Associate Professor of Voice
303-492-5866
patti.peterson@colorado.edu
Patti Peterson is a soprano whose background includes study in piano, voice, vocal pedagogy, and movement. She received a Bachelor of Music degree in piano from Salem College and Master and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in voice from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Much of her DMA work involved the performance, translation, and study of the songs of Edvard Grieg. She studied voice with Barbara Doscher and Joan Jacobowsky and coached with Gerhard Hüsch, Martin Katz, Martin Isepp, Dalton Baldwin, and Gerard Souzay. She has studied modern dance and the Feldenkrais and Alexander movement systems.
Peterson has sung recitals and oratorio throughout the United States and in Germany, often collaborating with dancers and actors in contemporary works. She has given master classes at many colleges in the U.S. and was invited to work with students at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin on two occasions. She has made presentations to the College of Music Society, as well as the National Association of Teachers of Singing, which recently published an article by her in the prestigious Journal of Voice.
Patti Peterson is Associate Professor and Chair of the voice area at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Movement, ease of vowel production, and a science-based approach to vocal technique are the hallmarks of Peterson’s teaching style.
Assistant Professor of Voice
303-735-0936
jennifer.bird@colorado.edu
American soprano Jennifer Bird enjoys a busy and varied singing career in the US and Europe, having built a reputation as a charismatic, intelligent and versatile performer of more than 50 roles in opera, operetta and musical theater, as well as much of the standard oratorio and concert literature.
As the recipient of a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship, Jennifer studied in Germany in the Opernklasse of the Hamburg Musikhochschule, where she joined the vocal studio of renowned soprano Judith Beckmann. Soon thereafter she began singing at the Landestheater Coburg and then at the Bremer Theater where she became a pillar of the soloist ensemble, singing major roles in the lyric and lyric-coloratura soprano repertory and, in Coburg, twice earning the Audience Favorite Prize. Engagements followed at the Vienna Volksoper, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Theater Bonn, Theater Chemnitz, Theater Lübeck, Theater Würzburg and Theater Hagen, among others. Highlights have included the title roles in Lulu and Lucia di Lammermoor, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Ann Trulove in The Rake’s Progress, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Marguerite in Faust, Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, Nedda in I Pagliacci, Gilda in Rigoletto, Violetta in La traviata, Euridice in Orphée aux Enfers and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Much in demand as a recitalist and concert singer, Jennifer has been the soprano soloist in The Messiah with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, in Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with the Bremer Philharmonic at the St. Petri Cathedral and in a Veteran’s Day concert with the US Army Band at Carnegie Hall. In 2008 Jennifer was invited to Brussels to perform with members of the Ictus Ensemble in honor of the 200th anniversary of Ricordi Publishing. She has been the featured soloist in gala concerts with the Stuttgart Philharmonic at the Stuttgart Konzerthalle and in Luxembourg with the Orchestra of the Warsaw Teatr Wielki. In 2010 she made her Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall debut as the soprano soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Riverside Choral Society. She has been a prizewinner in several international competitions, including the Sylvia Geszty Competition, the Robert Stolz Competition and the Alexander Girardi Competition.
Jennifer has worked with noted artists such as Lawrence Renes, Martin Katz, Barrie Kosky, Helmut Baumann, Florian Ludwig, Stefan Klingele, Phillip Himmelmann, Joshua Major, Gustav Meier, Andrej Woron, JJ Penna, Antoine Palloc, Bruno BergerGorski, Andrej Woron, Rosamund Gilmore, Detlef Altenbeck and Alois Seidlmeier. Jennifer is a member of the Voice faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Patrick Mason
Baritone, Professor of Voice
patrick.mason@colorado.edu
303-492-5935
The distinguished American baritone, Patrick Mason, has performed and recorded an astonishingly wide range of music spanning the last 10 centuries. In the fall of 2007 he premiered a major new work by Pulitzer Prize winning composer George Crumb, Voices from a Forgotten World, with Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia, and he was a Grammy finalist in the category of Solo Vocal Performance in 2006 for his recording Songs of Amy Beach on Bridge Records. In March of 2008 he was heard in the New York premieres of operas by William Bolcom (Musical America’s 2007 Composer of the Year) and John Musto at New York’s Weill Hall. He reprised these works at the Moab Music Festival.
