What's New > Announcing 2024 National Student Auditions winners
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The National Association of Teachers of Singing is pleased to announce the 2024 winners of the National Student Auditions (NSA).
NATS held semifinal and final auditions live on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, June 27-29, in conjunction with the NATS 58th National Conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. Having advanced through multiple levels of auditions, NSA national semifinalists were adjudicated to be one of the top 15 singers in their age and level of training category from over 1,000 national preliminary entries. This year’s national semifinal auditions featured more than 400 student-singers. Sixteen new NSA categories in Commercial Music, Children, and Youth debuted this year.
The inaugural final rounds of the NSA Commercial Music Categories took place Saturday, June 29.
The top 3 student-singers in each of this year’s 35 NSA categories advanced from semifinals to national finals. In total, winners received more than $84,000 in prizes this year. (View the lists of NSA 2024 national finalists and semifinalists)
2024 winners in Musical Theatre NSA Categories 7 & 8
This year’s NSA categories included the biennial Hall Johnson Spiritual Competition. In the next NSA cycle, the biennial American Negro Spirituals categories will be offered.
The Kim and Karen Brunssen Awards were presented to the first-place winners in each of the Children and Youth Classical categories. These new awards were funded by Dan Johnson-Wilmot in honor of former NATS President, Karen Brunssen, and her late husband, Kim.
Karen Brunssen congratulates Brendan McCanta, the inaugural first-prize winner of NSA CL 1 - Children Classical Voices.
The Dorothy Sawatski Prize was awarded to this year’s first place of the lower classical treble voice category, Poppy Teague. NATS member and former member of the NATS Board of Directors, Nita Herrick-Colpitts, provided this prize in honor of her teacher Dorothy Sawatski who was a charter member of NATS Southern Region and served as its region governor multiple years.
2024 NSA Winners of Classical Categories and Hall Johnson Spirituals Competition
The Roberta M. Stephen Memorial Scholarship for an outstanding performance of a Canadian art song in the post-high school or advanced classical categories of NSA was awarded to Rachel Currie for her performance of “Requiescat” composed by Matthew Emery. Named for the founder of the first Canadian NATS chapter, Stephen was part of a musical family from Southern Alberta, Canada. Roberta Stephen was active as a teacher, composer, and publisher, who passed away in July 2021. The funding for this award in her honor was begun by NATS of Southern Alberta and the Vancouver Chapter of NATS.
The 2024 staff collaborative pianists were Jing-Fang Huang, Valerie Trujillo, Bernadette Lo, Grace Berardo, Brandon Coffer, Jodi Goble, Lance Bastian, Nia Brown, Susie Whitinger, Lisa Willson, Slade Trammell, Joseph North, Kate Wogoman, Dustin Lin, Steve Sensenig, Matthew Mimbs, Timothy McReynolds, Nick Klein, and Eileen Downey, who also served as Coordinator of Staff Pianists.
Kenneth Bozeman, Danielle Watson, and Robert Wells adjudicated the finals in the classical categories. Marcía Porter, Daniell Watson, and Kenneth Bozeman adjudicated the Hall Johnson Spiritual Competition. Julie Krugman, Matt Edwards, and Matthew Hoch adjudicated the finals in the musical theatre categories. Matt Edwards, Lyndia Johnson, and Trineice Robinson-Martin adjudicated the finals in the commercial music categories.
The 2024 National NSA Team in Knoxville included Alisa Belflower, Dan Johnson-Wilmot, Ellie Seligmann, Mark McQuade, Casey Carter, Melinda Brou, Rebecca Salter, Natalie Aruduino, Stephanie Beinlich, Rebecca Coberly, Brian Leeper, Cynthia Longoria, Will Perkins, Christina Ray, and Marie Smithwick Bird.
Special thanks to all NSA coordinators, committees, panels, adjudicators, donors, collaborative pianists, the University of Tennessee, all participating student-singers and their NATS member/teachers. View Finals Program
Congratulations to all for another great year of NSA!
