Applicants for vocal music should be prepared for:

1. A two or three minute classical (non-popular) song from memory. You may provide your own accompanist; but one will be provided if you do not have one.

2. A tonal memory test to see how well you can reproduce pitches that you hear.

3. Sight reading.

Please refer to the application for more specific criteria.

Raphael Bundage a director of choral activities at Middle Tennessee State University and is assistant conductor and chorus master of the Nashville Opera Association. He holds bachelor degrees from Texas Christian University and graduate degrees from the Eastman School of Music. Prior to his graduate study, he was supervisor of choral music in the Texas Public School System and while at Eastman, he was director of the Eastman Chamber Chorus and the assistant director of the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Chorus, and adjudicator in the choral field and as a teacher of conducting. He is himself the product of an extraordinary host of master teachers including Alfred Mann, Julius Herford, and Robert Shaw.

Amy Tate Williams serves as Chorus Master and Accompanist for Nashville Opera, accompanying all productions and promotional events, casting and preparing the opera choruses and coaching principal and apprentice artists (1998-present). She serves as Opera Director for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts (2003-present). A native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Amy holds a Bachelor's Degree in Piano Performance from Western Kentucky University and Masters Degrees in Piano Performance and Piano Accompanying from Florida State University. She has been a free-lance coach accompanist at Glimmerglass Opera, Nevada Opera, Augusta Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera, served two years as Music Director for OPERAIowa, and trained for two years in the Houston Opera Studio at Houston Grand Opera. She has also taught vocal music, led an acappella ensemble on a European tour, and is a published composer of choral and vocal music. In August 2010, she launched RANDAMWILLMusic.com, the online source for the music of Amy Tate Williams. She has composed 2 children’s operas, both of which have been produced at regional opera companies, RUMPELSTILTSKIN and THE LOOKING GLASS. Amy lives in Nolensville with her husband Randy, and their 10 yr. old son, Tate Williams.

M.M., Curtis Institute of Music. Performer's Certificates in Voice and Opera, B.M., Eastman School of Music. Formerly at Middle Tennessee State University. Private Studio Teaching in NYC. Has won the Helen Jepson Deller Award. Performances with the Sarasota Opera. Apprentice Achievement Award, Santa Fe Opera; Kneisel Lieder Competition (2nd place), Eastman School. Performances with the North Carolina Symphony, Jupiter Symphony, Nashville Opera, Elysian Opera Group, New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, Middle Tennessee Choral Society, Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, Erie Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony, National Chorale, Aspen Music Festival, Brevard Music Center, Tanglewood Festival, Sarasota Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington Summer Opera, Opera Delaware, Choral Society of Durham, and City Center Encores Series.

Hope Koehler has appeared with many opera companies and orchestras, such as Nashville Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, Blair Opera Theatre, MTSU Opera Theatre, University Opera Theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Northland Opera Theatre Experience, Lyric Opera of the North, Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, Lexington Symphony Orchestra, and Itasca Symphony Orchestra. With these companies she has appeared in such productions as Carmen, Il Trovatore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, The Impressario, The Old Maid and the Thief, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Gianni Schicchi and many others. At the Northland Opera Theatre in Duluth, Minnesota, she has appeared in the title roles of Tosca, Carmen, Fidelio, and Madama Butterfly. In addition, she has appeared in La Boheme (Musetta), Der Freischutz (Agathe), The Tales of Hoffmann (Giulietta), and others. Koehler’s other stage credits include operetta and musical theatre. She has appeared in such productions as The Mikado, The Sound of Music, The Pajama Game, Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof, and West Side Story.

Koehler has performed as a soloist in oratorio and other choral orchestral works, such as Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Vesperae solennes di confessore, Rossini’s Stabat Mater,Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) and many others.

Koehler is a regular performer and featured soloist with the American Spiritual Ensemble, a group that performs all over the world, and whose mission is to keep the American Negro Spiritual alive and vibrant. She has also been on the faculty of the prestigious Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts for seven years and in 2006 served as chair of the vocal music department. In addition, in July and August of 2006 she was a member of the voice faculty at the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) in Graz, Austria.

In June of 2008 Albany Records released Koehler’s recording of John Jacob Niles songs titled The Lass from the Low Countree, performed with James Douglass at the piano.

