DuBois’ teaching technique. They were amazed at what he has brought out in them — in so many ways.

As for young David, with his voice on the brink of new sounds, he stated confidently, “Mark will guide me through my voice change — I’ll be a tenor,” he said. “I’m very excited.”