Matthew Hoch - So You Want to Sing with Awareness

Matthew Hoch is associate professor of voice at Auburn University, where he teaches applied voice, lyric diction, and Women in Music. He is author A Dictionary for the Modern Singer and Welcome to Church Music and the Hymnal 1982. With Linda Lister, he is coauthor of Voice Secrets: 100 Performance Strategies for the Advanced Singer and So You Want to Sing Music by Women. He is also the editor of three previous volumes in the So You Want to Sing series: So You Want to Sing Sacred Music, So You Want to Sing CCM, and So You Want to Sing World Music. Hochs articles have appeared in the Journal of Voice, Journal of Singing, Voice and Speech Review, Opera Journal, Choral Journal, TheChorister, VOICEPrints, American Music Teacher, Classical Singer, American Organist, College Music Symposium, The Hymn, Kodly Envoy, the Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians, and the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. Hoch is the 2016 winner of the Van L. Lawrence Fellowship, awarded jointly by the Voice Foundation and the NATS. From 2017 to 2020, he served as president of the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA), becoming the first president in the history of the organization who was elected from outside the New York metropolitan area. Hoch holds a BM from Ithaca College, an MM from the Hartt School, a DMA from the New England Conservatory, and the Certificate in Vocology from the National Center for Voice and Speech (NCVS).

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Elizabeth L. Blades earned her MM and DMA degrees in vocal performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music. She is currently an adjunct associate professor of music at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. Previous appointments include positions at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, where she was associate professor of music, coordinator of vocal studies, and director of opera; and Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, where she was a visiting professor of music. Blades is author of A Spectrum of Voices: Prominent American Voice Teachers Discuss the Teaching of Singing and Singing with Your Whole Self: A Singers Guide to Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement, coauthored with Samuel H. Nelson. Blades regularly presents at national and international workshops to advance understanding of the affect Feldenkrais work can have for performance enhancement. She is also an active performer with experiences in many forms of voice performance, including opera, oratorio, art song, music theater, and folk/Celtic. In 2010, Blades was invited to be one of the first seven American voice teachers to receive training and certification as a CoreSinging teacher. She is the founder and director of Harmony House Music Studio in Berryville, Virginia.

Meribeth Dayme was a personal performance coach known worldwide for her pioneering work and expertise in the function and use of the human voice. She was a coach and consultant for well-known teachers in singing, voice, and theater. As a former university professor of singing and anatomy at the University of Southern California and the University of Delaware, she helped to establish a new standard for understanding the voice and how it works. Dayme had won many awards for her work and is a frequent guest lecturer and workshop leader. Her booksstill used worldwide in universities and collegesinclude Dynamics of the Singing Voice, The Performers Voice: Realizing Your Vocal Potential, and The Singing Book, coauthored with Cynthia Vaughn. Daymes scientific background included years of teaching anatomy and a two-year National Institute of Health (NIH) fellowship with the Royal College of Surgeons of London for research on the voice. The combination of science, her love of performing, and curiosity led to further explorations in learning systems, sports psychology, quantum mechanics, energy, and healing. The outcome was a deep appreciation of the many areas that can enhance the teaching of singing and to the development of the CoreSinging approach to voice pedagogy.

Michelle Murphy DeBruyn is a highly accomplished performer, pedagogue, and music director. She currently serves as professor of voice at Columbus State University. An active recitalist, she is currently in demand as a collaborator in small ensembles performing contemporary works. Although at home in all major musical styles, DeBruyn has been praised for her interpretation of new music. She has premiered works by James Ogburn and presented works by Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Federico Garcia-De Castro, Ingrid Stlzel, Andy Akiho, George Crumb, and Angela Schwickert. DeBruyn was a semifinalist in the NATS Artist Award competition in 2006, recipient of the NATS Emerging Leader Award in 2010, and has won two of Columbus State Universitys teaching awards: the College of the Arts Teaching Award in 2013 and the Regents Teaching Award in 2016. DeBruyn has completed Advanced Yoga Teacher Certification and teaches yoga classes and workshops targeting the special needs of musicians and performers. She earned her MM and DMA in vocal performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music.

Lynn Helding is professor of practice in voice and voice pedagogy at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music and creator of its vocology curriculum. She is associate editor of the Journal of Singing and founding author of its Mindful Voice column. Her forthcoming book, The Musicians Mind: Teaching, Learning, and Performance in the Age of Brain Science, illuminates current research in the cognitive, neurological, and social sciences. Heldings honors include the 2005 Van L. Lawrence Fellowship, awarded jointly by the Voice Foundation, and NATS, and election by her peers to head the founding of the first nonprofit voice science association, the Pan-American Vocology Association (PAVA). She currently serves on the PAVA advisory board and the NATS voice science advisory committee. Her stage credits include leading roles with Harrisburg Opera, Nashville Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, and Ohio Light Opera, and numerous solo recitals throughout the United States, Italy, France, England, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Iceland.

Larry Lee Hensel holds DMA and MM degrees in vocal performance and literature, as well as the Performers Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. As an educator, Hensel draws upon his Eastman pedigree, thirty years of teaching experience, and his skills as a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique to equip developing singers, actors, dancers, and puppeteers to thrive in the complex arts of singing, acting, movement, and the imaginative world of storytelling. As a director, his pedagogical fervor for training young artists in collaborative decision-making and strategies for a heightened sense of physical and mental awareness has led to mainstage operatic productions that span the history of the genre and have been met with critical acclaim. Hensel is professor emeritus of the University of Wyoming where for twenty years he was head of the vocal arts area and director of opera theater. Hensel shares his enthusiasm and expertise for the Alexander Technique in workshops and clinics throughout the United States, including invitations by the Colorado chapter of MTNA, the University of Michigan School of Music, the New York University Steinhardt School, the National Puppetry Festival, and the Explore Puppetry Series at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia.

Susan L. Hurley is assistant professor of voice at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, Mississippi. She is a performer and teacher who has performed in Europe and the United States in repertoire that ranges from opera and music theater to concert and recital literature. A prizewinner at the 2002 Meistersinger competition in Graz, Austria, she has sung more than twenty principal operatic roles and has appeared in several music theater productions. Roles she has performed include Lucy in