Alongside her teaching, Dr. Puccinelli is active as a collaborative pianist, vocal coach, and chamber musician. She has appeared in song and chamber music recitals at venues from Los Angeles to New York City, and throughout Europe. A frequent presenter at a number of national and international conferences and congresses, her broad professional experience embraces such diverse performance events as the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Chamber Concert Series, Placido Domingo's Operalia Competition, the International Trumpet Guild Conference, the National Opera Association Competition and regional and national NATS conventions. She has appeared in recital with members of the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Also an accomplished organist and harpsichordist, Dr. Puccinelli enjoys a wide variety of repertoire in her collaborations, from Baroque to twenty-first century literature.
An alumna of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program, Dr. Puccinelli spends her summers coaching professional and aspiring singers at the AIMS program in Graz, Austria and at the OperaWorks program in Los Angeles. She was twice invited to serve as rehearsal pianist for Seiji Ozawa at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
Dr. Puccinelli, who holds a Masters of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, has a special interest in language: she also holds an undergraduate degree in French, and has served as language consultant for Martha Gerhart’s series Italian Song Texts from the 17th through the 20th Centuries for Leyerle Press. A published author on topics of song literature and collaborative piano techniques, Dr. Puccinelli completed her piano and collaborative studies under Alan L. Smith, with additional studies at the Music Academy of the West, with Gwendolyn Koldofsky.
Helen Dewey Reikofski
Adjunct Professor
English Diction
Email: Helen.Reikofski@unt.edu
Phone: 940-206-8443
Helen Dewey Reikofski, who has taught at UNT since 2012, finds her varied adventures, from teaching in Colorado, England, Michigan and Texas, and performing in the U.S., Italy, England, Austria, and other locations, allows her unique perspectives of music and theatre around the world. Recent trips to Paris, Hong Kong, London, Prague, and Honolulu have included attending the theatre, concerts, and visiting museums. Performing in venues from large Fair Park Music Hall, to Dallas’ finely tuned Winspear Opera House, to the tiny McKinney Avenue Contemporary, reveals many facets of area opportunities in performance.
As a core soprano in The Dallas Opera Chorus she is privileged to work alongside some of the most gifted artists in the world, from singers such as Thomas Hampson, Thomas Allen, Denyce Graves, Susan Graham, Stephen Costello, Jay Hunter Morris, Renee Fleming, Ruth Ann Swenson, and directors such as Francesca Zambello and Garnett Bruce, choreographers, stage managers, designers, including the late Peter Hall, conductors Graeme Jenkins, Anthony Barese, Emmanuel Villaume, Alexander Rom, and more. In theatre, contributing to stage craft through supplying the makeup design along with a workshop on techniques for a local high school production and being a guest clinician for area Thespian societies, running props for the Rome Festival Opera production of La bohème and assisting in costuming or working a light hang for a friend's community theater production, regularly augments her continuing appreciation of theatre arts.
With experience formerly as a theatre major and as a music major, and with the extreme good fortune of being a world traveler, she is able to bring a happily eclectic view to teaching English Diction courses MUAG 1905 and Theatre 1340.001 Aesthetics of Theatre throughout the World. She is a member of the International Phonetic Association, American Guild of Musical Artists, and National Association of Teachers of Singing. Professors include Charmaine Copporn, John Gillas, Jeffrey Snider, Charles Harrill, Howard Skinner, Douglas Amman and Julian Reed in voice, acting, and conducting. More than 30 major roles on stage including Abigail Adams/1776 (Little Theatre of the Rockies), Josephine/HMS Pinafore (Cambridge Operatic Society, The Arts Theatre, Cambridge U.K.), Contessa/ Le nozze di Figaro (college-UNC, and Rome Festival 2003), Musetta/La bohème with Bruce Ford (college-TTU and Rome Festival 2004) Marguerite/Faust with Marcus Haddock and Terry Cook (TTU), Jack's Mother/Into the Woods (TWU), Cinderella's Mother/Into the Woods (WaterTower Theatre), The Wizard of Oz with Flying by Foy (Verizon Irving), Anna/The King and I (Marquette, Michigan), Lily/The Secret Garden (Denton and Richardson, Texas), Ensemble/Ragtime (Lyric Stage, Irving), Agnes/I Do! I Do! (First Productions, Denton), Meg/Damn Yankees and Nimue/Camelot (Denton), Mrs. Grose/The Turn of the Screw (UNT). More than 30 professional opera choruses and supporting roles, including Boris Godunov, La bohème, Queen of Spades, Otello, Tosca, Butterfly, Jenufa, Nabucco, Carmen, La traviata, Magic Flute, Turandot, Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana, Merry Widow, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux, Aida, Cosi fan tutte, Aspern Papers, La rondine, Iolantha.
Major roles in theater include Lady Capulet in s Romeo and Juliet, Feste in Twelfth Night, Janet in Murrell's Waiting for the Parade, First wife in The Juniper Tree. Also as a director, music director, stage manager, singer, dialect coach for area theaters such as the University of North Texas Opera Program (2008, L'elisir d'amore), Texas Woman's University (2007, The Fantasticks), Denton Community Theatre (multiple shows), Music Theatre of Denton and Denton Light Opera Company (multiple shows), Lyric Theatre-Irving (Ragtime), WaterTower Theatre-Addison (Into the Woods), Kitchen Dog Theatre (The Juniper Tree), The Dallas Gilbert and Sullivan Company (the inaugural HMS Pinafore).
Carol Wilson
Email: Carol.Wilson2@unt.edu
Phone: 940-369-7544
Carol Wilson joined the UNT voice faculty in 2012 with an extensive and distinguished singing career with major opera houses throughout the world: Dresden, Frankfurt, Netherlands, San Francisco, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Taipei, Vancouver, Manitoba, Bonn, Hannover, Nürnberg, and with the Metropolitan Opera where she was responsible for the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, a role for which she has earned critical acclaim. She made her international opera debut with Deutsche Oper am Rhein in 1999 as Fiordiligi, and as one of their principal soloists performed over 25 major roles including Eva in Die Meistersinger, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Senta in Der fliedgende Holländer, Kaiserin in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Desdemona in Otello, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Leonore in Fidelio, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, Marietta in Die tote Stadt, Poppea in L’incoranazione di Poppea, and the title roles in Ariadne and Alcina.
In addition to opera, Ms. Wilson has a vast repertoire encompassing medieval to modern. Concert engagements in the U. S. include those with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with Maestro Julius Rudel, the American Symphony Orchestra with Maestro Leon Botstein, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, St. Luke’s Chamber Orchestra at the Caramoor Festival, the Vancouver Festival, and numerous appearances with the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. She is an enthusiastic advocate for music of the 20th and 21st centuries, having sung a number of works by Schoenberg, including Pierrot Lunaire with the Yale in Norfolk Summer Music Festival, Erwartung at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the soprano solo in his Second String Quartet with the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Sechs Lieder for soprano and orchestra with the Duesseldorfer Symphoniker, Boulez’ Pli selon Pli, Elliot Carter’s A mirror on which to Dwell, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Berio’s Folk Songs, as well as newly commissioned works and those written for her.
Ms. Wilson has held teaching positions at Oberlin College & Conservatory, Vassar College, and Sarah Lawrence College, and is faculty member with the Amalfi Coast Summer Music Festival in Italy.
A graduate of the Yale School of Music with the Doctor of Musical Arts, she was awarded their Music Alumni Association Prize. Her undergraduate alma mater, Iowa State University conferred upon her the Dean’s Arts and Humanities Medal and Outstanding Alumni Award.
