Axe ’Em, Jacks!
Whether you hope to be a choir director or a professional singer — or both! — the voice area at SFA can provide the training you seek.
No matter which concentration you choose, you'll receive first-class vocal instruction from our experienced voice faculty. Music education majors and performance majors study with the same teachers and are given the same performance opportunities, including:
- singing in one of our four choral ensembles
- performing leading roles in the annual opera production
- auditioning for solos in one of our choral masterworks
- participating in the concerto-aria competition
- participating in National Association of Teachers of Singing competitions
- and many others.
If you're trying to pick between the two degrees, consider that the music education program prepares you mostly for a career in teaching vocal music (like being a school choir director), while the performance degree leans more heavily toward developing the skills for a professional performing career.
In addition to the great vocal training and wealth of singing opportunities, we offer an in-depth four-semester diction sequence to prepare you for singing in Italian, German, French and English as well as a full complement of voice repertoire and literature classes.
Our opera workshop class will teach you basic stage skills and the best approaches to character portrayal to help you to succeed on the stage. All our voice majors also are firmly grounded in vocal pedagogy in our performance theory and materials classes.
SFA is the perfect place to study voice. You get the opportunities of a big school of music — which we are — and the individual attention and family atmosphere of a small school. Compare what we have to offer and we don't think you'll find a better place to start your musical career!