Patrick Mason began his career singing early music with groups such as The Waverly Consort, Schola Antiqua and The Boston Camerata, appearing at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in Holland, the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France and at The Cloisters in Manhattan. He has toured internationally with The New York Ensemble for Early Music’s production of “The Play of Daniel” and has recorded both Medieval and Renaissance works for Sony, Erato, Nonesuch and l’Oiseaux Lyre.
Since 1970 he has concertized with guitarist David Starobin in London’s Wigmore Hall, Merkin Hall in New York and in festivals throughout the United States and Europe. Their many recordings include Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday Song Set, a group of four songs from Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George arranged for guitar and voice by the musical’s orchestrator, David Starobin’s brother, Michael Starobin.
As a result of an abiding commitment to the music of our time, Patrick Mason has collaborated with composers Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Harold Blumenfeld, Daniel Kellogg, Paul Lansky, David Leisner, Richard Wernick, Akimi Nieto and as well as Sondheim and Crumb. He created the lead role in John Duffy’s opera, Black Water (libretto by Joyce Carol Oates) to great acclaim in Philadelphia and has reprised the role in Los Angeles and New York. The Boston Globe hailed Mason’s portrayal of the dual lead in Tod Machover’s opera, VALIS, and the New York Times named his recording of that piece “Best CD of the Year.” He premiered the role of Ralston in Randall Shinn’s opera, Sara McKinnon (libretto by Mark Medoff) in New Mexico in 2002.
Mason has appeared with orchestras throughout the United States in works by Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Benjamin Britten (War Requiem) and John Adams (The Wound Dresser). He has sung with the New York Festival of Song since 1990 and at chamber music festivals in San Francisco, Steamboat Springs, Moab, Skaneateles and with the Takacs String Quartet.
In a long and successful association, Patrick Mason has made numerous recordings with Bridge Records: Songs of Amy Beach (Grammy finalist, 2006); Franz Schubert’s Winterreise; Mélodies (French songs by Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel and Dutilleux); Stefan Wolpe – Vocal Music; American Orchestral Song, featuring works of Horatio Parker, Virgil Thompson, Charles Griffes, John Alden Carpenter and Roy Harris; and an upcoming release of songs by John Musto (with soprano Amy Burton and the composer at the piano).
Mason is a Berton Coffin Faculty Fellow at the University of Colorado in Boulder and is the vocal coordinator of the John Duffy Composer’s Institute (an annual two-week event which is part of the Virginia Arts Festival) where he works with young singers and composers to create new works for the musical stage.
A native of Ohio, Mason has collaborated with his childhood friend, the renowned artist Craig Russell, in adapting operas such as Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Wagner’s monumental Ring of the Nibelung for the comic books medium (the latter won the 2001 Will Eisner Award). Being raised in the low clay hills along the Ohio River his extra-musical passions are (naturally) hiking and ceramics.
Mutsumi Moteki
Associate Professor of Voice, Vocal Coach
moteki@colorado.edu
303-492-4095
Since her college years in Tokyo, Japan, Mutsumi Moteki has been active as a vocal coach/accompanist. She received extensive training in this area from Westminster Choir College and University of Michigan as well as prestigious summer programs such as Music Academy of the West, Steans Institute for Young Artists, Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, and Conservatoire de musique in Genève. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she teaches singing diction, vocal repertoire, heads the musical staff of CU Opera, and is a member of newly formed Collaborative Piano Faculty.
