Breakout Session
NATS BOOKS: The 'So You Want to Sing' Series
Saturday, June 23 • 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Presenters: Allen Henderson, Natalie Mandziuk, Matthew Hoch, Deke Sharon, Linda Lister, Brenda SmithZ
Introduced by: Nancy Bos
Location: Montecristo 2-4
So You Want to Sing: A Guide for Professionals is a series of works devoted to providing a complete survey of what it means to sing within a particular genre. Each contribution functions as a touchstone work for not only professional singers, but students and teachers of singing. Titles in the series offer a common set of topics so readers can navigate easily the various genres addressed in each volume. This series is produced under the direction of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the leading professional organization devoted to the science and art of singing. This roundtable presentation will include a discussion with Allen Henderson, Executive Director of NATS; Natalie Mandziuk, Associate Editor at Rowman & Littlefield; Matthew Hoch, Series Editor; and Deke Sharon, Linda Lister, and Brenda Smith.
About Allen Henderson
Allen Henderson, baritone, is executive director of NATS and professor of voice at Georgia Southern University. He holds degrees from Carson Newman College (BM), The University of Tennessee (MM) and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati (DMA). Prior to his appointment as executive director in 2008, he served NATS as a district and regional governor, as national secretary/treasurer, and as interim executive director. Dr. Henderson was a 1993 NATS Intern and hosted the program in 1998. He was chair of the coordinating committee for the 2008 NATS 50th National Conference in Nashville. Henderson has held teaching positions at Oklahoma Baptist University, Austin Peay State University and Georgia Southern University, serving as music department chair at both Austin Peay and Georgia Southern. As baritone soloist, Henderson has appeared in concert, opera, and oratorio across the country.
About Natalie Mandziuk
Natalie Mandziuk is acquisitions editor for music and philosophy at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, an independent academic press based out of the Washington, D.C. area. Natalie particularly enjoys her work with the NATS community as it allows her to develop her own singing voice. She is expanding Rowman & Littlefield’s offerings in key areas such as voice science and pedagogy, music entrepreneurship and business, and music technology.
About Matthew Hoch
Matthew Hoch is associate professor of voice and coordinator of the voice area at Auburn University, where he teachers applied voice, lyric diction, and vocal literature courses. His experience in opera, oratorio, art song, chamber music, and professional choral singing has taken him to 37 states, nine countries, and four continents. Hoch has written three books, including A Dictionary for the Modern Singer (2014), Welcome to Church Music & The Hymnal 1982 (2015), and Voice Secrets (2016). He is also series editor of the So You Want to Sing… book series. He holds the BM from Ithaca College, MM from The Hartt School, and DMA from the New England Conservatory. He is the 2016 winner of the Van L. Lawrence Fellowship, awarded jointly by the Voice Foundation and NATS. In addition to his academic life, Hoch also serves as Choirmaster and Minister of Music at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Auburn, Alabama, where he lives with his wife Theresa and three children: Hannah, Sofie, and Zachary.
About Deke Sharon
Born in San Francisco, California, Deke Sharon has been performing professionally since the age of 8, and as a child toured North America and shared the stage in operas with the likes of Pavarotti. Heralded as "The Father of Contemporary A Cappella," he is responsible for the current sound of modern a cappella, having created the dense vocal-instrumental sound in college, subsequently spreading it around the world.
Deke produces The Sing-Off worldwide (USA, Netherlands, China, South Africa), which had the highest ratings of any new, unscripted television show in the US in 2009, and was the third highest rated show on NBC in 2010. In addition, Deke served as arranger, on-site music director and vocal producer for Universal's Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2 starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson.
Deke founded the Contemporary A Cappella Society while in college, and is responsible for many seminal a cappella programs, including the CARAs (Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, ICCAs (International Championship of College A Cappella), BOCA (Best of College A Cappella Compilation), the first contemporary a cappella conferences (the A Cappella Summit), the Contemporary A Cappella League, the professional ensembles Voasis and Vocalosity, and Camp A Cappella. He is also author of the new volume in the NATS book series, So You Want to Sing A Cappella.
About Linda Lister
Linda Lister is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vassar College. She received her MM from the Eastman School of Music and her DMA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her solo credits include performances with the Prague Radio Symphony, Washington Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Evansville Philharmonic, Las Vegas Philharmonic, Piedmont Opera Theatre, Opera Theatre of Rochester, Sin City Opera, Carolina Master Chorale, Greensboro Oratorio Society, and Maine State Music Theatre. She is author of the books Yoga for Singers: Freeing Your Voice and Spirit through Yoga (2011) and So You Want to Sing Light Opera: A Guide for Performers (2018), and co-author of Red Rock Mantras (2016) and Voice Secrets: 100 Performance Strategies for the Advanced Singer (2016). Winner of the 2014 American Prize in Directing, Dr. Lister is Director of Opera Theater and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
About Brenda Smith
Brenda Smith, DMA, a lyric soprano, teaches studio voice, singer’s diction, and voice pedagogy at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. She is widely recognized for her contributions to the concept of lifelong singing through proper voice care. She works regularly as a consultant, clinician, and conductor of amateur and professional choirs. She has collaborated with Dr. Robert T. Sataloff on a variety of projects to promote vocal health through choral singing. Dr. Smith and Dr. Sataloff have co-authored two textbooks that unite voice science, vocal pedagogy with choral conducting. (Choral Pedagogy, 3rd ed. and Choral Pedagogy and the Older Singer). In recognition of demonstrated excellence in teaching and her interest in voice science, Smith received the Van Lawrence Fellowship in 2000, presented by the Voice Foundation and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
