Voice Faculty
Anton Armstrong is the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College and Conductor of the St. Olaf Choir, a position he assumed in 1990. He came to this position following ten years in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he served on the faculty of Calvin College and conducted the Campus Choir, the Calvin College Alumni Choir and the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus. A graduate of St. Olaf College, Anton Armstrong earned a Master of Music degree at the University of Illinois and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University. He holds membership in several professional societies including the American Choral Directors Association, Choristers Guild, Chorus America, and the International Federation for Choral Music. He also serves as editor of a multicultural choral series for Earthsongs Publications and co-editor of the revised St. Olaf Choral Series for Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Dr. Armstrong is widely recognized for his work in the area of youth and children's choral music. He served for over twenty years on the summer faculty of the American Boychoir School, Princeton, New Jersey and held the position of Conductor of the St. Cecilia Youth Chorale, a 75 voice treble chorus based in Grand Rapids, from 1981-1990. He is the founding conductor of the Troubadours, 30-voice boys' ensemble of the Northfield Youth Choirs since 1991. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Boychoir School, the Board of Chorus America and the Board of Choristers Guild. In June 1998, he began his tenure as founding conductor of the Oregon Bach Festival Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy. Anton Armstrong has conducted the St. Olaf Choir in critically acclaimed solo concert performances at the 59th National Conference of the Music Educators National Conference in April 2004, the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music in August 2002, and at the 1999 National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Chicago, Illinois. In February 2005, The St. Olaf Choir shared the stage with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in presenting the finale concert for the national conference of the American Choral Directors Association at the new Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, California. |
Christopher Aspaas received his Ph.D. in Choral Music Education at The Florida State University in Tallahassee, his M.M. in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University in East Lansing, his B.M. in Voice Performance from St. Olaf. Christopher has served on the faculties of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. |
Dan Dressen is a Professor of Music and Associate Dean for the Fine Arts at St. Olaf College. Dr. Dressen’s career as a tenor spans more than thirty years. His operatic performances include appearances with Washington Opera, Cleveland Lyric Opera, Nautilus Music Theatre and the Minnesota Opera with whom he was heard recently as Marquis de l’Isle in Dominick Argento’s CASANOVA’S HOMECOMING and as the First Jew in SALOME by Richard Strauss. Other recent Minnesota Opera performances include the Poul Ruder’s A HANDMAID’S TALE, the world premier of THE GRAPES OF WRATH by Ricky Ian Gordon and in the American premier of THE FORTUNES OF CROESUS by Reinhard Keiser. An active concert performer and recitalist, Mr. Dressen has performed in Minneapolis and St. Paul with the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Chorale, Dale Warland Singers, Bach Society, and recently in the Schubert Club’s Summer Art Song Festival. He has a long and active relationship with VocalEssence and at Plymouth Congregational Church as tenor soloist. At St. Olaf he is currently developing a center for Nordic art song. He edited a seven-volume anthology of opera arias by Benjamin Britten for Boosey and Hawkes and recently was elected to serve as Co-Chair on the Commission on Accreditation for the National Association of Schools of Music. |
Margaret Eaves-Smith, Associate Professor of Voice, B.M., M.M. in Vocal Performance, Cleveland Institute of Music; student of George Vassos. Soprano, Margaret Eaves-Smith, a native of Havre, Montana, was first recognized as a rising talent early in her career when she received the Artist Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing in 1973. She has achieved both national and international awards in the Regional Metropolitan Opera, S-Hertogenbosch, and Geneva vocal competitions as well. She has sung with the L'Orchestra de la Suisse Romande and the Minnesota Orchestra, and under the direction of James Levine, Louis Lane, Margaret Hillis and John Rutter. Her coaches have included George London, Elly Ameling, Gerard Souzay, Dalton Baldwin, and James King both in the United States and Europe. Additional study includes master classes in Graz, Austria and Aldeburgh, England. Before her tenure at St. Olaf, she taught on the faculty of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. With many years experience as a recitalist, adjudicator and with special interest in the performance of lieder, chanson, and oratorio, Margaret has served as a dedicated teacher to St. Olaf students since 1979. In May of 2004, Ms. Eaves-Smith was the recipient of an alumni achievement award for excellence in teaching from the Cleveland Institute of Music. |
