Seth Riggs


Seth Riggs is an American singer, actor, and vocal coach. He has created the vocal technique "Speech Level Singing", and has worked with performers such as Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, José José, Ray Charles, Madonna, Cristian Castro, Johnny Hallyday, Sohyang, AGNEZ MO, Bette Midler, Julio Iglesias, and Barbra Streisand.

Early life, education, and career

Riggs started singing when he was about 7 years old, joining his neighborhood choir. Riggs has been a vocal coach since 1949, when he was serving in the Navy as a gunner. He "received his music education from Peabody Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music", and also received a B.A. in drama from Johns Hopkins University. At the Peabody Conservatory, he was a student of tenor Richard Cassilly, and he also studied voice with teachers including American baritone John Charles Thomas and Italian tenor Tito Schipa.
Vocal coach Roger Love studied vocal pedagogy in Riggs's studio. He became a junior partner in the studio, but soon founded his own studio and took some of Riggs' clients. Riggs conducts workshops and masterclasses around the world together with his wife, Margareta Svensson Riggs.
While traveling with Michael Jackson for the latter's 1987–1989 "Bad" tour. Riggs vividly recalled how Jackson would arrange to have sick children brought to his concerts, stating: "Every night the kids would come in on stretchers, so sick they could hardly hold their heads up. Michael would kneel down at the stretchers and put his face right down beside theirs so that he could have his picture taken with them, and then give them a copy to remember the moment". Riggs described how he was himself overwhelmed by these moments, and would end up "in the bathroom crying".

Personal life

Riggs is married to singer Margareta Svensson, The two met when Svensson came to Seth Riggs for singing lessons in the mid-1990s. In 2008, they became a couple, and four years later, in 2012, they married and their daughter Samantha was born.