SMTD’s new Wellness Initiative is addressing the unique physical and psychological challenges faced by performing arts students. With the exception of intercollegiate athletics, there is no program at the University of Michigan that is more physically taxing than the study of the performing arts. Instrumentalists, singers, dancers, and actors constantly use their bodies in service to…

The first married couple to ever win the nation’s most prestigious vocal competition-the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions-are both voice alumni of SMTD. Tenor Carlos Enrique Santelli (MM ’16) and mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon (MM ’15), who were married in September 2017, were among five winners chosen after many months of competitions at the district, regional,…

Alumni of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance were named winners at the 60th GRAMMY Awards, which took  place at New York City on Sunday, January 28. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (BFA ’06, musical theatre), composers and lyricists for Dear Evan Hansen, won the GRAMMY for “Musical Theater Album,” for…

It has been called the first great American opera, made all the more significant by being set in a black American community and performed by black artists at a time when black culture was exoticized by the country’s white majority. Over the following 80 years, Porgy and Bess (1935) became one of the most celebrated…

Along with the United States presidency, one of the hardest glass ceilings for women to break is in the field of music conducting. So it’s especially noteworthy that SMTD employs seven female faculty conductors-fully 50 percent of the professors who conduct SMTD ensembles. They include Andrea Brown and Courtney Snyder (band); Julie Skadsem (choir); Kathleen…