About Cynthia Vaughn
Teacher, Author, Performer, Clinician
I have been a teacher since I lined up my childhood dolls and stuffed animals and taught them to “read”. (They were an unruly group, especially the stuffed elephant.) I have been a performer since I won my middle school talent show in 7th grade playing and singing “Jean” from the film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. (A film I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to watch.) I have been a writer since I was poet-laureate and editor-in chief of the Derby Elementary School newspaper. Those were pretty heady titles for a 6th grader. (I imagine I can still smell that purple ink from the mimeograph.) Creativity was in my blood and my parents always encouraged my artistic endeavors, even if they didn’t quite understand it. Over the years, my joy of teaching, acting and singing, and writing has never waned.
As a teacher, I have been a college music professor, an independent voice teacher, a group voice teacher, and a choir director and classroom music teacher for private schools
As a clinician, I have taught workshops, led masterclasses, moderated panels, and adjudicated music festivals in this country and abroad. I love to travel!
As a writer, my words have been published in books and textbooks with publishers Rowman & Littlefield, W.W. Norton & Co, and Meredith Music, Classical Singer Magazine, and NATS Inter Nos e-magazine, and my personal blog, “Singing in the Key of Me”. From a young age, I always wrote private musings which now have a social media outlet in Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Welcome to my brain! My goal will always be to inspire, motivate, and sometimes amuse my readers.
As a performer, I am (mostly) retired from professional singing, but there may be a few more age appropriate stage roles on the horizon. In the meantime, I sing. Every day. And twice on Sunday.
“I treasure the gifts that Cynthia possesses. She unselfishly shares what she has learned in the hopes that it will transform people… She is hilarious...and nurturing. She is uplifting like an on-site journalist for the Whos down in Whoville.”
- Dr. Tami Petty, soprano and voice professor
Voice Educator
It started with four freshmen sopranos.
I hadn’t planned to be a teacher. I was a performer. A performer earning a performance degree. Then when my undergrad voice teacher became seriously ill my senior year of college, he asked if I would work unofficially with the four freshmen sopranos in his studio. I agreed and discovered that I had a knack for teaching! We worked together in our small chatty soprano group, crammed into a practice room, and I also worked with them individually. There was much laughter and learning, and I knew then that I was a teacher. I started my first private studio the summer after I graduated.
Forty years and hundreds of students later, after establishing voice studios wherever we landed, I am still teaching singing! National Association of Teachers of Singing invited me to speak at a summer conference about “Building a Legacy on the Move.” That legacy includes teaching two summer programs in Urbino, Italy for Arts Connects International and a decade of university teaching— a year at Cedarville University in Ohio, followed by nine years at Colorado State University where I taught undergraduate and graduate vocal performance majors, music educations majors, and music therapy majors. I am still in contact with many of my CSU students who have become music educators and renowned performers. I even hired a few of my former students as teachers when I left academia to open a small community music school in Fort Collins, Colorado. Magnolia Music Studio (on Magnolia Street) was founded in 2008 and relocated to Richland Washington in 2014 until 2022 when my husband and I “retired” to Norfolk, Virginia to live near our daughter.
The highlight of my teaching career was being selected as one of four Master Teachers for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern program 2020 (held in 2021 due to Covid.)
*Teaching Group Voice*
Over the years, I discovered that singers learn better, faster, and with more confidence when they learn together.
There is a myth that individual private lessons are always best, however, I believe that even advanced singers can benefit from a collaborative learning environment. Early in my career I taught group class voice as an adjunct instructor at Colorado State University and had previously taught group voice to church and community choirs.
