Lol....sorry for the mystifying name, guys!
It's a long story, but I'll just give the short version...."mezzo" is Italian for "middle," and refers to a mezzo-soprano, literally "middle soprano." It's a designation of a voice type that's lower than a soprano but higher than a contralto.
It's DIFFERENT than if you sing in a choir and had 1st and 2nd soprano, 1st and 2nd alto, etc. Voice PARTS have to do with range and what's needed to even up sound in a group; voice TYPES are more to do with range, yes, but also how your voice SOUNDS in that range.
Confused yet?
In high school, I took a lot of pride in the fact that I was an alto in choir. Lower, richer voice, better sight-reading than sopranos, stuff like that. In an extracurricular quartet, though, I'd take soprano every now and then, which inspired a friend to tell me I was more of a mezzo-soprano than an alto. I got mad (loving my alto-ness as I do) and told him I was "not a mezzo and never would be."
Now, in college, and actually learning something about music....in solo singing, there's a big difference between what you sing in choir and what type of voice you have. There are very, very, very few contraltos now; this is a rare operatic voice type which is very deep, very rich, very very LOW. It's usually divided up into sopranos and mezzo-sopranos, with different types of each.
At first they thought I was a soprano, which is a characteristic of UNCG's voice department...they hear every voice high. Last year, though, my voice teacher became more and more convinced that I was really a lower voice, a mezzo-soprano. By now, having learned a few things about opera and recital singing, I was really glad to be told that. My friend, however, won't let me forget, and I keep the screen name as a sort of private joke between us.
Sorry that was kind of long...if anybody's got any more questions or confusions, feel free to ask. I love talking shop.
