Mary Schiller
mary.schiller@case.edu
Head, Voice Department, has appeared in more than 30 operas; in oratorio; and in recital performances in the U.S., France, and Germany, singing leading roles such as Violetta, Fiordiligi, and Susanna. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from The Ohio State University. Ms. Schiller received several grants for study in Germany, including the Fulbright, Martha Baird Rockefeller, Richard Wagner Society, and Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and received a fellowship to Tanglewood. She is a frequent adjudicator at major voice competitions and regularly gives master classes; she was also a master teacher at the Master Voice Teachers Conference at Westminster. Ms. Schiller has served on the faculties of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music; The University of Akron School of Music; the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria; the Accademia dell'Opera in Rimini, Italy; and the University of Miami Frost School of Music at Salzburg. She maintains a private voice studio in New York City. Her students perform with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera and the Cleveland Opera. Her students have also participated in Houston Opera Studio, Lyric Opera of Chicago Center for American Artists, Santa Fe Opera, Music Academy of the West, Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals. Ms. Schiller's students have won the Marilyn Horne Foundation Award, George London Award, Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation Award, National Opera Association Competition, and ARIA. She was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2002.
Clifford Billions
E-mail: Clifford.Billions@case.edu
Voice, began his professional singing career in New York City in the Metropolitan Opera Studio. He also performed extensively in the New York City Opera Title III program, taking opera to schools throughout New York City and State. Mr. Billions sang at Carnegie Hall with the American Opera Society in Bellini's La Straniera with Montserrat Caballe and in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots with Beverly Sills and Justino Diaz. In Germany, he was a leading tenor at the Darmstadt Opera and also sang at the Munich Festival. He has sung throughout the U.S. in opera, oratorio and recital, appearing in 30 leading opera roles such as Faust, Rodolfo, Tamino and Don Ottavio. He received a Master of Music degree in voice performance from Converse College School of Music, and has taught on the faculties of the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria; the University of Alabama; the University of Miami Frost School of Music at Salzburg; and the University of Akron, where he is now professor emeritus. He has given master classes in Taipei, Taiwan; at the national convention of National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) in Los Angeles; and at numerous colleges, universities and state NATS chapters in America. His students perform at the Metropolitan and New York City Operas, and for major opera companies in Chicago, Houston, Dallas, St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland. His students are currently in European opera houses at Bonn and Graz and are making guest appearances at the Aix-en-Provence festival, Düsseldorf, and Essen, among others. Mr. Billions continues to teach professional singers in New York City. He was appointed to the CIM faculty in 2005.
Dean Southern
E-mail: dean.southern@cim.edu
Dean Southern, baritone, has performed in opera, oratorio and recital throughout the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.
He regularly gives master classes at universities and conservatories in the US and abroad, including the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China), the Kungliga Musikhögskolan (Royal College of Music) in Stockholm (Sweden), the Conservatorio Profesional de Música in Valencia (Spain) and the Interlochen Arts Academy (Michigan). His students have been accepted to prestigious young artist programs and graduate schools and awarded the Fulbright grant, and they have gone on to successful careers as performers and voice teachers.
He created and performed in We Have Both for a Long Time Been Silent, which presented songs from Hugo Wolf’s Italienishes Liederbuch in the context of events from Wolf’s life with letter readings and projected photographs of Wolf-related sites in Austria, Germany and Slovenia. Other recent performances include Lutosławski’s Les espaces du sommeil with the CIM Orchestra, the world premiere of Steven Mark Kohn’s “Three Impudent Arias,” and the Mainly Mozart Festival in Coral Gables, Florida.
Dr. Southern has been a frequent contributor to Classical Singer magazine, including his “Distant Voices” column, the articles “Practicing 101: Ten Tips for Making the Most of Your Time between Lessons,” “Practicing with your Mouth Shut,” the three-part series “Distant Voices: Listening to Singers of the Past,” and his interview with legendary mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig. He presents “Distant Voices: Listening to Singers of the Past”—a multimedia guided tour through the first half-century of recorded vocal history—at colleges, universities and arts organizations across the country.
