My first goals with a new student are to free the student’s voice of tension and establish proper breathing technique. Once these goals are achieved, the student’s unique instrument will begin to take shape.

My goal is not to mold a singer’s voice in order to match a certain aesthetic, but to release it so it can develop freely. Therefore, I tend to wait to assign a student a fach/voice part until I feel that many of our technical goals have been reached. 

As a trained opera singer with extensive experience singing musical theater, I happily work with students on any musical genre.

For song choices, I encourage students to select their own repertoire, and will only discourage songs that are out of the student’s range, or would be detrimental to their progress.

The lessons I have learned in overcoming many obstacles as a singer are the foundation of my teaching. While studying in college, I began struggling with decreased vocal stamina, to the point where I could barely sing for 30 minutes before feeling fatigued and hoarse.

Solving my vocal problems became my mission, and I learned that my problems stemmed from tensions in my tongue and jaw, triggered by a lack of breath support.
I read vocal pedagogy literature and sought out feedback from many different teachers, including Kay Pascal Freeman, David Jones, Thom Houser, Rosemary Ostrowski and Theresa Brancaccio. I currently study with Matthew Anchel and Zachary Altman.

What I learned in the process of conquering my vocal problems has built my diagnostic skills so that spotting tension is one of the first methods with which I evaluate a student.