Freda Herseth

Mezzo-soprano Freda Herseth, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emerita, has retired after more than 30 years of teaching voice at SMTD. In addition to her role in the Department of Voice & Opera, she also served as a voice training specialist with the U-M Vocal Health Center. She plans to pursue many interests during her retirement, including her passion for hiking.

Herseth has performed a diverse repertoire throughout her career, including over 40 operatic roles, chamber music, oratorio, and numerous premieres of new works throughout Europe and the United States. She has performed all over the world, including at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, the Stuttgart Opera, the Moscow Conservatory in Russia, and at several venues in Israel. Herseth has received many awards, including a Wagner Stipend from the Richard Wagner Society of Bayreuth, a Fulbright/DAAD scholarship, a Van Lawrence Fellowship Award from the Voice Foundation, and an honorary doctor of music degree from the University of Puget Sound. She has recorded solo works with CRI (Composers Recording, Inc.), Naxos Records, Albany Records, and radio networks in Germany, Italy, Austria, and Israel. Herseth has taught at the Brancaleoni International Music Festival in Italy, the Brevard Music Center, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Eastman School of Music.

Herseth is a dedicated teacher with a strong record of student achievement. Her students have won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions at every level, with two of five national winners in 2018. Former students have been engaged with the Metropolitan Opera and other prestigious companies throughout the United States and across Europe. Her students are teaching the next generation of performers at universities and public schools and are active as arts administrators. “I am deeply fortunate and privileged to have worked with our amazing, talented, and innovative students,” she shared. “They continue to inspire and transform my teaching and musicianship and are transforming and enlightening our world with their creativity and humanity.”

Joan Holland

Harpist Joan Raeburn Holland, clinical associate professor emerita of music, has retired after 18 years of teaching at SMTD. “I will miss my students deeply, on many levels,” she said, “and I look forward to hearing of their next adventures.” She described her students as “an incredible mix of serious, sensitive, knowing, and witty.”

In addition to her strong commitment to teaching, Holland has maintained an active career in solo, chamber, concerto, and orchestral performances. She is principal harpist for the Midland Symphony Orchestra and co-principal of the Traverse Symphony Orchestra, both in Michigan. She is an avid chamber musician, performing frequently with her colleagues at SMTD and at Interlochen Chamber Music concerts, the Lexington Bach Festival, the Manitou Chamber Music Festival, the Thunder Bay Arts Council series, and in faculty chamber music series at various Michigan universities. She has performed often with her duo partner (and husband), violist and conductor David Holland. Holland is resident harpist and instructor of harp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Looking back on her time at SMTD, Holland recalled that “leaving the music building at night was often a very moving time for me, as I heard the music of so many chamber groups coming from the classrooms and rehearsal halls. Free from the schedule of the school day, the SMTD musicians embarked on nighttime collaborations with lots of spirit.” During this next phase of her life, Holland plans to continue pursuing her passion for performance while also spending quality time with her husband, children, and grandchildren. “Being together as a family is vital to us,” she noted, “and experiencing life with our granddaughters is magical. I am eager for more.”

Ellen Rowe

After 30 years of teaching at SMTD, Ellen Rowe – Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emerita and Earl V. Moore Collegiate Professor Emerita of Music – has moved on from her role as chair of the Department of Conducting and professor of jazz and contemporary improvisation. “I’ve been blessed to teach at this amazing institution where I’ve been able to work with talented and, even more important, inquisitive students,” she shared. “It’s been a joy.”

Rowe, a jazz pianist and composer, maintains an active performance schedule with multiple ensembles, playing at jazz festivals and clubs throughout the United States as well as touring in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. She has released several albums, including Sylvan Way, Wishing Well, Denali Pass, Courage Music, and Momentum: Portraits of Women in Motion, a collection of her compositions that pay tribute to her heroes.

Also a busy clinician, Rowe has given workshops and master classes at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, the Grieg Academy in Bergen, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, in addition to many appearances as a guest artist at festivals and universities around the country. Rowe’s compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by jazz ensembles and orchestras around the world, including the Village Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the BBC Big Band, US Navy Band Commodores, the Berlin Jazz Orchestra, the NDR BigBand, the London Symphony Orchestra, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, and the Perth Jazz Orchestra.

Rowe has been an avid runner since college. She has run several marathons and is a trail runner and ultra runner, having run 50-mile races and 100Ks. She expressed eagerness for this next phase of her life: “I’m referring to this next period in my life as ‘rewirement,’ not retirement, as I’m really looking forward to having more time to practice, compose and arrange, and travel around the country for residencies, clinics, and hopefully commission projects. And trail run, of course!”

Robin Wilson

Robin Wilson, professor emerita of dance, retired on January 1, 2026, after more than 30 years of teaching at SMTD. “My goal has always been to give voice to untold stories,” she said, “give tools for others to speak their truth, and support students as they discover and claim the artists that they are.”

In addition to being an educator, Wilson is a choreographer, performer, improviser, vocalist, and activist. A founding member of the New York dance company Urban Bush Women, her work explores the influences of the African diaspora in historical and contemporary dance and culture, public scholarship, and social justice through community engagement. She has also worked to document the oral histories of black dancers in Harlem during the Black Arts Movement of the early 1970s.

Collaborations in recent years include Ancestral Haiku, as vocalist and movement artist, with Detroit bassist Marion Hayden and visual artist M. Saffell Gardner, and What We Ask of Flesh, as a member of New England-based INSPIRIT, a dance company, during residencies at the Kennedy Center (2022) and at the Pillow Lab at Jacob’s Pillow (2021). Wilson’s choreography has been presented by Dance City Festival Detroit, the RADFest in southwest Michigan, Detroit’s Carr Center, the BAAD!Ass Women Festival, Michigan Dance Festival, the International Dance Festival New Orleans, the National Theatre of Ghana in Accra, and in Athens, Greece. Her teaching includes artist residencies and master classes taught at universities all across the United States.

“Whether through my teaching, my research into communities or onto the concert stage,” Wilson shared, “I have always reached forward and backwards at the same time, in the spirit of ‘Sankofa’ [an expression from the Akan people of Ghana]: One must first look to the past in order to move forward toward a successful future. I have followed my curiosity and am excited to see where that curiosity will lead me in the years to come.”