After graduating from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, he earned master’s degrees in piano performance from the University of Missouri as a student of Jane Allen and in voice performance from the University of Akron as a student of Clifford Billions. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in voice performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Mary Schiller. Additional training includes the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist Program and master classes with artists such as Evelyn Lear, Nico Castel, Sir Jonathan Miller, Warren Jones and John Wustman.
In 2015, he became Associate Director of NAPA Music Festival, a summer training program for singers based in Napa, California. From 2004 to 2014, he spent his summers on the faculty of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, where he taught voice and gave the Henry Pleasants Lecture Series on historic singers.
He currently serves as president of the Buckeye Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).
He was appointed to CIM's faculty in 2012.
Joan Ellison
www.joanellison.com
Joan Ellison has been praised for her “vocal prowess.... [and] organic grasp of the classic songs” by Michael Feinstein, and described as bringing “a keen blend of vocal splendor and verbal crispness to every musical moment” and “possess[ing] a crystalline voice that never stops” (Donald Rosenberg, The Plain Dealer).
In July 2015, Ellison released a new album, Retrophonic Gershwin, featuring a dozen songs from her show, Gershwin On the Air. Along with an ensemble of two singers and duo-pianists, the album is mixed by Grammy award-winning engineer Robert Friedrich. Upcoming performances include Get Happy! Judy Garland in Hollywood with the Wheaton Symphony, the premiere of the re-written Love Finds Judy Garland, four summer concerts with the Cleveland Pops Orchestra with conductors Carl Topilow and Jason Seber and a return to the Lakeside Symphony as the soloist in “Music of World War II.” Winter 2016 will find her playing the role of Judy Garland in The Boy from Oz, at TheatreZone in Naples, Florida, and performing her three-person theatre piece, Love Finds Judy Garland on their season.
Last season, Ellison sang her Garlandconcert with the Lakeside Symphony, and also performed with the Cleveland Women's Orchestra celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz film release. For the past several years, she has been touring with the theatrical concerts Love Finds Judy Garland and Gershwin On the Air, for which she also arranged the music.
Recent past symphonic appearances have included the Cleveland Pops Orchestra’s “Songwriting Giants of Broadway” concert with Carl Topilow; “Judy Garland” with the Tuscarawas Philharmonic under Eric Benjamin; “The Music of Richard Rodgers” with the Erie Philharmonic; and a return engagement with the Erie Philharmonic and maestro Daniel Meyer for their Holiday Pops concerts. In 2005 she made her Severance Hall debut with the Cleveland Pops opposite Broadway baritone William Michals and has since sung more than a dozen times with the ensemble in repertoire ranging from The King and I to Wicked. Theatrical roles include Julie in Carousel, Nellie in South Pacific, Lizzie in 110 in the Shade, Eliza in My Fair Lady (in concert) and Claudia in Nine; she is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.
Ellison earned MMT and BMus (voice performance) degrees from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Daune Mahy. Further studies in popular vocal styles were with Leon Thurman, and piano study with Robert McDonald and Sharyl Smith. In addition to her work at CIM, Ellison is the Singing Teacher for the CWRU/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program. Her graduates have performed principal and ensemble roles on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in national and European/Asian touring companies, in film and television and with regional theatres across the country and in the U.K., and can be heard on solo albums in pop, rock, folk and country genres, as well as Broadway original cast albums. Past teaching appointments include the Oberlin and Baldwin Wallace Conservatories.
Phyllis Speirs - Adjunct/Secondary Instructor (개인 렛슨선생 선택에서는 제외)
Voice. B.A., Kent State University. Student of T. Faulkes, George Vassos, Burton Garlinghouse, Irvin Bushman, William R. Martin. Coached with Pauline Thesmacher and Robert Page. Solo performances with Suburban Symphony, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art; was principal soloist at Church of the Covenant. Performed role of Kate in Madame Butterfly at Blossom. Soloist on recording sponsored by Western Reserve Historical Society, "It Must be Heard." Member of the Robert Page Singers. Sang solo "Pie Jesu" in Durufl�'s Requiem with the University Circle Chorale, 1991. Director of Music at Chapel of Divine Word Parish. Appointed to faculty, 1990.
