Voice Emphasis
Daily Festival Activities Include:
- Festival Choir Rehearsal
- Breakout Vocal Ensembles and Solo Coaching
- All-Festival Choir
- Evening Activities – Performances and Entertainment
Faculty
Dr. Amanda Li
Originally from Hong Kong, Dr. Amanda Li currently serves as the Director of Choral Activities & Voice at Southwestern College and has taught voice in Hong Kong and Britain as well as the United States, where she is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Amanda holds a doctoral degree in vocal performance from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington, specializing in both Opera and Art Songs.Her research interests include song cycles, gender issues in vocal performance, and analysis of music recordings. She presented her paper on the role of rubato in musical interpretation at the New Voice Educators’ Symposium.
Amanda performs regularly as an operatic soprano and recitalist both in Asia and in the States. She made her operatic debut in 2017 as Bao Chai in the Asian premiere of Bright Sheng’s Dream of the Red Chamber, co-produced by San Francisco Opera and Hong Kong Arts Festival. In 2018, Li created the role of Ma’am in Eli Marshall’s Mila, a chamber opera commissioned by Asia Society Hong Kong. She will be singing the same role in San Francisco and New York in December 2019.
Dr. Joshua Robinson
Joshua Robinson is Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre and the Chair of the Musical Theatre Department at Southwestern College. He holds a Ph.D. from the Indiana University Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York City and an undergraduate degree from Kean University in New Jersey.
Mr. Robinson's research focuses on American musical theatre history and its interactions with US social and cultural history. His research encompasses the emergence of the "art" musical in New York City non-profit theatre in the 1980s to the present, primarily focusing on the work of musical theatre writer Michael John LaChiusa.
His work has earned him several honors, including the IU Faculty Memorial Award, The Hubert C. Heffner Award in Theatre History, a Research Fellowship at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, as well as an invitation as participant on the Bruce Kirle Emerging Scholars Panel in Musical Theatre at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference as well as the KCACTF/ATHE award for Innovation in Teaching.
His publications can be seen in Theatre Topics and Studies in Musical Theatre.
In addition to his scholarship, Mr. Robinson continues to pursue a career as a director, playwright, and actor. His work as director has included productions in NYC and the surrounding areas as well as in the educational realm, including productions of Hello Again, See What I Wanna See and Heathers The Musical at Indiana University. As a playwright and lyricist, his work has been featured at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, New York Theatre Barn, and at the Harlem Theatre. His play Valentine, inspired by the 2008 murder of a transgender middle school student, won the inaugural New Horizons award for contributions to the LGBT community.
He is a proud member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers.