In the spring of 2000 she taught 5 weeks at Hochschule für Musik “Hans Eisler” in Berlin, Germany, as an exchange professor. She also taught at Kobe College in Japan for a year as the Bryant Drake Guest Professor during the academic year 2002-2003, and holds a vocal accompanying faculty position at University of Miami’s Salzburg Summer Program.
Matthew Chellis
Voice and Opera Assistant Professor of Voice (Tenor)
mwchellis@gmail.com
Imig Music Building
Mailing Address:
301 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Matthew Chellis is considered one of America’s most versatile singing actors. He has appeared with opera companies, orchestras and theatre companies in North and South America and Europe. Matthew has sung over twenty principal roles with New York City Opera and sung with Washington National Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Atlanta Opera, Opera Bogata, and Calgary Opera to name a few. Concert performances include numerous appearances at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and Boston Symphony Hall. Mr. Chellis has taught at New York University and Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts prior to his appointment at UC Boulder. He is the founder and executive director of the Up North Vocal Institute – an intensive four week vocal training program located in northern Michigan. Please visit MatthewChellis.com for a full vitae.
Leigh Holman http://www.leighholman.com
Voice and Opera Director, Eklund Opera Program
Assistant Professor of Opera
Leigh.Holman@colorado.edu
Imig Music Building N1B69
303-492-6576
Mailing Address:
301 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Leigh Holman is an established stage director in the fields of Opera and Musical Theatre. As director of the Opera Colorado Ensemble Artists, she has directed two touring productions per season, concerts and other presentations to promote Opera Colorado and the young artists that are contracted into the program. Holman was previously Chair of the Voice and Opera Studies Area at the University of Arkansas, at Little Rock. She directed and performed for such companies and opera institutions as Portland Opera, Nashville Opera, National Opera, Wildwood Opera, Opera Theatre of Fort Collins, University of Colorado, University of Arkansas, Eastman Opera Theatre and others. Some of her productions directing and assistant directing include Il barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel and Gretel, Madama Butterfly, La Boheme, La Traviata, Falstaff, The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, The Tender Land, Amahl and the Night Visitors, La Cenerentola, The Sound of Music, Trial by Jury, Iolanthe, The Island of Tulipatan, La Curandera, Noye’s Fludde, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,Side by Side by Sondheim, Red, Hot and Cole and many operatic and musical theatre scenes programs spanning from the Baroque period to contemporary, American works.
Holman has been a frequent opera lecturer including presentations of the pre-curtain lectures at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House and Opera 101 presentations on KVOD. She holds a graduate Opera Performance degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder. She received her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Southern California. In addition to directing over 30 professional and academic operatic and musical theatre productions, she served as assistant director for Ron Daniels (Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in London) in his critically acclaimed production of Madama Butterfly at Opera Colorado and with James Robinson in the 2007 Opera Colorado production of La Traviata. In 2009, Holman directed a new Peter Dean Beck production of La Traviata, directed Don Giovanni, both in Macky Auditorium and mounted a new production of Rorem’s Our Town. In the 2010-2011 Season, she staged Carousel, Susannah and the Bernstein Mass. In summer 2010, she served as founder, Artistic Director, and Stage Director of CU NOW premiering new operatic works by Robert Aldridge, Herschel Garfein, Dan Kellogg, and J. Michael Martinez. The CU NOW season returns with excerpts from Kirke Mechem’s Pride and Prejudice and Garfein’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: The Opera.
Abigail Nims http://www.abigailnims.com
Voice and Opera Assistant Professor of Voice (Mezzo-soprano)
abigail.nims@Colorado.EDU
303-492-8650
Mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims has established herself as a musician of integrity and versatility, continuing to garner praise for her committed performances of repertoire spanning from the Baroque to contemporary premieres.