In 2004, the first edition of The Singing Book group voice class textbook and song anthology for non-voice majors by Meribeth Dayme and Cynthia Vaughn was published by W.W. Norton & Co. That same year, I had the opportunity to pioneer a unique team teaching program at CSU with my voice faculty colleagues, Dr. Todd Queen and Dr. Janet Morrow King. Dr. Queen was already familiar with the successful Boot Camp at his alma mater BYU, and we wondered if a similar program would work for voice majors. Freshman Voice Studio (FVS) was a resounding success and created a sense of community and healthy peer competition for freshman vocal performance, music education, and music therapy majors. At the end of the program, FVS students gave a capstone recital and were matched with individual faculty for the remaining years of their undergraduate voice study. It was a joy to see the progress, confidence, and lasting friendships that formed from Freshman Voice Studio. The program is still part of the CSU voice curriculum 20 years later and has been modeled and adapted by other universities.
Though I continue to teach individual voice lessons in person in Norfolk, VA, and online from anywhere, I am also committed to the benefits of group learning in singing. A fourth edition of the The Singing Book group-voice textbook and song anthology by Cynthia Vaughn and the late Meribeth Dayme will be released in Spring 2024. In addition to a songs and resources for students, The SingingBook is a how-to for teachers of group voice.
I am available to work with groups or individual graduate students and new teachers online or in-person to share some strategies for successful group voice.
Vocal Clinician
Master Teacher for National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program, 2020 (held in 2021 due to Covid)
Podcast/Interview guest:
Classical Singer interviews by Lisa Sain Odom and Michelle Latour 5/23
Every Sing, host Nancy Bos
NATS CHATS, host Kari Ragan
Why We Sing, host Erin Guinup
justbeautifulexperiences, host Jonathan Pilkington
Teaching Music in 2020, host Joshua Lindberg
"From the Voice Of" webcast two-part interview, host Caitlin McCaughey, Canada
Clinician:
High school, middle school, church, and community choirs
Various university vocal pedagogy classes: Strategies for Starting an Independent Voice Studio
Classical Singer Convention: Building a Private Teaching Studio
Master Teacher for Art Connects International, Urbino Italy, 2006, 2008
Vocal workshops for TV broadcasters, NCB affiliate KNDU/DNDO
Masterclasses:
Wisconsin NATS Chapter
West Central NATS Region
Victoria BC NATS Chapter
Minnesota NATS Chapter
Masterclasses, cont:
Walla Walla University
University of Puget Sound
University of Central Missouri
Brigham Young University, Provo: Teaching Group Voice
Visiting Artist/Adjudicator:
Pedagogy presenter (virtual): Colorado State University, Shenandoah University, William Paterson University, Tri-City MTA
Guest judge: finals rounds Wisconsin NATS chapter
Guest judge (virtual): finals rounds West Central Region
Guest judge: NATSAA NATS Artist Awards, Northwest Region
Guest judge: NATSAA NATS Artist Awards, West Central Region
Adjudicator: High School Solo & Ensemble Festivals
Adjudicator: Middle School Solo & Ensemble Festivals
Adjudicator: Large Ensemble Choral Festivals
Visiting Artist/Adjudicator: Washington State Music Teachers Association Music Artistry Program (virtual and in-person)
Presenter:
National Association of Teachers of Singing Conferences
Music Teachers National Association Conference
Classical Singer Conferences
College Music Society Conferences
Colorado State Music Teachers Association Conference
Colorado Music Educators Association Conference
Bring Cynthia Vaughn’s wit + wisdom to your students
“Cynthia recognizes that the ever-changing industry needs caring, knowledgeable professionals training singers in the field of music. This means the pros need to continue to educate themselves. Cynthia models this kind of professionalism to her colleagues. She is an extraordinary model in the industry of voice professional.”
- Dr. Tami Petty, soprano and voice professor
Writing
Books:
Coming soon! The Singing Book by Cynthia Vaughn and Meribeth Dayme, edited by Matthew Hoch, 4th edition, 2024. Rowman & Littlefield and NATS Books
A leading group voice class textbook and song anthology for non-voice majors
The Singing Book by Meribeth Dayme and Cynthia Vaughn, 1st, 2nd, 3rd editions 2000-2022 W.W. Norton & Co
A leading group voice class textbook and song anthology for non-voice majors
The Essentials Of Coresinging: A Joyful Approach To Singing And Voice Pedagogy by Meribeth Dayme, edited by Cynthia Vaughn and Matthew Hoch, Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022
The Voice Teacher's Cookbook: Creative Recipes for Teachers of Singing, contributor. Meredith Music 2018
57 experts from across the U.S. working as professors, studio teachers, professional singers, choral directors, composers, vocologists, and speech-language pathologists have all contributed to this amazing collection of quick-to-read, yet deeply insightful strategies.
