​Techniques & Tips for Training the Young & Changing Voice

​with Eva Kendrick & Michael Hanley

Eva Conley Kendrick

Eva Conley Kendrick is a Boston area teaching artist, vocalist and composer. She works with voice students of all ages and experience levels, including many professional performers in the 9-12 year old age range. Her students have appeared on Broadway: Matilda the Musical (Nigel/Eric), Les Miserables (Gavroche), Tuck Everlasting (Winnie Foster cover), and on National Broadway Tours: Annie (Duffy, Tessie), A Christmas Story (Rudy u/s, ensemble), White Christmas (2x) (Susan Waverly), The Sound of Music (Greta/Marta swing), and Les Miserables (Gavroche). They have also performed featured roles in many regional professional theatres including Goodspeed Opera House, Paper Mill Playhouse, Ogunquit Playhouse, North Shore Music Theatre, Wheelock Family Theatre, Seacoast Rep, Hanover Theatre, Reagle Music Theatre, Cape Rep Theatre, Boston Lyric Stage and The Cape Playhouse.
 
A former competing member of NATS when she was high school aged, Eva is a proponent of giving her students as many learning opportunities as possible and regularly enters students in local and national competitions. Several have placed or been finalists in competitions such as Boston NATS, RI NATS, Hal Leonard Vocal Competition, CS Music, Boston Pops Fidelity Young Artists Competition, Boston Lyric Opera Aria Contest for Teens and NATS National Student Auditions.
 
As a composer, Eva has written operas, musicals, choral works, chamber works and song cycles. Her operatic works have been performed by Boston Opera Collaborative, Thompson St. Opera (Louisville, KY) and Gateway Opera (St. Louis, MO). Her choral music has been performed in more than two dozen states across the country, and she has collaborated with and received commissions from many choral and chamber music ensembles. Awards include the International Alliance of Women in Music, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, The American Prize, and Massachusetts Cultural Council.
 
She is Director of the Eva Kendrick Voice Studio, Professor of Voice at Dean College and Director of Music at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Medfield. She is the former Chair of the Music Theory & Composition and Voice Departments at the Community Music Center of Boston where she worked for more than a decade. She holds a Masters of Music in Composition with Distinction from the Longy School of Music and a Bachelors Degree in Vocal Performance from Rhode Island College. For more, please visit www.evakendrick.com.

Michael Hanley

Michael Hanley is an Assistant Professor of Voice at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.  A sought-after pedagogue, Hanley combining his experience as a singer and teacher into well-rounded classical and musical theater teaching styles. His students have achieved success in a variety of genres including musical theater, opera, and commercial music. From 2013 to 2015, Hanley served on the faculty of Syracuse University's Department of Drama and Setnor School of Music, where he taught voice, voice for musical theater, and musicianship courses.
 
Hanley was most recently seen at the Aspen Music Festival, performing the role of Mercutio in Roméo et Juliette, and as a guest artist with Penn State Opera Theatre in La Bohème. Other notable credits include James Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray (Aspen Opera Theater Center, 2014), Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi (Aspen Opera Theater Center, 2013), and the title role in Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (Eastman Opera Theatre, 2010).
 
Hanley is actively engaged in academic research and recently presented his work Bridging the Gap between Theatre Voice Training and the Male Singing Voice with colleague Jared Trudeau at the Fall Voice Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also studied entrepreneurship and the integration of entrepreneurship in Conservatory curricula as a Kauffman Entrepreneurial Scholar at the University of Rochester.  
 
Hanley holds a B.M. from the Eastman School of Music and an M.M. in voice pedagogy and performance from Penn State University. Hanley was a 2016 NATS Teaching Intern and maintains private voice studios in Boston and New York. Additionally, he serves on the voice faculty of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts.

The Business of Managing the Private Studio

with Eden Casteel, Joelle Morris & Justin Petersen

Eden Casteel

Eden Casteel is a Wakefield RI-based voice teacher and coach who performs regularly as an actor and pianist in scripted and improv shows and cabaret. Before she opened Eden Casteel Music Studio, Eden was adjunct voice faculty at Community College of Rhode Island, Salve Regina University, Spring Arbor University, Hillsdale College, Kellogg Community College, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School. 
​
A native of Dublin Ohio who moved to Rhode Island in 2010, Eden holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from The University Of Cincinnati College-Conservatory Of Music and a Master of Music degree from The University of Maryland At College Park. She is a Level III Certified teacher of Somatic VoiceWorkTM The LoVetri Method.

