Dr. Catherine Tlusty

D.M.A. Voice Performance, North Dakota State University
M.M. Vocal Pedagogy, University of North Dakota
B.M. Music Education/Voice, Westminster Choir College

Certificate of Distinction in Musical Theater Vocal Pedagogy, Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Member of National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS)

My Teaching Philosophy:

My underlying philosophy of teaching singing is that each one of us has a voice as unique to us as our fingerprint. We also bring all of our personality traits, our experiences, and our view of the world to singing. It is my job to help each singer find and cultivate their unique voice. I believe that everyone can improve their singing voice, and my goal is for each student to experience joy in singing. We work hard in lessons—I have high expectations; but my end goal is always that my students find their voice and experience joy. My approach to teaching each student is goal oriented and solution driven.

My Teaching Experience:

Currently, I am an adjunct faculty member at North Dakota State University, where I teach undergraduate and graduate singer's diction classes. I addition to more than 30 years of experience teaching private voice lessons, I have served as a full-time Instructor of Music at South Dakota State University and as an adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University. At SDSU, I taught private Voice Lessons to students majoring in music and theater, Music Theory and Aural Skills, and Music History. At UND, I served on the voice faculty, teaching a Vocal Methods course for music education majors and teaching Voice Lessons to students majoring in Musical Theatre, Music Therapy, Choral Music Education, and Voice Performance.

As a GTA at NDSU, I was an instructor for the freshman Music Theory sequence for three years. I also taught Class Voice for Instrumental Music Education majors, Vocal Pedagogy, and Voice Lessons. When I completed my coursework, I was hired as an Adjunct Professor serving in both the Music and the Theatre department. In the Theatre department, I taught Voice Lessons and Music Theory to Musical Theatre majors. In the Music department, I taught Opera Literature, graduate-level Vocal Pedagogy, and Voice Lessons.

In addition to these adjunct appointments, I have maintained a private voice studio for 30 years. I have spent the last decade teaching voice in middle school and high school summer musical theatre camps. My focus in my career has always been teaching. I enjoy teaching students of varying ages, and I enjoy teaching multiple genres including Classical/Opera, Musical Theatre, and CCM (Contemporary Commercial Music).

My Education:

I recently received my Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance from North Dakota State University, in Fargo, ND. While a doctoral student at NDSU, I sang the role of Oberon in Benjamin Britten’s opera, Midsummer Night’s Dream. As a member of NDSU’s Concert Choir, I had the pleasure of working with American composers Eric Whitaker and Jocelyn Hagen. I served as a graduate teaching assistant in both the voice and music theory departments, and in the May 2018, I received NDSU's College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences award for Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching. In addition to my coursework and performing, I served as the President of NDSU’s student chapter of the College Music Society.

Prior to moving to Fargo to begin my doctoral degree, I completed a Master of Music degree in Vocal Pedagogy at University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, ND. There, I served as the graduate assistant in the choral department. While a master’s student at UND, I sang several roles in the music department’s opera scenes, including Miss Todd in Gian Carlo Menotti’s Old Maid and the Thief and the Mother in his opera The Consul; Katisha in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado; and Julius Caesar in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Prior to graduating from UND, I was inducted into the music honor society, Pi Kappa Lambda. My Independent Study and resulting document was Considerations and Repertoire for the Early Adolescent Female Singer (Ages 10-14) in the Private Voice Studio. As an expert in adolescent voice change, I have presented my research in a variety of professional settings including National Association of Teachers of Singing, College Music Society, and most recently for the South Dakota Music Teachers' In-Service.

Many years before I began my advanced degrees, I attended Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. As a member of Westminster’s world-renowned Symphonic Choir, I sang at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, and throughout New Jersey with the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Hugh Wolff. I had the honor of sharing stages with the legendary singers Marilyn Horne, Jerry Hadley, Christa Ludwig, and Samuel Ramey, to name a few. With the women from Westminster Choir and Westminster Singers, I sang on a recording of the Venusberg Musik from Wagner’s Tannhäuser—a recording of Wagner overtures recorded at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta (released by Sony Records). I graduated Cum Laude from Westminster with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education (voice major and piano minor). At the end of my senior year at Westminster, I was named to “Who’s Who among Students in American Colleges and Universities.”