What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body
Melissa Malde, D.M.A., is a certified Andover Educator and an active performer in opera, concert, recital and musical theatre. She has presented papers and clinics at numerous national and regional conferences. She received her D.M.A. in Vocal Performance and Stage Direction from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Other degrees are from the Hochschule Musik in Munich, Northwestern University and Oberlin. She taught at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville and Luther College before returning to her home state of Colorado, where she now teaches Voice and Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.During her twenty-two years as an Alexander Technique teacher Barbara Conable helped to save hundreds of musical careers and to enhance hundreds more. She experienced frustration, however, because she knew that thousands more musicians were losing careers and capacity. To enhance her effectiveness, she wrote the book What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body and developed a Body Mapping course by the same name which is now taught by Andover Educators around the world. The goal of Andover Educators is to put music education on a secure somatic (anatomical) foundation for all time. Barbara Conable is the author of How to Learn the Alexander Technique: A Manual for Students, What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body, and The Structures and Movement of Breathing. Now retired from teaching, Barbara Conable continues to develop the theory and practice of Body Mapping.Kurt-Alexander Zeller, D.M.A., is a certified Andover Educator and performs frequently as a singer of theatrical, concert, and early music. He currently serves as Director of Opera and Vocal Studies at Clayton State University and is active throughout the country as a vocal adjudicator and clinician. Dr. Zeller holds undergraduate degrees in Music and Theatre from the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. His graduate degrees are from the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. He has done further study at the Early Music Institute of Indiana University and the 1995 National Association of Teachers of Singing Internship Program at Florida State University.MaryJean Allen M.M.is a certified Andover educator and a private voice teacher in Chicago. She holds a Master of Music and an Artist Diploma in vocal performance, with a minor in piano performance. MaryJean travels frequently to teach the course What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body to all kinds of musicians in colleges, universities, high schools, and church choirs. She is also a first year trainee to become an Alexander Technique Teacher at Robin Gilmore's teacher training program in North Carolina. MaryJean performed leading roles in opera and operetta throughout the United States, and was competitively selected to sing in two Art Song Festivals, coaching with Dalton Baldwin, Elly Ameling, Gerard Souzay, and others.