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Feldt received a B.A. from Luther College, and M.A. in vocal music and pedagogy from the University of Iowa, and a D.M.A. in vocal performance from the University of Minnesota. Her additional study has been with Kerstin Meyer, Rita Streich, and Rudolf Knoll of the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria. Feldt has won numerous awards, including first place in the 1992 and 1995 Minnesota District NATS Artist Award Voice Competition, first place in the 1990 Minnesota - Western Wisconsin District Metropolitan Opera auditions, first place in the 1989 Opera/Lied Competition from the city of Salzburg Cultural Foundation, and first place in the 1989 Operetta Competition in Salzburg, Austria. Special interests lie in the performance of lieder, chanson, and opera. |
 Janis HardyAssociate Professor of Music — Voice and Lyric Theater hardyj@stolaf.edu Janis Hardy, a native Minnesotan, has performed leading roles for many of our country’s major opera companies including the Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Boston Opera, Wolftrap Center for the Performing Arts and Kansas City Lyric. As a member of Minnesota Opera’s Resident Ensemble for more than ten years, she sang roles created for her in many world premieres including Argento’s Postcard from Morocco and Susa’s Transformations as well as many traditional roles, including Cherubino, Dorabella, Mrs. Peachum and Widow Begbick. Soloing with orchestras, she has been conducted by, among others, Neville Marriner, Klaus Tennstedt, Dennis Russell Davies, Hugh Wolff and Aaron Copland, and by Philip Brunelle in VocalEssence since its inception. As a guest soloist she has appreared with many organizations including Minnesota Orchestra, The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Sioux Falls, Duluth and Kansas City symphonies. As a festival soloist, she has appeared with the Aldeburgh Festival in England, The Oregon Bach Festival, The Cabrillo Music Festival in Aptos, California, The New Texas Festival and Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest. Among her discography, are a solo album of Copland’s Old American Folk Songs and Grieg’s Haugtusa as well singing the role of “Ma” in Copland’s Tender Land for Virgin records and “Sister” in Larsen’s In A Winter Garden. Ms Hardy’s concert repertoire reflect her eclectic interests, ranging from all of Bach’s passions, most of Handel’s oratorios to premieres of works by Randall Davidson and Libby Larsen. Ms Hardy has been a frequent guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s, A Prairie Home Companion as well as collaborating with Garrison Keillor in concerts and recordings. She has also collaborated with Bobby McFerrin on an opera project, libretto by Tony Kushner. Her acting credits include Theatre de la Jeune Leune, The Children’s Theater, Frank Theater and Theater Latte Da. Ms Hardy can be heard each August, along with her good friends Maria Jette, Molly Sue McDonald and Dan Chouinad in the popular “Sopranorama” performances at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. She is also the founder and artistic director of The Theater Playshop, a lyric theater camp for children that performs musicals written by Ms Hardy at the Howard Conn Theater, Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. In addition to her performing career, Ms Hardy co-founded and co-directs the Lyric Theater program with her colleague, Professor James McKeel. |
Holt received bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University. A singer since age 7, he was included as one of the choristers at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He has sung professionally in a Cathedral Choir and in the BBC Singers, and more recently was a founding member of the King's Singers, an internationally renowned, six-voice male vocal ensemble. Since 1987 he has divided his time among professional soloing in oratorio, writing record jacket notes, producing records, being a classical disc jockey, and teaching privately and through various schools. |
Johnson received a B.M. in vocal performance from St. Cloud State University and an M.M. in voice performance from the University of Michigan. She is director of the Manitou Singers. Formerly on the voice faculty at the University of Minnesota and Gustavus Adolphus College and a former member and associate conductor of the Dale Warland Singers and music director of theDale Warland Symphonic Chorus, she prepared symphonic choruses for Neemi Jarvi, Sir Neville Mariner, David Zinman, Stanislaw Skrowaczewsky, Gerard Swartz, Edo de Waart, and Leonard Slatkin. Currently, Johnson is associate conductor and director of special events for Philip Brunelle's Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota and is active as a clinician specializing in women's literature. |