Equally at home in opera, musical theater and the concert stage, Casteel recently portrayed Mama Rose in Gypsy at the Contemporary Theater Company in Wakefield, RI. Other recent roles include Francesca Johnson in The Bridges of Madison County with Chestnut Street Playhouse in Norwich CT., Sara Muller in the drama Watch On The Rhine with Head Trick Theatre in Providence RI, and Victoria Grant in Victor/Victoria with Ocean State Theater Company in Warwick RI. Last December she sang the tenor arias in a re-imagined Handel’s “Messiah” for All Saints Episcopal in Phoenix, AZ. 

Other favorite roles include Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with Contemporary Theater Company, Adele in Die Fledermaus and Yum-Yum in The Mikado with Michigan Opera Theater, and an usual pairing of Susanna and The Queen Of The Night in a production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus with Little Theater of Alexandria VA. 

Eden is currently preparing her third full-length cabaret show for October 2019, at Arctic Playhouse in Warwick, RI. 

Eden is a co-creator of The Benchwarmers, a musical improv trio with fellow improv pianists Mark Merritt and Keith Munslow. Eden is also a founding member of Collegium Ancora, a Providence-based professional vocal ensemble. She is the current president of the Rhode Island Chapter of the National Association Of Teachers of Singing. She is also a member of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Guild of Organists and is an itinerant pianist, organist, and cantor. Eden is a proud member of The SpeakEasy Cooperative, an international group of independent voice studio owners. She is the volunteer coordinator of ChoirNews.org, an online listing of choral events in southern New England. Learn more at edencasteel.com. 

Joëlle Morris

Originally from Evian, France, Mezzo-Soprano Joëlle Morris has performed throughout Europe and the United States.  She is admired for her versatility, from the concert stage to the operatic arena, in intimate jazz settings and French cabaret or simply sharing her gifts as a conductor, voice teacher and coach.

Since relocating to Maine in 2011, Joëlle has appeared with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, the Mozart Mentor Orchestra and is regularly a featured artist at Colby College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, the Franco Center, Waterville Opera House, Nordica Auditorium, the Colby Jazz Faculty Ensemble, King’s Chapel in Boston and the Early Music Festival in Portland. Her appreciation of chamber music has led her to be the co-founding member of the Amethyst Chamber Ensemble and the Resinosa Ensemble which specializes in 21st century and commissioned works.

Joëlle holds a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the Lamont Conservatory in Denver Colorado.  She has conducted choral ensembles and led thriving voice studios both in France and in the United States. In addition to a busy concert schedule in New England and annual summer appearances in France, she is currently a faculty member in voice at Colby College and will join Bates College as a lecturer, choral conductor and associate in voice at Bates College in the fall 2019. She can be reached via her website at www.joellemorris.com  

Justin Petersen

Justin Petersen, a native of Peculiar, Missouri, has appeared in opera, music theater, and concert performances throughout the United States, and is a voice teacher, coach, and writer on vocal technique, history, and teaching philosophy.

Justin has a passion to learn all about the inner workings of the human voice. He has studied the traditions of voice training since its inceptions in the Schola Cantorum of the 13th century. His practical education included coursework in Somatic Voicework™,and study with the Institute for Vocal Advancement. Both experiences were formative in forming his core philosophies and belief that singing should be built upon functional principles to release freedom in the voice. In addition to voice teaching, he is also a coach in opera and musical theater.

Justin is also the Lead Vocal Coach for My College Audition, helping high school performers prepare for their auditions for Music Theater programs. His students have been accepted at programs such as Pace, Elon, NYU Tisch, Marymount Manhattan, Penn State, Boston University, Emerson, the Hartt School, and Montclair State.
 
Justin also writes on vocal pedagogy, voice training, and philosophical musings from the teacher’s bench at www.petersenvoicestudio.com. His interest lies in making connections between the training of the earliest teachers against current scientific findings on the human voice. His private studio includes singers from opera, musical theater, rock, pop, and barbershop, as well as avocational singers and young singers.
 
As a singer, Justin has been a member of the young artist programs of the Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota Opera Studio Program, Opera North, and Des Moines Metro Opera. He has also appeared as Silas Marner in a reading of Erica Glenn’s musical, “The Weaver of Raveloe” at the New York Music Theater Festival.
 
Justin received his M.M. in Opera at the University of Kansas and Bachelor of Music degree from Simpson College in Indianola, IA. Among Justin’s accomplishments are participating as a finalist in the Opera Azuriales Competition et Concert des Soloistes in Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, France. He is also a winner of the Kansas City District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and the Berta Eisberg Scholarship Award of Mu Phi Epsilon.