Contact the Admissions Office
Call 314-246-7800 or 800-753-6765 or email admit@webster.edu
Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts | Department of Music
Call 314-246-7800 or 800-753-6765 or email admit@webster.edu
Prepare for an exciting career as a performer in the genre of your choice as a Vocal Performance major at Webster University. As a student, you will enjoy a curriculum combining applied lessons, ensemble performance, and a weekly master class in vocal technique and performance style. Throughout your studies, you will benefit from more than 100 years of collected wisdom, guidance, and experience from our artist/teachers. They will help you hone your skills through vocal diction practicums and class instruction in musicianship, music theory and history. Course work in vocal pedagogy, art song literature, and opera literature allows you to challenge yourself and grow as an artist. The repertoire emphasizes art songs, chamber music, opera and oratorio, enhanced by learning lyric diction in Italian, French, German and English.
As a voice major or choral music education major, you will gain real-world experience in area performance ensembles. Our students sing with Bach Society of St. Louis, several of the top church choirs in the region, Union Avenue Opera, Winter Opera St. Louis, and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus. Many have appeared as soloists.
If you plan to major or minor in music, you must complete an audition as part of your application to Webster.
BM in Performance: Vocal, ‘23
The bachelor of music in performance is a pre-professional degree designed to prepare students who wish to pursue a future in the professional music world as a performing artist or studio teacher. The voice emphasis is designed for the student who wishes to pursue a career as a professional performer or pedagogue. Extensive applied instruction and classes on technique, pedagogy, repertoire in various languages and performance styles, as well as ensemble experience, constitute the core of the curriculum.
At Webster, experience several special study opportunities such as:
The Bachelor of Music in Performance with an Emphasis in Voice four-year plan helps you visualize the courses you'll take each year of your education journey at Webster University.
To learn more about our program and course offerings, email Prof. Martha J. Hart, Director of Vocal Studies, Dr. Jacob Lassetter, Director of Opera Studio and Dr. Jeffrey Carter, Director of Music Direction for Musical Theatre.
Recent graduates of the vocal performance program have gone on to further study at prestigious graduate programs, such as Boston University, Northwestern, Rice, New England Conservatory, Indiana, and North Texas universities. Jennifer Johnson Cano, a Webster alumna, is an internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano; Samantha Schmid, also a Webster graduate, won the American Prize for Women in Art Song.
Check out these important St. Louis organizations.
Student musicians get to hone their skills in Vienna, home to legendary composers Beethoven, Mozart and Strauss, where Webster has had a campus since 1981. Students usually attend the Vienna campus in the junior year spring semester, where they study voice with a Viennese artist, take courses in music history - especially relating to Vienna's traditions - do special projects on opera or art song, and experience the vibrancy of Europe's musical capital.
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January 11, 2023
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