The perfect gift for an aspiring musician

April 28, 2009 8:38 AM

Recommend inspirational or otherwise awesome gifts for an aspiring opera singer, please!

I have a very close friend who is in her sophomore year as a vocal Music Performance major, and her birthday is coming up. When I heard about this I thought it would be perfect, except it's not coming out for a few months.

Can the hive mind suggest similar videos? Or other gifts in this vein? I'd like to spend no more than about $30 - $40 USD.

posted by fvox13 to shopping (5 comments total)

Are there tickets to any shows coming up that you could get for her? Taking her out for a night might be a fun idea.
posted by hermitosis at 9:28 AM on April 28

My ex-boyfriend (professional musician, played with an opera company) loved the Looney Toons "What's up Doc" - how about a memento from that?
posted by archofatlas at 12:59 PM on April 28

Do you know who your friend's favorite singers are? Her favorite operas and composers? Maybe one of her favorite current singers has a new album out?

CDs and DVDs of full operas (and classical albums in general) can be fairly expensive, especially on a student budget -- as a music major she'll likely be using the music library a lot, but there's nothing like having your own personal copy of a favorite performance on DVD or CD. There are lots of great operas on DVDs now, so even if she has a favorite opera in her collection already, there may be some stagings that she has wanted to check out but hasn't yet. Some of the more expensive ones can go for around $50, but you'll definitely be able to find a number of them within -- and sometimes under -- your budget. You could get her one or even two, depending on the price.

Amazon generally has a good selection of classical music. Also check out ArkivMusic, which is a classical-only music retailer and also manufactures officially-sanctioned classical CD albums that are otherwise out-of-print. (I have not bought anything from ArkivMusic but it's been recommended by other classical music fans.)

Alternatively, do you know what kind of headphones she has? For example, if she's still using the earbuds that came with her iPod/music player, she might appreciate a better pair for home use, or an upgrade for portable use. Headphones can be pretty personal, so ideally you'd be able to ask her what kind she would want, and know what kinds of music she listens to (I'm guessing that it's not all opera/classical). There are a number of headphones within your defined budget that would be an improvement over the stock ones. If you pursue this angle, check out HeadRoom, a retailer that also has a good guide on choosing headphones; also take a look at the Head-Fi forums -- tons of recommendations in there. Amazon also usually has some headphones deeply discounted.

(IINAOS, but I like music, including opera.)
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:20 PM on April 28

Er, that should be "IANAOS" above...

Not sure if this is possible to "gift" to someone else, but there is also the Met Player, which would let her watch any opera from the existing online catalog of the Metropolitan Opera -- maybe you could get her an unlimited subscription for a couple of months? I've only watched the free offerings thus far, but the breadth of available performances looks amazing. However, she might have access to the resource already (maybe through her school, or through her own account).
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 9:20 PM on April 28

Great answers! Thanks! I'm going to look into gifting the Met Player subscription for over the summer. Barring that, I'm going to buy a copy of Cosi Fan Tutti on DVD, since she just got cast as Fiordiligi.
posted by fvox13 at 6:03 AM on April 30