Koehler received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Vocal Performance and Music Education at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, and her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Alabama. Her Doctor of Musical Arts degree was completed at the University of Kentucky in Lexington where she studied with tenor Everett McCorvey and soprano Gail Robinson. She is currently on the voice faculty at West Virginia University

Sarah Holman has appeared with Chamber Opera Chicago, Opera Southwest, City Opera of the Quad Cities, Lyric Opera Cleveland, DuPage Opera, Muddy River Opera, and Kansas Opera. As a featured soloist she has sung with the New Philharmonic, Rockford, Liberty, and Fox Valley Symphony Orchestras. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in Mozart's Coronation Mass under the direction of Simon Carrington. Her recent opera performances include Chamber Opera Chicago's tribute to Gian Carlo Menotti, under the stage direction of Francis Menotti, Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, Dorabella in Cosí fan tutte, The Mother in The Consul, Katisha in The Mikado, Lady Jane inPatience, Meg Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Beatrice in Beatrice and Benedict, and the title role of Regina. She enjoyed a long tenure as the mezzo-soprano voice of the Dean Wilder Singers, a vocal quartet and piano ensemble, which toured throughout the United States, Mexico, and Southern Korea performing a variety of opera, oratorio, and sacred literature. During the inaugural year of the Asian Opera Project in Taipei, Taiwan Dr. Holman was an invited voice instructor and in 2007 she was awarded a Goldovsky Opera Directing Internship with Harrower Opera in Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, she serves as the Central Regional Governor for National Association of Teachers of Singing and an Associate Professor of voice at Wheaton College Conservatory where she also directs the opera program.

Christine Isley-Farmer, soprano, teaches voice and the Alexander Technique at MTSU. She has had extensive singing experience in both opera and concert. For five and a half years, she performed in European opera houses and in concert in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, England, and Ireland. Operatic experience in the United States includes the Des Moines Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Central City Opera, and the Colorado Lyric Theater, to name a few. Before traveling to Europe to fulfill her European contracts, Isley-Farmer sang with the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center for a year. Roles that she has sung include Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Liu in Turandot, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, as well as numerous operetta roles. Concert experience consists of recitals in Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, New York and Colorado.

Since 1997, Isley-Farmer has been a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. She trained for four years at the Alexander Alliance in Philadelphia, PA and then earned her certification with Alexander Technique International. She has conducted Alexander Technique workshops throughout the Southeastern region of the United States. In addition, she has taught the Alexander Technique for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts. In 2003, her article on Alexander Technique and singing was published in the widely distributed Journal of Singing, the publication of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Students of Isley-Farmer have won and placed in the finals of both regional and national competitions: the Metropolitan Regional Auditions, the National Opera Association Vocal Competition, the Orpheus National Vocal Competition, and the Grace Moore Vocal Competition, to name a few. Her students have entered prestigious programs at the graduate level both in the United States and abroad. Former students have gone on to earn doctoral degrees and to teach at the university level, as well as to pursue professional singing careers. Isley-Farmer also taught the first MTSU student to be awarded the coveted Fulbright Scholarship for study in Europe.

She holds the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the DMA in Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

She holds the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the DMA in Performance and Literature from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Jerome Reed has been on the faculty of the Governor's School for the Arts for 26 years. He keeps an active performance schedule in the U.S. and Europe, giving recitals and lectures and adjudicating competitions. Recent performances include recitals in Japan,Taiwan, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, England and Uruguay.

He has appeared as both soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States. His recording for the Capstone label have been broadcast over MDR in Germany, Australian National Public Radio, and NPR. He has written numerous reviews for The American Music Teacher. He is Past-President of both the Tennessee Music Teachers Association and the Southern Division of Music Teachers National Association. He holds the B.M. degree in Piano Performance from MTSU, and M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Piano Performance from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Reed is The Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Piano at Lipscomb University, where he teaches private piano, piano literature, chamber music and collaborative piano. He is the recipient of Lipscomb University's Avalon Award for Creative Excellence and Tennessee Music Teacher's Association Teacher-of-the-Year Award

John McDonald is in his third year as choral director at Oakland High School in Murfreesboro, TN. He is a recent graduate of Middle Tennessee State University where he earned his bachelor's degree in Vocal Music Education studying under the likes of Dr. Raphael Bundage, Dr. Jamila McWhirter, and Dr. Nancy Boone Allsbrook. At Oakland High School, Mr. McDonald directs three choral ensembles, jazz choir, teaches general music, sponsors the Tri-M Music Honor Society, and co-directs the musical theatre program. He is also a member of the Murfreesboro Community Men's Chorus and the Nashville Chamber Singers. In the fall of 2012, Mr. McDonald will begin studies for his Master's of Music in Choral Conducting at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He resides in Murfreesboro, TN with his lovely wife Alyssa.