Ms. Nims has appeared with opera companies throughout the United States and abroad including Wexford Festival Opera, Atlanta Opera (Veruca Salt in Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket), New York City Opera (Lazuli in L’Étoile), Palm Beach Opera (Despina in Così fan tutte), Florentine Opera (Nancy in Albert Herring), Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (Dinah inTrouble in Tahiti), Opera Virginia (Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus), Opera New Jersey (Zerlina in Don Giovanni), Gotham Chamber Opera (Zefka in Scenes of Gypsy Life), Opera Grand Rapids (Despina in Così fan tutte and Zerlina in Don Giovanni), the Princeton Festival (Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Opera Delaware (Meg in Little Women and Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro), and Opera North (Tessa in The Gondoliers).
Particularly praised for her interpretations and tonal beauty in the concert repertoire, Ms. Nims has performed as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony (Bach’s Mass in B Minor); the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Crumb’s Night of the Four Moons, and Haydn’sHarmoniemesse), the Baltimore Symphony (Messiah); the São Paulo Symphony (Bach’s Magnificat); Teatro Municipal, Santiago, Chile (Mahler’s Symphony No. 2); the Adrian Symphony (Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été); the Quad City Symphony (Mozart’s Requiem and as Octavian in selections from Der Rosenkavalier); the New England String Ensemble (George Benjamin’s Upon Silence and Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater); the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival (Liebeslieder Walzer); the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra (Messiah); and with the Masterwork Chorus at Carnegie Hall (Messiah). In recital, she has recently appeared at Trinity Church, Wall Street; at St. Ignatius Church, Wexford, Ireland, on the Wexford Festival Opera’s recital series; and as guest alumna at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Her recordings include Martin Bresnick’s song cycle “Falling,” featured on the composer’s album Every Thing Must Go (Albany Records, 2010) and the role of Veruca Salt in Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket (Albany Records, 2012).
Ms. Nims has received awards from distinguished foundations and institutions including the Fritz and Lavinia Jensen Foundation Competition, Santa Fe Opera, the Carmel Bach Festival, Yale School of Music, and the American Bach Society/Bach Choir of Bethlehem Competition.
Originally from Delaware, Ohio, she holds degrees from Yale School of Music (Dean’s Prize recipient), Westminster Choir College (with honors), and Ohio Wesleyan University (summa cum laude). She was twice a member of the Apprentice Singer Program at Santa Fe Opera, a Virginia B. Adams fellow with the Carmel Bach Festival, and she studied German in Vienna with the Austria-Illinois Exchange Program. Prior to joining the faculty of CU-Boulder, Ms. Nims taught voice at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Yale University.
Jeremy Reger
Voice and Opera Senior Instructor, Vocal Coach
jeremy.reger@Colorado.EDU
Imig Music Building
Mailing Address:
301 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
Jeremy Reger comes to the voice department as vocal coach at the senior instructor level after holding the position of director of keyboard studies and collaborative arts at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. The international performer and educator says although the natural beauty of the region was a big draw, in the end it was the passion of the students and faculty at the College of Music that led him here.
“There’s something special going on here,” says Reger. “The exceptional, creative, inspiring community created between faculty and students is palpable, and it’s very exciting to be a part of it.”
Teaching and mentorship are Reger’s true passions and he’s worked with some of the top vocal performers and coaches in the country, including at the Minnesota Opera, Indiana Opera Theater, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Ann Arbor Opera. In summer 2014 he was a coach and performer at the Opera Studio de Recife in Brazil. Reger has also been on the faculty of Music Academy of the West, and worked for Virginia Opera. A strong supporter of local arts organizations, he has also played with the Virginia Symphony, the Williamsburg Symphonia and the Cantabile Singers Art Song Project.
After traversing the western hemisphere, Reger says the University of Colorado was a natural choice for his next artistic adventure. “It’s in the intersections of many art forms. How fortunate that we can see all the arts on display, working to create a great artistic community in Boulder."
And of course, you can’t discount the scenery.
“I think it will be thrilling to take inspiration from the amazing surroundings in Boulder to help keep the repertoire passionate and vital.”
Reger holds degrees from Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and the University of Michigan.