 Seth KeetonInstructor in Music — Voice keeton@stolaf.edu Instructor in Music, Seth Keeton, B.M. Illinois Wesleyan University; M.M. Indiana University; and a DMA in Vocal Performance at the University of Minnesota. He has performed operatic roles on the stages of The Minnesota Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, Central City Opera, Arizona Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Austin Lyric Opera and Opera Omaha, Chautauqua Opera and Theater Bremen in Bremen, Germany. Mr. Keeton has been seen on the concert stage as the bass soloist in Mozart's Requiem, Verdi's Requiem, Bach's Magnificat and St. Matthew Passion, Haydn's Creation and Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols. He has recently sung the Fauré Requiem and Bach's St. John Passion, and he frequently appears with the Rochester Aria Group and the St. Catherine Choral Society. In 2006, he was a national finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has received awards from the Sullivan Foundation and the Eleanor McCollum Competition. |
 Mary MartzInstructor in Music — Voice martz@stolaf.edu Mary Martz, soprano, Instructor in Music. B.S. in Performance and Music Education with a minor in Speech Therapy, Moorhead State University. Graduate studies at Amherst College. Ms. Martz has an extensive performance background in opera theatre with the Minnesota Opera, Minnesota Opera Touring Company, other regional companies, oratorio, recitals, and many years of classroom and private voice instruction. She has also taught in the New York NYSSSA program and is Lecturer in Voice at Carleton College. |
Harriet McCleary, soprano, has performed recitals, in operas and oratorios in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas and Graz, Austria. Dr. McCleary takes great inspiration from introducing new music to audiences. In 1997 she premiered the first four songs of a set entitled "Chanting to Paradise" by Libby Larsen. In 1999 she premiered a set of songs, "Still Life," by Monte Mason. Formerly on voice faculties at University of Nebraska at Omaha and Westminster Choir College, she teaches on the voice faculty at St. Olaf College and privately at her home studio. Her degrees include B.M.E. and B.M. in Church Music, Texas Christian University; M.M. in Voice, Choral Conducting and Church Music, Westminster Choir College; and D.M.A. in Voice Performance, University of Minnesota. She currently conducts the Cathedral Choristers and sings with the St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral Choir, Minneapolis. |
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An avid composer, Mr. McKeel has written over 60 operas, operettas, musicals, choral works, arts songs, and song cycles which have received commissions, grants, and premieres from the Kennedy Center, Minnesota Opera, Minnesota Composers Forum, Jerome & Blandin Foundations, Midwest Opera Theatre, Southern Theatre, Twin Cities Opera Guild, and Bel Canto Voices, among others. His premiered works include the Minnesota Opera children's opera, Jargonauts Ahoy, which toured for two years, played to over 20,000 students, and was featured in a PBS special on reading, In Reference to a Child, a choral song cycle commissioned by the Bel Canto Voices, featured in the Kennedy Center's "Year of the Child" concert, and toured throughout the South Pacific, and Reveille to Requiem, a Civil War opera funded by the Blandin Foundation , SEMAC, and St. Olaf College. His published works include the choral work ChristmasDawning (Shawnee Press) and Sherlock Holmes: Solitary Insect (Blackbird Books, Australia). Recent activities include A Salute to Rodgers and Hammerstein with Henry Charles Smith, the composition of two independent New York film scores Dan Ruff and Plague, stage direction of Christopher Columbus, La Finta Giardiniera, L'enfant et les Sortileges, and a grant from the Twin Cities Opera Guild to produce a touring version of his children's opera The Hero of Hamblett written with critically-acclaimed New York author/illustrator Salvatore Murdocca. In 2007 he reprised his role as the Bishop in The Three Hermits with St. John's University and premiered his jazz-age opera Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum with St. Olaf College. In 2008-09 he will play the role of Galileo directed by Gary Gisselman and will oversee the second production of Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum with St. John's University. Mr. McKeel co-directs the Lyric Theatre Season and teaches Opera Workshop, Acting for the Lyric Stage, and Voice. |
ROBERT C. SMITH, baritone, Associate Professor of Music. B.M., St. Olaf, |
Karen Wilkerson, Instructor in Music, is active as a professional singer, conductor, and teacher. She currently sings with the Ensemble Singers of VocalEssence, who recently toured and recorded in England, including a concert with the BBC singers. Wilkerson is in her 16th year as director of adult choirs at Saint Michael's Lutheran Church, Roseville, Minnesota. She sang and recorded for four years in the Dale Warland Singers, and has performed in over 14 productions with the Minnesota Opera. Wilkerson is an active recitalist and oratorio soloist, most recently performing in Minneapolis, Virginia and California. She has studied voice with Richard Johnson, of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Mary Kay Schmidt of Minneapolis, Rita Patane, Milan, Italy, and Janet Bookspan of NewYork City. She has served on the faculty of Lutheran Summer Music for over 12 years. She has held faculty positions at Northwestern College and Gustavus Adolphus College. Wilkerson holds degrees in Music from California State University, Northridge, and Westminster Choir College, Princeton New Jersey. |
Karen Wilkerson 