Articles:
National Association of Teachers of Singing “Inter Nos” magazine, Cynthia Vaughn, Columnist, curator, and associate editor for Independent Voices, 2017-present
sample articles:
Needs Must: Organizational and Planning Tools for the Busy Voice Teacher
The Elevation of Semi-Private Lessons: an interview with Christine Coffee Rondeau
Classical Singer Magazine, former assistant editor and feature writer, 45+ articles, 1995-2001
sample archived articles available to subscribers:
The Wedding Singer
A Civilian’s Guide to Military Choruses
Singers on the High Seas: Cruise Ship Performers
Blog
“The Singing Book is truly the ‘stranded on a desert island book’ that every private studio teacher needs on their shelf. I have used this book in my private studio with singers from ages eight to eighty-eight! The book has something for everybody: standards, classics, foreign language pieces, pop songs, and lots of practical pedagogy.”
~ Deborah Conquest, Conquest Voice Studio
Performing
For as long as I can remember, I sang. I sang everywhere.
Playing with my dolls, doing my chores, swinging on my grandma’s swing high up in the air loud enough for the birds to hear. I sang when I hiked in my native Colorado mountains, hoping to ward off any black bears. (I never saw any so I guess it worked.) When my family moved to Texas I was in every select choir at Clear Lake High School and made it into the prestigious Texas All-State Choir, Soprano 1, 1975. I was surprised to get scholarship offers from as far away as Boston, but I chose to stay closer to home and attended Sam Houston State University and University of Houston before completing my bachelor and masters degrees in vocal performance from California State University East Bay and San Jose State University.
I married my high school sweetheart, Terry, who was by then a scientist whose career took us all over the country from Texas to the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, SF Bay Area again, New York, Colorado, Cincinnati, Colorado again, and the Pacific Northwest. Every journey led to performance opportunities in opera, concert solos, professional choirs, music theater, studio vocals, and even some TV and radio commercials.
Highlights include recording studio vocals for major publishers in San Francisco and Chicago and performing nearly every Gilbert & Sullivan soprano role with the Chicago Gilbert and Sullivan Series, which produced all 14 G&S operettas in a single season in a black box theater with piano. That prepared me to work with John Reed, OBE of London’s famed D’Oyly Carte Opera in residence at the Colorado G&S Festival in Boulder. I played Eurydice in Offenbach’s “Orpheus in the Underworld”, understudied Yum-Yum in “The Mikado”, and most afternoons John Reed regaled me with tales of the D’Oyly Carte Opera over a cup of proper English tea. (Milk, not lemon. No tea bag!)
A few years later in New York, I performed my dream role of Adele in “Die Fledermaus” at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie. It was a thrill, though I was a bit disappointed not to meet any of the resident ghosts. I also recall one December in New York when I sang 7 Handel’s “Messiah” concerts as soprano soloist, including West Point Cadet Chapel with a chorus of 300 cadets and community choristers, a chamber orchestra, and the world’s largest pipe organ in a house of worship. Rejoice greatly!
Our daughter Katy was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and our son Trevor was born in New York. We made the decision to move “home” to Colorado in 1998 to be near family, a decision I never regretted. In Denver, my opera and classical career shifted to music theater, audio books, and commercials, but my greatest role was Mom. A temporary move to Ohio led to the opportunity to sing with the highly regarded professional chamber choir, Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, where I sang with incredible musicians and renowned conductors Earl Rivers, Dale Warland, James Conlon, and Sir David Wilcox. We returned to Colorado and I began my shift towards academia and teaching, doctoral studies, and celebrating my students as they began their own magical performing and teaching adventures.
